Scrumptious (12 page)

It was dark when she awoke. They were tangled up on the couch in a pile of warm limbs. She wiggled her butt, snuggling into the crook of his hips. Joe’s hand caressed the curve of her belly and hip, then ran down the length of her thigh.

Marlene could feel his arousal nudge her butt. She faked a sleepy moan and arched her back, shamelessly rubbing against him.

Joe cupped her bare mound under her dress. She was so ready his fingers met no resistance. She held still as Joe slowly circled the center of her desire. In the tiny, fractured part of her brain that was still functioning, she wondered if Joe still thought she was asleep.

And if he did, what a pervert.

“Just so you know, I don’t buy it.” Joe spoke quietly into her ear, amusement rippling his deep voice. “But if you want to play possum, I’ll play along. No snoring though. Screaming, on the other hand, is just fine.”

He wrapped a hard arm around her waist and pulled her body on top of him so they both faced the ceiling. He bucked his hips sharply and brought her body into a more yielding position on top of his.

Joe’s hands were sure. His arms held her immobile, cradled above his body, while his middle finger slid back and forth, every now and then stopping to slip one or two fingers inside her to gather moisture to ease his way.

Joe didn’t tease her this time; he took her straight up to the top of the wave and tossed her over the peak while she sobbed his name, willing to go anywhere with him, as long as he kept her safe in the curve of his arms.

The next morning, Marly left Joe sound asleep in her bed and went to work earlier than usual. If she wanted to go on the road trip to Kentucky with a clear conscience, she needed to get the wedding cake baked and the layers frozen before she left. She also had to make sure they had enough desserts on hand so that they wouldn’t miss her while she was gone. One more double wouldn’t kill her, even if she’d had zero sleep for two days and every muscle in her body felt like room temperature butter.

Olivia was already working in the office when Marlene arrived. Anticipating that, Marlene had stopped at the coffee shop on the corner to get two large cappuccinos. She set one on the desk, and Olivia sighed her thanks.

“How’d it go with the lawyer last night?” Marlene asked.

“He says he can take care of everything.” Olivia’s voice did not hold the relief Marlene was expecting.

“Everything, huh? I bet he can.” Her low tone imbued the words with a meaning that earned an impatient look from Olivia. “Is he still in love with you?” she asked.

Olivia blinked.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said. “Did you sleep with him?”

“Marlene!”

“Just checking. Joe said you rolled out the wine. I thought you might put my theory into action.”

“Not likely. I’m not even sure how you developed your theory in the first place. Don’t you have to fall in love, first?”

“Semantics.” Marlene shrugged.

“Maybe Joe is going to be the one for you.” Olivia neatly turned the tables on her.

“Certainly not. He’s a maestro in bed though. I haven’t slept for two days.” She forced a laugh, then ducked out of the office and began assembling ingredients for a mega-batch of chocolate cake.

Olivia followed her. “You can run, but you can’t hide.”

“I’m not hiding. I’m baking. Hey, do you think you can handle the Fourth of July crowd by yourself? Joe asked me to go with him to his father’s cabin.” She kept her back turned so Olivia wouldn’t see the stupid grin sliding across her face.

“I suppose I can. We’ve got zip on the books. It’ll be deader than a doornail around here. Go have some fun. But would you mind answering one teeny-tiny question first?”

“Fire away.”

“What have you done with Marlene Bennet?” Olivia demanded.

Marly’s stupid grin got wider.

“No, seriously. Have you taken your temperature? Meeting the parent? Are you feeling okay?” She reached around to touch Marlene’s forehead.

“Oh, shut up. At least I’m not sleeping with my lawyer.”

“Neither am I.”

“Yet.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” Olivia stated.

“Give it a shot. You might like it.”

“No, really, Sean turned me down,” Olivia said.

Marlene turned around. “Get out!”

Olivia took a slow sip of her cappuccino.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

“No.” Olivia shook her head. “I really don’t. I’ll tell you all about it some other time, but right now I don’t want to talk about anything that’s going to piss me off or make me cry.” She took a deep breath. “So, three tiers for the wedding cake?”

“Yes. Boxed.” Marlene shook her head at the stupidity of the tradition. Why have a cake, if no one was going to eat it? Especially an amazing bittersweet chocolate cake filled with whipped raspberry ganache, iced in chocolate buttercream, and then enrobed in more bittersweet chocolate ganache. The cake was going to be delicious.

She sighed.

The cake was going to be sliced and jammed into boxes where it would melt in the guests’ cars for a week before they remembered it was there. A total waste of good chocolate.

