Saving Scott (Kobo) (8 page)

“Wonder why
they didn’t stain them all before cutting,” Scott said.

“Are they
doing it wrong?” she asked, her heart thumping again.

Willie
turned. “Afternoon, Miz Eagan.” He spoke slowly. Everything Willie did, he did
slowly. “If we’d had ‘em sooner, we coulda stained ‘em first. They gotta dry.
This way, we can get everything done today. We’re gonna finish before we go,
even if it’s late.”

Ashley
wondered how Carl was handling overtime. Not her problem. They had a contract,
and labor was included in his bid, so if he had to pay his workers more, it was
out of his pocket. If he’d asked her for more money, she might have suspected
he was trying to pad the bill by staging accidents, but he hadn’t.

She stepped
into the kitchen area and stopped short. It looked—almost done. The appliances
had arrived in all their stainless steel splendor. They stood there, as if
waiting to be put to work. Tall racks for cooling and storage lined a wall. She
merely stared. It looked like a kitchen. A real kitchen. Her kitchen. Tears
burned.

“Looks good,”
Scott said.

She nodded,
afraid to speak for fear her voice would crack, if she could talk at all past
the rising lump in her throat.

Scott seemed
to understand. He didn’t speak, merely rested a hand on her shoulder. Gave a
gentle squeeze.

She swiped
at her eyes. Cleared her throat. “We should get out of the way. Plus, I need to
shop so I can bake for your office party.”

“If you need
someone to sample, I’m your man.”

She smiled. “I’ll
let you know.” What she wanted to do was go home and shout. Dance. Heck, jump
up and down and clap her hands like a kid at Christmas. But not yet. They were
close, but there was plenty more to do. She’d save the happy dancing until they
passed the final inspection.

Someone
pounded on the back door. “I’ve got it,” she said, not wanting to disrupt the
smooth rhythm of the workers. She sidestepped past the table saw, dodged other
construction tools and debris, and yanked the door open.

Scott
followed, waiting at her side while Ashley signed for the UPS delivery. She
checked the return address and her heart raced.

“Need some
help?” Scott asked as Ashley took a large carton from the delivery man.

“It’s not
heavy,” Ashley said. She set it down and clawed at the tape.

He
immediately went on full alert. She’d talked about sabotage.

“Were you
expecting this?” he asked. When she said yes, he backed off. “Hang on.” He went
to one of the workers and borrowed a box cutter. Ashley took it from his hand
with trembling fingers. “Don’t cut yourself.” Well, that was brilliant.
Handling knives was probably something Ashley did often. And well. Yet
something about her had all his protective juices flowing.

Regroup.
“Is your restroom hooked up?”

“It was
working yesterday. Can’t promise more than that.” She gestured across the main
space. “Over there.”

When he
returned, she knelt over the open box. Her shoulders shook. Crying? What the—?
He approached slowly. As a cop, he’d seen more than his share of tears, but
that was part of the job. Had something in the box upset her that much? He
envisioned another accident. Broken dishes, or the wrong coffee cups? Some
other snafu? He’d known her only a couple of days, but she’d already become
someone he wanted to protect from harm. And not in a cop way. If she wanted to
be alone with whatever was upsetting her, he’d respect that.

He cleared
his throat. “Ashley?”

She snapped
upright. Tears streaked her face, but beneath them she was smiling. She reached
into the box and pulled out some chocolate brown fabric. As she shook it out,
he recognized it for what it was. One of those chef’s coats.

“I can’t
believe it’s real,” she said.

“Hey, put it
on. Let me be the first to see you in uniform.” He closed the distance between
them and took the coat, holding it out for her. She slipped her arms into it,
smoothed it over her torso, buttoned it up and tugged the sleeves.

“It fits,”
she said, as if she didn’t believe it would.

“Turn
around.”

“Wait.” She
dug into the box again. “Close your eyes.”

He did,
bracing his feet. He’d learned that his balance was still off, and closing his
eyes exacerbated it. He ignored the quick jab of pain and waited for Ashley to
give him the all clear.

“Okay. You
can look now.”

