Erik felt nailed to the spot, Josie’s words zinging through his brain like an electric current. Did that mean…?
Surely not. The first time they’d met, she’d recoiled from him, and the second time they’d met, she’d done nothing but yell. Sure, she’d looked at his body once or twice, but she’d also just told him that her type of guy was his night-and-day opposite.
Without warning, she materialized by his side, having burst through the doors with an empty tray under her arm. She took one look at his face and grimaced. “Oh no. Did you overhear that?” With her free hand, she patted his chest. “Don’t worry, big guy. You’re more than a piece of meat to me.”
She flitted away, leaving him to study his forearms: thick, wrapped in muscle and veins, too broad to be elegant, too thick to be stuffed into a suit jacket. But if Josie liked looking at them, he’d throw away every long-sleeved shirt he owned and risk death by freezing in the Chicago winters.
“Erik! You with me?” She dropped the tray with a clatter and startled him out of his reverie. “I swear to God, I’m going to start setting fire to things if we don’t get away from all these comfort support insoles soon.”
Brisk tone. Comical grimace. Not a single glance at any part of his body.
Yeah. He’d misunderstood what had clearly been a joke. Pretty little show ponies didn’t fall for Clydesdales. He pushed through the door with a sigh, leaving his foolish fantasies behind him in the stockroom.
Twelve
“Put your pants on.”
Erik’s answering grunt was exactly what Josie had been fishing for when she’d called, and she uncorked a delighted giggle before returning to business.
“Why am I requiring you to clad your magnificence in lowly denim this early in the morning, you might be wondering?” She paused for another grunt and was richly rewarded. Her baker was grumpy in the morning. “Since you asked, I’ve found you a delivery van.”
“You what?”
“Ah, he speaks!” Yep, grumpy. Maybe even still partially asleep if the lovely, gravelly rasp in his voice was any indication. “It was obvious last weekend that you need something reliable to move your creations around in, so I’ve been trolling for options online. I found something promising, but it’s first come, first served, which is why I called you at this unholy hour. So put your pants on and meet me at the address I’m texting you now before somebody buys it out from under us.”
Another grunt and he disconnected, leaving her laughing as she slid on her shoes.
Thirty minutes later, he joined her in an alley in Avondale, north of the Loop, and passed her one of the Dunkin coffees he was holding. “Three sugars, no cream,” he said, tugging out his earbuds with his newly free hand.
“Thanks!” She accepted it and took a sip, the coffee warming her insides almost as much as the knowledge that somewhere along the line, he’d made note of her usual order. She gestured to the white van parked behind a two-story brick building. “Isn’t it perfect?”
“For me to abduct children?”
His grumbled joke made her laugh.
“Yeah, it’s a little… windowless. But it’s got fold-up racks inside for cake transport.” She sipped her coffee as he scratched his jaw in thought. “Just picture it with your logo on the side. That handsome mug of yours advertising your bakery all over town.”
His lips tightened. “Absolutely not.”
“It’s your logo, Erik.” Was he trying to kill her with his bashfulness?
“My face is not going on a van.”
“We’ll see.”
His hair was down that morning, more waves than curls when he came straight from bed apparently. It was all she could do not to reach up and pet that tempting tumble around his shoulders. Maybe it would soothe that forbidding look off his face.
She distracted herself with another sip of coffee as a shiny black car screeched to a halt in the parking spot next to the van and a fortysomething man slid out of the vehicle, wearing a suit and tie and a stressed expression at odds with it being seven thirty on a Sunday morning.
“You’re Josie?” The balding man checked his watch and then his phone, barely pausing to meet her eyes.
“Yes, we’re here about the v—”
“So here’s the deal,” he barked. “My great-uncle Al died last month, and I’m the only family member left to clean this all up.”
He retrieved a set of keys from his pocket and clicked a button to unlock the van. “I’m due back in Denver this afternoon for a meeting I cannot miss. If you can pay me cash now for the van, it’s yours.”
Erik stepped forward and opened the van’s back door, his voice muffled as he peered inside. “It runs?”