“Don’t blame me,” Olivia said. “I tried to talk her out of it. You know you can’t argue with brides. If the bride wants crème brûlée for dessert and her cake in a box, she gets it. Actually, I like this one. She didn’t cry when I told her I’d fired the chef.”

“I hope you didn’t tell her why. No one wants to hear about divorce when they’re planning a wedding.”

Olivia flinched.

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry. I was just kidding! Any news from Keith?” Marlene held her breath.

“Voice mail, text message, email. He calls so often his cell number shows up in all forty slots of my caller ID.”

“That’s a little creepy.”

“Once in a while I pick up.”

“And?”

“He’s sorry. He wants to make it up to me. Same old story,” Olivia said tiredly. “He says I need him. I can’t run this place without him. If I let him come back everything will be different.”

Marlene’s laughter was harsh. “Different how? Is he going to learn to cook?” Olivia shook her head, but she didn’t laugh. “Olivia? You aren’t buying that crap, are you? Oh my God. Sweetheart! Chameleon is so much better off without him. You don’t need him. We will make this work, I swear.”

“He says he still loves me. That I was the best thing that ever happened to him.” Olivia’s voice was small and distant.

“You told him to piss off, right? You were the best thing that ever happened to him, and he screwed you over. Literally. You know Nikki was not the first. How many chances do you want to give him?” Marlene asked.

“Maybe it was just a cry for attention. He says I work too much
—
”

“Olivia. Focus, here. Keith is full of shit. You don’t work too much. A restaurant doesn’t run itself, a little fact he would know if he’d ever done any actual work around here. He knew who he was marrying. You can’t change yourself for Keith, and you can’t expect him to change for you. You can do better than Keith Watson, Olivia. You deserve to be happy.”

“But I was happy.”

Oh God, she was serious.

Dread rose like bile in Marlene’s throat. She tossed the measuring cup back into the cocoa powder, ignoring the dark cloud that rose up and settled on her table.

Olivia sniffed. “I mean, I wasn’t unhappy. At least everything was working around here. The restaurant was staffed. The bills got paid. Ever since I kicked him out, everything is falling apart.
I’m
falling apart. I almost called the repairman because a plug fell out of the wall. A grease fire made me hyperventilate, for God’s sake! We only passed our health inspection because Joe cleaned up the damn kitchen. I can’t do this by myself.”

“You don’t have to do it by yourself. You’ve got me. You’ve got Joe
—
”

“Joe’s leaving. Then I’m back to square one.”

“You’ve still got me.” Marlene took a deep breath. “You don’t have to get a chef
—
just someone who can cook. I’ll fill in, and I can train anybody. I don’t mind working doubles.”

Olivia laughed. “You aren’t going to want to spend every waking hour at Chameleon after Joe leaves. No offense, but your social life is pretty intense. I don’t want you getting all bitchy on me because you haven’t gotten laid.” Olivia smiled as if she meant that as a joke, but it was still a dig.

Marlene put her hands on her hips, smarting from Olivia’s instant dismissal of her offer but unwilling to give up yet. “Olivia, we need a body. Get a cook in here, get two cooks in here, whatever, but for God’s sake, don’t put Keith back on the line. I’m begging you.”

“That’s easy for you to say, you’re heading off on a fun little road trip with Joe while I try to figure out how to run this place
—
”

“I’m not leaving until everything is under control
—
” Marlene was losing her patience.

“I haven’t made a decision yet
—
”

“A decision? Whoa! You aren’t serious? You can’t take Keith back!”

“Sure I can. He’s my husband.”

“Olivia, listen, I know I’m not supposed to take a side because if you do take him back you’ll hate me instead of him, but I can’t let you think this is okay. This is not okay! You’ve changed. You aren’t the same girl who came home from culinary school and turned a family restaurant into Chameleon, the hottest joint in town. You used to be fearless. What did Keith do to you?”

“Keith didn’t do anything to me.” Olivia stalked into the office.

“Is that the problem? Lack of sex? Please don’t tell me you’re doing this because Sean turned you down,” Marlene guessed.

“Not everyone is motivated by sex. Divorce is complicated, Marlene. Keith is going to get half of everything, including the restaurant. It might be easier to stay married.”

“Having Keith at Chameleon doesn’t make anything easier.”

Olivia shrugged. “It’s all been going to hell since he left anyway.”

“Amen to that, sister, but did you ever think Keith might be causing the problems? Weird things have been happening around here since he left. That health inspector, for one thing. The grease fire for another. What if Keith has been sneaking in to make trouble around here, trying to get you to take him back?”

“A conspiracy theory? How about plain carelessness? Speaking of which, Ms. Know-it-all, you left the fryer on yesterday.”

“No, I didn’t. I pulled the plug.”

