Kitabı oku: «Baker's Law»

Chapter One

A loud bang woke Marissa Llewellyn. She rubbed the grit from her eyes and felt the ledger shift across her chest. She’d fallen asleep in the back of her cupcake shop again, this time while going over the previous month’s pitiful financial statements and waiting to see if any cupcakes would go missing tonight.

Marissa sat up, let the ledger fall away. Something clanked in the kitchen again. She hadn’t imagined it. Someone was moving around in her shop.

Without taking her eyes off the open door separating her from the intruder, she edged her sock-covered feet off the sofa and pawed for the bat she kept for just this scenario. Her sister Marlie had told her it was a bad idea to try to catch whoever kept breaking into her bakery. Marissa couldn’t even prove there was a thief. Very little was missing, but twice in the morning when she’d come in, things were…off, out of place and she was always down a couple of cupcakes.

Water ran in the bathroom. She frowned. A robber who uses the restroom? She eased up off the sofa with the bat gripped tightly in one hand. In the other, she snatched up the cordless phone she’d left on the floor beside her. When the Oak Hollow 911-operator answered, she whispered, “This is Marissa Llewellyn at Sweets by Marissa. On Flower Tree. I need to report a break-in.”

“Are you in any danger, ma’am?”

“I don’t know. Please send someone quickly.” The operator was still talking when Marissa hung up the phone. She should have stayed on the line, but she needed both hands to swing the bat. She dropped the phone on the sofa. The police would hurry. The station was only a few blocks away.

The water in the bathroom shut off and she paused only a couple of feet from the door to her office. Her heart pounded heavily. A shadow danced over the threshold into the office as the intruder walked past it and back toward the kitchen. Marissa held her breath.

A moment later one of the kitchen stools squeaked.

She crept to the opened door and gave a quick peek. The after-hours lighting cast shadows throughout the back of the shop. She couldn’t see all the way into the belly of the kitchen, so she edged farther and farther out of her office. A tall, lanky man sat at the huge stainless steel table with books open in front of him. A discarded cupcake wrapper sat at his elbow. She shook her head. What the hell?

A siren sounded. The police had arrived. The man scrambled and shoved books into a backpack at his feet. He turned toward the back door and then froze when he saw her waving a bat at him.

She shifted the bat. “Don’t move.” It wasn’t a man—tall and lean, sure, but in the still-going-through-puberty way. “You’re a teenager! What are you doing in here?”

He looked like he wanted to bolt, but he stayed put. He was dressed like every other teenager in Oak Hollow, Texas. Baggy jeans hung from his skinny hips. His white T-shirt and open button-down plaid shirt looked tidy but worn. She didn’t know his name, but she’d seen him hanging around the shops.

“What are you doing here?” She eased a step closer to him.

The boy shrugged. There was no anger or menace coming off the kid. He looked more resigned than anything as he sighed and slumped his shoulders.

“I called the police,” she said, as if it wasn’t obvious enough with red and blue lights illuminating the front of the store. A heavy knock sounded. “Walk to the front.” She waggled the bat at him.

What if he wouldn’t? Fear tittered down her spine. He was a good head taller than she, well over six feet tall. He could easily overpower her and run out the back door. Luckily, the boy turned and headed to the front of the store. She flipped on the lights as she crossed through the kitchen behind him.

Once her eyes adjusted to the brightness, she motioned with the bat to one of the tall tables with three stools in the corner. “Sit.” He sat.

Another knock sounded, harder. “Oak Hollow police.”

A large man stood at the front door. He had on the Oak Hollow police uniform of dark slacks and shirt with a silver shield pinned to his chest and a tan Stetson hat. She glanced back over her shoulder. “Don’t even think about moving.” She finally let the bat fall to her side and dug in her pocket for the keys. The deadbolt was locked. How had the boy gotten in?

The police officer shifted when the door swung out. “Marissa Llewellyn?” When she nodded he continued, “Did you call about someone breaking and entering?”

Where had she heard that deep, raspy voice before?

“Ma’am?” He pushed the Stetson back farther on his head. A patch of reddish-brown hair fell over his forehead. “Did you call in?”

“Yes, officer—”

“Chief Carlisle,” he corrected her.