She stood
there, gazing at him expectantly. He stepped closer. Her coat had her store’s
name and logo embroidered on the front. On her head, she wore a short cap, also
brown, somewhere between a beret and those big tall things the fancy chefs
wore. What he saw in her eyes, in the way she stood, flooded him with memories
of the first time he’d put on his uniform.

“You look …
fantastic.” He was surprised at the huskiness in his voice. “Nice hat.”

“Toque,” she
said. “I was afraid it might seem too … pretentious. But I’ve never thought
ball caps were proper kitchen attire.”

“I agree. It
looks perfect.” He hesitated. “Shouldn’t we celebrate?” As soon as he uttered
the words, he wished he could suck them back.

Why did he
think she’d want to celebrate with
him
? She probably had a circle of
supporters who would laugh and giggle and be all girly. People she’d known
longer than a couple of days.

She took off
her hat. Fussed with it. Stared at it. Ran the band through her fingers. “Rain
check?”

He hoped his
disappointment didn’t show. “Sure. You’ve got a lot to do. You let me know.”

“I mean, of
course I want to celebrate,” she said quickly, as if she thought she’d hurt his
feelings. “But not until it’s official. I’m afraid I’ll jinx something.”

She folded
the coat and almost lovingly put it in the box. The hat followed. No, not hat.
Toque. He’d have to remember that.

She picked
up the box. “I really have to get going. Maybe I’ll see you later.”

“Sure.” He
headed for the back door.

“Wait,” she
called.

He turned.
Had she changed her mind?

She tilted
her head toward the floor near the refrigerator. “Your books. Don’t forget
them.”

He retrieved
the bag and followed her to the door. Even wrestling with her carton, she still
had the door open before he got there, and held it for him. Her eyes sparkled. “Just
being courteous,” she said as he approached.

He stepped
outside, and Ashley called over her shoulder to let the workers know that she’d
be leaving. She clutched the box to her chest as though it was a precious
treasure. Which, to her, he assumed, it was. He figured she wouldn’t let him
carry it, so he didn’t bother to offer. With a silent apology to his mother, he
got in his car. But instead of heading home to the Jacuzzi he’d been thinking
about since noon, he went back to the station.

The door to
the detective’s office was half-open. Kovak sat behind his desk, his fingers
tapping the computer keyboard. Scott sucked in a breath and tapped on the door
frame. “You have a minute?”

Kovak looked
up, then grinned. “Sure. Take a load off.” He gestured to a wooden chair across
the desk.

Scott gave
up hiding his aches and pains. Adjusting the chair so he could extend his leg,
he eased himself onto the seat. “Thanks. I talked to Ashley about the desserts.
She’ll be glad to contribute.”

Kovak opened
a desk drawer and pulled out a large manila envelope. He reached in and handed
Scott forty dollars. “Great. Hope this’ll cover it. If she needs more, let me
know.”

“She didn’t
want to take any money at all. Said she was experimenting with recipes and was
glad for the exposure. I told her cops couldn’t accept gifts—at least we couldn’t
at County.”

“Yeah, same
here.”

When Scott
asked him about discount coupons, Kovak didn’t think the rule extended that
far, and Scott figured that was good enough for him.

“I’ll let
you get back to your paperwork,” Scott said. “That’s something I don’t miss.”

“I’ll be
done in a few. Want to grab a quick beer?”

Scott
noticed the picture of two smiling children, clearly related to Kovak. “You don’t
have to get home to the family?”

“Soccer
practice. Janie’s running car pool. My job is to pick up a pizza for dinner.
And there’s usually time for a beer while I wait.”

“In that
case, sure.” If Kovak’s agenda was to rub elbows with a hero, then Scott had no
qualms about having an agenda of his own.

***

Ashley
struggled to turn her recalcitrant shopping cart down the aisle of Thriftway.
Did they manufacture these things to insist on going either left or right, but
never straight ahead? Intent on steering, she didn’t see a cart making the turn
from the other direction and couldn’t stop before clipping it.

“Sorry,”
Ashley said with an apologetic smile. “These things are impossible to maneuver,
aren’t they?”

“You! What
are you doing here?”

Ashley
snapped her gaze to the woman pushing the loaded cart. Felicity Markham stood
there, frowning.

“I’m sorry,
Felicity. I should have been paying more attention to where I was going.”

