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He walked over to her and took the clothes, mouthing “sorry” and looking like he meant it. Then he said out loud, “Thank you, Amy. I didn’t introduce the two of you. Victoria, this is Amy…I’m sorry, I don’t think I got your last name?”
“Carson,” Amy told them both, trying to look like someone who didn’t matter at all, someone here just to cook and stay out of the way and certainly not cause trouble.
“Victoria, this is Amy Carson,” Tate said. “Amy, this is Victoria Ryan, my fiancée.”
Fiancée?
“You two are the ones getting married?” she asked, smiling desperately.
“Yes. In four days,” Victoria said coolly, nodding barely in Amy’s direction. “And you are…?”
“House chef for the weekend. Something came up at the last minute with the man Eleanor hired, and she asked me to fill in,” Amy said, still clinging to that smile.
Victoria gave her the once-over, much as she’d done her shirtless fiancé, a most thorough assessment, then said, “You certainly don’t look like a chef.”
Amy felt her cheeks burn and felt decidedly bare everywhere else. “I made a mess of my chef’s coat, too.”
And then realized it sounded like they’d had some kind of crazy food fight, which she supposed was better than what it might have sounded like, with all that moaning and groaning Tate had been doing when his fiancée walked into the kitchen.
This was bad on so many levels.
She looked down at the floor, at the mess she was standing in, up to the ceiling, to the wide swath of countertop between her and Ms. Perfect, the perfect companion for Mr. Perfect. And then Amy’s gaze landed on the lemon bars. Thinking she had nothing to lose, and that the silly things did tend to put most anyone in a good mood, she picked up the platter they were on and held them out to Victoria.
“Lemon bar?” she asked.
“No, thank you,” the woman said.
“Well, we should let Amy get back to her work,” Tate said, then looked down at what was left of the lemon bar on his plate. Looked longingly, Amy thought, despite what had just happened.
His fiancée saw him, too, and shot him a look that said, “You’re kidding, right?”
He just smiled, grabbed the thing and practically shoved the rest of it in his mouth, and then led his fiancée out of the kitchen.
Amy stood there, watching them go, not listening in but not really able to keep from hearing as they walked away, either.
“What was that?” Victoria asked.
“Nothing. She told you that she spilled some powdered sugar. It was like a mushroom cloud, rising up and enveloping everything in its path—”
“Sugar? That’s what you have to say? Sugar? Tate, we’re getting married in four days—”
Tate tried to respond. “My clothes are right here in the bag. You can see for yourself—”
“You can’t do this now. Not now.”
“I didn’t do anything. Nothing happened. I stopped to talk to her little boy—”
“I didn’t see any little boy—”
“He was a mess, too. We put him in the shower—”
“We?” Victoria asked.
“Yes…I mean…Victoria, I am not this guy. You know that. I am not this guy—”
“I thought I knew that—”
“You know it. I’m not.”
And then Amy couldn’t hear any more.
They were gone.
Whew.
The weekend—and especially the job—had to get better from here, she told herself.
Eleanor felt a tad guilty when she saw how upset Victoria was, although it was reassuring that Victoria was at least capable of showing enough emotion to be upset. Maybe she wasn’t entirely as unfeeling as Eleanor feared.
“See, we told you to just let it be and see what happened,” Gladdy told her, having stood there beside Eleanor the whole time and listening to the whole encounter.
“It’s a start, I suppose,” Eleanor admitted. Still, time was so short, and she just wasn’t sure if anything could truly change the planned wedding at this late date. Tate loved plans, loved making them and then meticulously carrying them out, and the plan was to marry Victoria on Saturday.
“Suppose?” Kathleen gave a dismissive huff. “Look at Amy’s face right now, now that your godson’s gone, and tell me you can’t see exactly what she’s thinking.”
Eleanor peered around the corner once again and into the kitchen. Amy stood leaning back against the cabinets, eyes half shut, head tilted up toward the ceiling, a dreamy look on her pretty, young face.
“She’s thinking…it’s been a long time since she’s been anywhere near a man—any man—let alone one so gorgeous.”