“Carlisle?” Her eyes widened. “Jax?” She took a step back and got a better look. He had to be well over six feet tall with the broadest shoulders she’d seen in a long time. He still had that dusting of freckles across his nose. He looked every bit as handsome and intimidating now as he had nearly twenty years earlier.

She’d gone to school with Jax Carlisle. He’d been two grades ahead of her, but everyone had known who he was. The captain of everything. Football, baseball, even the class president his senior year. The most popular guy at Oak Hollow High. Last she’d heard, he’d gone off to college and hadn’t come back since.

“You’re the new chief? Your mom must be…” She wanted to say pissed. Bunny Carlisle was nothing if not the epitome of upper-crust exclusivity. Her husband owned the country club across town and came from a long line of oilmen. Men who didn’t work for a living. “Does your mom know you’re the chief?”

He gave a quick nod and frowned at her. “Do I know you?”

“I doubt it.” She and Jax hadn’t run in any of the same circles. She hadn’t run in any circles. She’d done her best to blend into the walls once everyone hit puberty. She had escaped high school with nothing more than a horrible nickname. “I just can’t believe…” She shook herself, then waved him into the shop. “Sorry. I caught this young man—” She turned to the table where she’d left the teen. The seat was empty.

“Where’d he go?” She ran to the back of the store. The delivery door was closed but the empty crates next to it sat slightly askew.

Marissa stroked her hand through her bangs and turned to run smack-dab into Jax. “Sorry.” Damn, he was big. All hard muscles and sexy. She fought the urge to fan herself. He’d improved since high school. If that was even possible. Or fair.

“Stand back.” He pushed her behind him and drew his gun. He searched the stockroom, her office and the restroom. He came back to her side as he holstered his gun. “He’s gone.”

His comment almost pulled her from her hormone-laced assessment. Almost. She couldn’t stop staring. He would knock the wind out of someone with one lip-lock. Her nipples hardened under her T-shirt and thin bra. Rubbed uncomfortably as she shifted.

Marissa tore her gaze from Jax’s broad shoulders to find him staring at her breasts.

He cleared his throat. “Any signs of forced entry?”

She scrunched up her nose. “No.”

“Tell me what he looked like.” He removed a little notepad from his pocket.

Marissa described everything she could remember about the teen, right down to his bright backpack. “That’s all I can remember.” She shook her head and shrugged. “He…” She stifled a yawn and motioned for Jax to follow her back into the front of the shop. “He was here.” She walked over to the table. “I left him sitting right here.” She touched the tabletop.

“Did he hurt you?”

“Hurt me?” She shifted her gaze to her former classmate. “No.” She frowned. “I think he was doing his homework.”

“Homework? You called in a burglary.” He didn’t quite roll his eyes, but he might as well have. “Walk me through what happened.”

Marissa gave Jax—she couldn’t think of him as the new chief, not quite yet—a rundown of the recent break-ins to her shop, and why she’d stayed the night, up to when she found the young man sitting there.

Jax looked up from the notebook. “Do you know who he was?”

She shook her head. “I’ve seen him, but no.”

“Was anything missing?”

This was going to sound ridiculous. Why did she have to say it in front of Jax Carlisle? She bit her lip for a moment, then just blurted it out. “A cupcake.”

“A single cupcake?” Jax looked like he had better things to do than search for her cupcake thief.

“I don’t know where he went.” A huge yawn escaped before she could stop it. “What time is it?”

He glanced at his watch. “A little after three.”

Marissa groaned. Normally, she’d come in to the shop at eight to start baking for the 10:00 a.m. opening. She would get next to no sleep tonight if she drove home all the way across town to then turn right back around and do it all over again a couple of hours later. “I’m sorry you had to come out this late for nothing.” Marissa started to wave him back toward the front of the shop but then stopped. “Hang on a sec,” she said before he pushed out the door.

She hurried back to the kitchen and boxed up a few day-old cupcakes. She usually took them over to her sister or their dad once Kya showed up for her shift. She found Jax standing where she’d left him near the front door. “Here.” She offered him the box when she reached him. “For coming out so late.” She frowned for a second. “Or early.”

He stared at the box. “I’m just doing my job.”

“Then as a welcome home.” She jiggled the box and gave him a tentative smile.

He took the box and stared at her for a long moment. “I do know you. We went to high school together. You’re Lulu.”