Olivia didn’t look convinced. “Well, maybe the heat between you and Joe spontaneously plugged it back in. It was on when I got here this morning. Double-check next time, okay?”

Marlene nodded shortly, too angry to trust herself to speak.

“I’m going to go through résumés. So far I haven’t come across a single guy who has done anything more than flip burgers.” Olivia sighed. “Let me know when Danny gets here. I need to talk to him.”

Marlene shut the office door.

A million thoughts whirled around in her head as she cracked eggs and added water, milk, and oil to the mixing bowl. Olivia hadn’t even taken her offer seriously. What was up with that? And she knew damn well she had unplugged the fryer yesterday. She remembered doing it. If someone had plugged it back into the wall, then it had to be someone who worked Sunday brunch. Or someone who had a key to the building.

Marlene put the bowl on the Hobart mixer. Was it a mistake to go with Joe this weekend? What if Olivia let Keith come back and he did something really destructive? Olivia didn’t seem to be listening to anything Marly was saying, and she wasn’t listening to Joe either. Marly glanced at the wall clock and did the math. It was past noon in Italy. She set aside her dry ingredients.

The new bartender, Mikey, spent more time smoking and talking on his high-tech cell phone than he did making drinks, so the bar was empty and quiet. Marlene looked up the long-distance number and grabbed the bar phone. She should have made this call last week, when she found Keith with his checks around his ankles. Olivia was going to be truly pissed, but enough was enough. It was time to call in the cavalry.

***

Marlene was filling her wedding cake pans with chocolate cake batter when familiar arms slipped around her. She stiffened. They were the wrong arms.

“Hey, Danny,” she said, twisting around and stepping away from him. He was freshly showered, his still-damp, dark blond hair pulled back in a thick ponytail. “Feeling better this week?”

“Yeah, but I heard you’ve got a new boyfriend,” he complained, crossing his tan arms and leaning on her table. His wide, thickly-lashed, milk-chocolate brown eyes usually made her melt, but this morning the wounded look in his dark eyes annoyed her.

“Don’t even start with me, Danny Boy,” she warned.

“Whatever. You never made me any promises. I get it. I don’t have to like it, but I get it. Rumor has it he’s leaving soon anyway. That’s not why I came in early. I need to talk to you about Keith,” he said.

“I’m not discussing that shithead.” Maybe she had misread the pleading look in his eyes. Danny wasn’t looking to get back in her bed if he wanted to talk about Keith, that was for sure. Everyone on the staff who had a brain knew how she felt about Keith, including all the new guys.

“Look, I know you two don’t get along
—
” he began.

“Understatement.” She nudged Danny out of the way with her hip and measured chocolate cake batter into pans.

“Keith’s in big trouble, Marly.”

“Damn right. The next time I see him, I’m gonna kill him,” she said.

“There might not be much of him left. He’s hanging with a bad crowd, Marlene. He’s making mistakes, and
—
”

“Good. A couple broken legs would do him a world of good. How tough is this crowd? Tough enough to maim?” she asked.

“Probably. They are not nice people.”

“So why are you telling me about it?” she said.

“Because we’re friends, and I don’t know who else to tell. You
are
my friend, Marly, even if, well, whatever. Keith’s my friend too, and he needs help.”

Danny’s skewed logic made Marlene shake her head. He was just so young sometimes. “You’re standing between me and the oven, Danny.”

He jumped out of the way.

“Danny, I am your friend. I’d help you in a minute, but Keith? No way. You’re asking too much. Keith will manage to squirm out of whatever problem he’s having. He always does.”

“Not this time. He’s playing poker at the Niagara Falls Casino. In the big room.”

“Oh, shit,” she breathed.

High stakes poker would explain why Keith had taken money from the safe, all right. Keith was a lousy poker player, so bad that whenever he was playing, Marly couldn’t keep herself away from the table, even though she hated to listen to his stupid game chatter. It was just so darn easy to take his money. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who thought so. “How come you’re telling me about this?”

“Because there’s another game this week,” Danny said.

She groaned.

“I don’t know how much he’s in for now
—
”

“I’d say at least five hundred dollars. That’s what he took out of the safe,” she said dryly.

“We have to get him out of there before he loses again. I know you don’t care about him, but he’ll take Olivia and the restaurant down with him,” Danny said.

“What do you expect me to do? I can’t play for him.”

“No, but you could be my date. That might get you into the game. Then you could win his money back.” Danny played his last card so carelessly she almost folded.

“Your date, huh?”

“It’s invitation only, but the guys like to have women around. Especially hot ones. I bet you could talk one of the guys into staking you if you work it a little.”