“You got all that from one look?” Eleanor asked.
“No,” Gladdy admitted. “I know that from talking to her. Believe me, it’s been a ridiculously long time, but she’s had Max to take care of all on her own and work that barely pays their bills, and there just hasn’t been time for herself or anyone else. I doubt she’s had so much as a date in the last year.”
“Gladdy and I used to beg to be able to babysit for her while she went out,” Kathleen explained. “And the poor thing just wouldn’t do it. Said she’s sworn off men or some ridiculous thing like that.”
“Sworn off men? You brought someone here to lure my godson away from his fiancée within four days’ time, and she’s sworn off men? You didn’t tell me that,” Eleanor complained.
“Well, Amy obviously knows that was a mistake right now. Remember the way she looked when Tate took off his shirt? Or when she brushed sugar from his hair?”
“Yes.” Kathleen sighed, looking wistful. “Nothing like the sight of a beautiful man or the feel of running your fingers through his hair, that delicious feeling of anticipation of so much more.”
“It’s a beautiful thing,” Gladdy said.
Eleanor had to admit, “I don’t think Tate’s ever looked at Victoria like that.”
“Like he wants to drag her off into some dark corner and have his way with her?” Gladdy offered.
“Yes. Although, I’m sure he’s not a drag-her-off-into-a-dark-corner-and-have-his-way-with-her kind of man,” Eleanor admitted.
“What a pity.”
“Maybe we can change his mind,” Gladdy said. “Or maybe Amy can.”
Later that night, Tate sat outside on the patio, talking to one of his oldest and best friends. He still felt befuddled and was determined to lay out his supposed crimes in the most straightforward way possible in order to evaluate the seriousness of his offenses.
“So,” he concluded his scary tale of sugar-filled bliss in the kitchen that had turned to near-disaster in the blink of an eye, “let me have it. How bad do you think it was?”
“You got sugar all over you, took off a lot of your clothes, helped her get her kid in the shower and moaned and groaned while eating her lemon bars as Victoria walked in?” Rick asked, leaning back in the wicker patio chair.
Tate nodded. “That was it.”
“This other woman…she didn’t touch you?”
He frowned. “She brushed some sugar off me. Off my hair and my clothes.”
“And you didn’t touch her?”
“No,” Tate said quickly, then had to backtrack. “Wait. I did. I helped brush powdered sugar out of her hair. And off her neck. Maybe…yeah, her collarbone, I’m afraid.”
Rick frowned. “And you liked it, right?”
“I did.” Tate shook his head, the point where he crossed the line, right there. The neck. The collarbone. “That’s when I knew I was in trouble, when I knew I was doing something I probably shouldn’t have, as a man who’s engaged and getting married in four days.”
“Yeah, I’d say that’s where you messed up,” said Rick, who’d been married all of a year. “Tate, it’s not like you suddenly don’t notice other women or like you’re just…dead inside. It’s just that, you don’t get yourself into that kind of situation with another woman—”
“I didn’t think I was. I mean, those things she baked just smelled so good. That’s all it was. I swear. I couldn’t ignore that smell, and when I went into the kitchen, it was just the kid there, and I talked to the kid. Funny little kid—”
“Who told you about the whole sugar daddy thing?”
“Yeah.” Tate shook his head. Weird. Very weird. “And then, she came walking into the kitchen and poof! Before I even said anything to her or sensed any kind of impropriety in the situation, we’re enveloped in this cloud of powdered sugar.”
Rick shook his head. “That’s a story I haven’t ever heard before. Attacked by sugar. I had to take my clothes off, honest—”
“It’s not a story. It’s what happened. I swear,” Tate claimed, still feeling confused and fuzzy-headed from all the champagne. How had this happened to him?
“Were you drunk?” Rick tried. “Because, hey, it happens. We get drunk, we do things we wouldn’t normally do….”
“No, I wasn’t drunk. I was…just a little loose and happy. You know. Everything was good. I’m just going along living my life. Victoria’s father and all those guys from work keep making toasts to me and Victoria, and when your future father-in-law is making the toasts, you drink. You know?”