“Never mind.”
Felicity did a respectable one-eighty with her cart and sped away.

Shaking her
head, Ashley continued her shopping. When she arrived at the checkout lines,
she scanned them, hoping to avoid another confrontation, but Felicity was
either still shopping or had already checked out.

Ashley paid
for her purchases, looking forward to getting home and unwinding over some
baking. The berries had looked like so many sparkling jewels in the produce
section, and she decided she’d make a glazed almond torte and garnish it with
raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries.

Carrying the
last of her bags up to her apartment, she paused as she passed Scott’s
apartment, as she had on each trip. She dreamed up excuses to knock. Advice
about what the cops wanted? No, being new, he probably didn’t know, and she’d
already had her menu items planned. Tell him she needed a taste tester? Well,
maybe later, when she actually had something for him to taste.

No. she had
too much to deal with, and didn’t need distractions. And Scott would definitely
be a distraction. She went to her apartment and set to work.

Surprised to
find it was almost midnight, Ashley shut down her computer and put all her
bakeoff paperwork into a folder. Still too wired to sleep, she poured a glass
of wine, hoping it would help her unwind. She tried to avoid breaking out into
a huge grin every time she saw her chef’s coat draped over the back of her
couch where she’d laid it after pressing out all the wrinkles. Tempted to sleep
in it, she decided she really didn’t like ironing enough to deal with it again.

She crawled
into bed with her wine and the romance novel she’d picked up while she was at
the Book Worm, hoping between the two of them, they’d unplug her brain.
Eventually, she drifted off.

Ashley
awakened slowly from an erotic dream, surprisingly aroused. Distant sounds
filtered through the fog of sleep. Moans and groans interspersed with shouts.
Her head cleared enough to realize her brain must have connected thoughts of
the romance novel she’d fallen asleep reading with the sounds from next door.
The moans grew louder, the shouts more intense. Maybe it wasn’t sex after all.
Then again, some people liked it rough. Maybe her first impression of the
handcuffs on Scott’s robe had been the right one.

Consenting
adults. None of her business.

Blocking the
images, she shoved a pillow over her ears.

A pounding
broke through her consciousness. Groggy, she tried to place the sound. Someone
at her door. She grabbed the pillow and rolled over, clutching it to her chest
as she squinted at the bedside clock. Not even five a.m. Who would be pounding
on her door at this hour?

Adrenaline
swept through her system as her brain cleared. Nobody, that’s who. Unless it
was an emergency. Was the building on fire? Wouldn’t the smoke alarms be
blasting?

Grabbing a
robe, she worked her arms into the sleeves while rushing to the door. “Who’s
there?”

“Pine Hills
Police, ma’am. May I come in?”

Her mind
whirled. What could the police be doing here? Her first thoughts shot straight
to her parents. Had something happened to them? Would the Pittsburgh police
have sent the Pine Hills cops to notify her? She yanked the door open.

A uniformed
officer stood in the hallway. “Ashley Eagan? I’m Officer Brody. Pine Hills
Police.”

“Yes?”

“May I come
in?”

“What
happened?”

“You’re the
owner on record for the new store on Plum Street? Confections by Ashley, is
that correct?”

What now?
She remembered Willie saying the Klutz Brigade would work extra hours to finish
on time. Another accident? Carl hadn’t called. Something serious, or why else
would she be inviting a policeman into her apartment at five in the morning? “Yes,
that’s my shop.”

Before he
stepped inside, another voice intruded. “Is there a problem, officer?”

Ashley
sidestepped so she could see beyond the officer who now blocked her doorway.
Scott approached, hair mussed, shirtless, a damp towel draped around his hips,
looking like he hadn’t slept. Remembering her dream and the noises, Ashley felt
heat rise to her face. She had trouble meeting his eyes, but staring at his
bare chest—a very nice chest, well-muscled, with a light dusting of pale gold
hair pointing down to the towel—didn’t work either, because all she could think
of was what was under the terrycloth. Instead, she focused her gaze on the
officer.

Scott
stepped closer, adjusting the towel. His posture straightened. He met Officer
Brody’s gaze. “I’m Scott Whelan. I live next door.”