My table in the back is littered with schedules, and I don’t know where to pack in hours of mixing and packing cookiedough. It means more work. A lot more. Also, more ingredients, more freezers for storage, and more help.
It also means that if word gets out about my time with Dwayne and how I started the bakery with stolen money, then all my business plans will burn away, like the bourbon I added to the soup I made Cruz last night. It won’t matter how much of the money was mine, how much was taken from me too.
As if I summoned him, my phone rings and his name flashes across the screen.
I’m smiling when I answer. “Locked inside, safe and sound.”
“Good.”
He was with me several hours on Monday to help out, and he’s taken to calling every night right after I close to make sure the door is locked. I even saw my cousin drive by in the squad car when Maggie left after her shift.
“Did you ask Callum to look in on me?” I ask.
“I might’ve mentioned to the good deputy that you had some idiot hitting on you last weekend.”
If only that’s all Damon were doing. My smile fades. “I told you I would talk to him.”
“Did you?”
“Cruz.” His heart’s in the right place, and he’s going to law enforcement instead of trying to trackDeandown himself, but I can’t have him getting my family worked up. “I’ve asked him once already. Twice is going to make him suspicious, and he’s going to tell my dad or Uncle Karl, and then what? That guy isn’t a local like Pete.” And Huckleberry Springs’ loveable but belligerent Pete is harmless enough.
“This has happened before?”
Shit. “It’s tourist season.”Please accept that answer. “They’ll worry. Mom’s finally feeling normal again, and she’s going to get all worked up.”
“Okay. I’m sorry, but I’m worried about you too.”
“I’ve been around creeps like him for longer than I’ve known you.” I’ve been around that very creep, in fact.
“If you’d have known me longer, you wouldn’t have had to deal with them.”
“That’s sweet, but we can’t turn back time.”
“You actually can. I’ve been doing it in my head since the picnic.”
I bite my bottom lip to keep a groan from slipping through. It was hard to come back to the bakery and dive into recipes and weekly menus. Cruz came with me, but he had to go home soon after so he could get up and do chores. Lane’s in Denver again. “It was a nice picnic. We should do it again.”
“We should. It’s going to be raining this weekend. Can I abduct you after close on Sunday and bring you to my place?”
A rainy day at Cruz’s sounds divine. Any day off would be fabulous. “I can spare a few hours.”
“I’ll help you make them up.”
I wish he didn’t have to. But not only do I need to be prompt on my next payment, I have to squeeze more golden eggs out of sugar and flour. “I’ll see you then.”
“Sleep tight.”
I will with that voice in my head. I hang up and stuff the phone in my pocket. In the back, I start readying supplies for the cupcakes and coffee cakes I’m going to make for tomorrow. I have two pies that I want to prep and a special-order strawberry rhubarb pie for the birthday party at the senior living center.
I’m in the middle of a yawn when someone knocks. I jump and nearly bite my tongue closing my mouth.
“Who is it?” I call, sounding scared. Damn my ex and his brother. Stupid intimidation tactics.
“Meeee,” Clem sings from the other side.
Relief pours through me. I open the door to Clem in linen shorts, socks with sandals, and a shirt that readsI like big books and I cannot lie. “You’ve got bangs.”
She huffs them out of her eyes. “Don’t remind me. I got so frustrated with a scene last night that I took shears to them.”