Her first instinct was to run and hide. It had been years since anyone had called her that. Lulu. The nickname had started when she was in the seventh grade and a little pudgy. Moo-Moo Llewellyn had stuck for a few months, then been shortened to simply Lulu. By her senior year, some of the kids hadn’t even known her actual name. Thankfully, after graduation it had died away. She’d never have guessed Jax Carlisle knew it or would remember it.

She wasn’t that awkward teen any longer, and she wasn’t going to let Chief McHottypants get to her. “My name is Marissa. And if there’s nothing else…” She pushed him out the door. “Good night.”

Jax moved aside to avoid getting hit by the door. Once Marissa locked it, she turned, headed back through the small shop and never looked back. The lights went out, leaving the bakery barely lit, and all the while he stood in front of the shop holding a box of desserts.

What had he said that had made her so mad, so quickly? And there was no doubt he’d upset her. He frowned. She had been one of the few students who hadn’t fallen over themselves to be near him. At the time he’d soaked up the attention, taken advantage of his godlike status.

It had made him cocky back then. Now he hoped no one remembered.

When the call had come in to the station, her name hadn’t immediately registered. He’d known several Llewellyns growing up. Two boys, both older than him, and two younger twin girls. They’d lived on the other side of the tracks. Literally. The railroad separated the tax brackets in Oak Hollow. His mom had never out-and-out forbade him to hang out with someone from “the other side,” but as they didn’t spin in her circle—and couldn’t pay the ridiculous annual club dues—she didn’t acknowledge them.

It was his mother’s narrow-mindedness that had kept him away for so many years. Partly because of how wrong it was and partly because his senior year of high school he’d started to buy into it all. When he’d gone off to the University of Texas he’d been a nobody. The school was huge and he’d melted into the crowd like every other freshman. At first it had grated on his over-inflated ego. Then he’d realized how hard it’d been to keep up the pretenses the Carlisles were “obligated” to foster.

Once he’d gotten out of school, Austin was as good as place as any to put down roots. He’d gotten a basic degree and wasn’t entirely sure where he wanted to go with his life once he graduated, but law enforcement ran in his blood. It was too blue-collar for his mother to ever acknowledge, but in the back of his mind he’d always entertained the idea of joining the force, so he decided to give it a try. Once he got out of the academy, he’d known it was a great fit for him and he’d settled into his job and his adopted town.

As the years went on, though, there were days when he longed for the familiarity of his hometown, his friends and, even if it was hard to admit, his family. He had stayed in touch with several of his true friends, the ones who had stuck around when his mother cut him off for not following in the long Carlisle steps.

Then when Otto Kendal had told Jax his father was set to retire as the Oak Hollow police chief, Jax immediately inquired about his replacement. It had taken several interviews, but the mayor had finally decided to go with someone who was familiar with the town rather than a couple of the other applicants with a slight experience advantage. Both of those men were from out of state and that had been Jax’s ace in the hole despite his mother’s objections. Had the mayor hired him just to spite Bunny Carlisle?

No surprise, he’d gotten a call not ten minutes after he’d signed the contract. His mother had heard the news before he’d had a chance to tell her. Not that she’d have been able to talk him out of the job. She hadn’t been able to get him to quit any of the years he’d spent on the Austin police force. She was happy that he’d moved back home, but in the weeks since his relocation, she’d been vocal about his choice of profession.

When he was a teen, he’d let her influence him. He’d long since broken that habit.

He shook his head. He’d expected frequent trips down memory lane while he settled back into the routine of life in Oak Hollow. He just hadn’t expected it to take up most of his waking thoughts. Especially when he’d been called to his old stomping grounds. He’d hung out on Flower Tree, the main street of Oak Hollow since its founding in the early nineteen hundreds. In high school, there’d been a burger chain, a donut shop and a florist. The florist was still there, but the two staples from his teens had been transformed into a chic woman’s boutique and the cupcake shop.

Jax had been up at the police station when the call came in from Marissa Llewellyn. Hell, he’d been up at the station late almost every night the past week. He hadn’t anticipated the amount of paperwork he had to do on a daily basis. Working as a detective in Austin for the last six years had prepared him to take over some aspects when Chief Kendal retired. It hadn’t prepared him for the mounds of paperwork that came along with it.