Rick nodded.
“And then…it’s like…I don’t know. It just happened.”
Rick leaned closer, whispering in case anyone else might be listening, because a dozen people had descended on the house. “You didn’t kiss her?”
“No! Nothing like that—”
“But you wanted to.”
Tate winced, not wanting to even think about that. “I…like—”
“Yeah, you wanted to,” Rick concluded, shaking his head like it wasn’t even a question.
“She had really nice hair,” Tate said. “It was reddish, and she had it in this braid. The sugar got in it, and I liked…trying to brush the sugar out of it. And then, her neck was right there. These little tiny curls that had escaped from her braid, right there against her neck, and she smelled so good. Like sugar and those damned lemon bars, and it’s been a long time since I kissed another woman. A long time. And all of a sudden, I’m thinking…I won’t ever kiss another woman again. I mean, not really kiss one. I mean, I shouldn’t. I don’t intend to….”
“But you wanted to,” Rick said again.
“Yeah, okay. For a second, I did. And then I thought…” Wait a minute. Stop. Back up. Trouble here. Get out. Get out right now. You are not this guy. You are not going to be this guy.
“So, you’re thinking…for old times’ sake? Last chance as a single man and all that?” Rick said.
“No. Really, no. It just kind of freaked me out that I wanted to. That I was curious about…what it would be like, and that…you know? I’m going along living my life, about to get married, and poof! Cloud of sugar, and I’ve got my hands in this woman’s hair, wanting to kiss her neck, even if it was just for a second or two. So, come on, tell me. How big of a jerk am I?”
“I don’t know. You’re in a gray area here,” Rick concluded. “It sounds like you really didn’t do anything awful—”
“I didn’t. I swear.”
“And we’re all human. From time to time…you know. You’re going to want to do things like that, but the key is that you don’t actually do it, and the way to do that is not to put yourself in the position to want to do it. So you don’t turn into that guy.”
“Right,” Tate said, taking some comfort in that. “Don’t get in that spot. Don’t be that guy. I should have just walked away.”
“Yes, you should have.”
“It was those damned lemon bars,” Tate said.
“Oh, please,” Rick scoffed. “They couldn’t have been that good.”
“You didn’t taste them. You didn’t smell them. I mean…they have to be in there, in the kitchen, right now.”
“And you are going nowhere near the kitchen, my friend. The kitchen is definitely off-limits to you.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I just have to stay out of the kitchen. That’s all. But you could go down there and get some for both of us. You just don’t know how good they were.”
Chapter Three
Amy did not sleep well.
She kept having nightmares in which she was being chased by a really scary bride wielding a giant hand mixer as a weapon. Really powerful mixers had always freaked her out a bit. And then the scene shifted, and she was some sort of human baked good, naked, rolled in powdered sugar and then put on display at the reception for the whole wedding party to see. She would swear she still had sugar all over her, despite having scrubbed herself completely in the shower last night. She thought she could still smell it on herself, too.
There might have been another dream where someone had been licking sugar off her body, but she refused to even think of that one, grimly forcing all such thoughts from her head.
She hadn’t allowed herself any thoughts remotely like that since Max was born, and that had worked just fine for her for so long. In fact, it had worked perfectly until a few hours ago. Right then, it was suddenly not okay that she hadn’t had a man’s hands on her in years, hadn’t sighed over the sight of one’s body or felt that little kick of anticipation that said something was going to happen.
Delicious, magical things.
It couldn’t have waited another three days? Tate would be safely married; Amy would be safely done with this first professional chef’s job. That was all she was asking for. Just a few days!
She’d imagined it all quite logically. She’d get a good job, the first one she’d ever really had, a little money in the bank, a safety net against hard times and unexpected expenses. Life would be good, settled, safe for the first time in years. And then, she’d see someone, a man, mildly interesting and attractive and she’d think…Okay, it’s time. She’d imagined herself tiptoeing, quite cautiously and sanely, back into the dating scene.