The department had a small staff. Six full-time officers and two reserve officers as well as two dispatchers. He and all the officers were on call even when they were off. One month into his term, he’d gone on several routine calls, mostly small-town non-emergencies. The crime rate in Oak Hollow was well below average, and this was the first B and E call for him here if you didn’t count the fact that the “suspect” snuck out before he could get so much as a look at him. And the fact that nothing appeared to be missing save a single cupcake…

He walked back to the old SUV cruiser he’d inherited with the job. He set the cupcakes on the seat beside him, then set his hat atop the box. Back in high school, he wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing a cowboy hat. Going off to college had changed so many things in his life—all for the better as far as he was concerned.

Another light went out in the shop, but no further movement. He scanned the lot. There were no other cars. He guessed Lulu— no, he’d better think of her as Marissa—had parked around back. He drove around to the back of the shop just as she was shoving a trash bag into the dumpster. She jumped when he neared her. He rolled down the window. “Didn’t mean to startle you. You heading home?”

She shook her head. The long dark ponytail swished over her shoulder. “I have to be back up here in a few hours anyway, so no point in wasting gas.”

Jax shifted the SUV into park. “I came to take a better look at the door. See how the guy might’ve got in.”

Marissa glanced between him and the door then back again. “Oh, sure.” She let the door swing shut. “Knock yourself out.”

Jax unclipped the flashlight from his belt and examined the door. He’d caught a glance of it as it swung shut. It was an ancient push handle exit, one small lock and a plain handle. He squatted. “How long has this hole been here?” He ran his finger over a small drilled hole just under the handle.

Marissa squinted and leaned over his shoulder. Her dark brown ponytail brushed the edge of his shoulder, she was so close. “No idea.” she said. “Why?”

Jax scanned the area around the door and found an umbrella skeleton. “Is the door locked right now?”

“Yeah.” Her warm breath feathered over his cheeks. He had to fight to keep his attitude professional. Having her lean over him like this was damn distracting. Not to mention her smell—all sweet and sugary.

She reached out and traced her finger over the hole. “It stays locked. Automatic. When it closes.” After a moment her eyes rounded and she stood away from him. “The hole means something?”

He nodded, then picked up the umbrella skeleton and shoved it through the hole. He gave it a little wiggle, then pulled. The door opened enough for him to get a hold of the edge and open it. The broken umbrella was open and pushed down the bar.

Marissa fisted her hands at her sides and let loose a low growl. “I’ll be damned.” She rubbed a hand over her crooked ponytail. Little strands of hair, loose from the band, stuck out every which way. “Wonder how much that’s going to cost me to repair or replace?”

Jax held the edge of the door until she came over and set her foot alongside the bottom, then he walked the umbrella over to the dumpster and dropped it inside. “On the upshot, if the kid had wanted to rob you, you’d be cleaned out by now. Ten times over, probably.”

“That makes me feel so much better.” She hugged her arms over her chest.

He tried not to look at the way her breasts mounded over her forearms. She’d already caught him all but leering at her once. No matter how hot she was, the woman was a citizen who’d called him for help. And at three in the morning, out behind a bakery was the last place he should let his mind run wild. His eyes strayed downward again. She had magnificent breasts.

She fidgeted, drawing his attention back up to her face. “Thanks again for coming out. ‘Night. Or morning or whatever.”

“I’d get that fixed as soon as you can. You going to be okay here by yourself?” He didn’t want to make it seem like he was making light of the burglary, but it wasn’t every day that someone broke into a shop to do their homework.

“Yeah. Enjoy the cupcakes.” She motioned to his vehicle. “Congratulations on the new job, Jax.” She walked back into the bakery and let the door shut behind her.

Jax tried the handle just to make sure it was truly locked. It didn’t budge. Why would a teen break in to simply eat and do homework? Trouble at home? Or could it be something more? A kid with no place to go. He hadn’t heard of there being any homeless kids in town. When he got back to the station, he’d ask around and see if any reports had been filed. Later.

Unlike Marissa, though, he needed to get some sleep. In his bed. He was getting too old to pull all-nighters.

Inside the SUV, he called the dispatcher.

“Ada, Sweets by Marissa is all clear. I’m headed home.”

“10-4, Chief.”

He clipped the mic back into place and drove slowly down the alley behind the bakery, keeping an eye out for the intruder. While he did believe Marissa Llewellyn, he hadn’t seen anyone in the shop but her when she came to the door thanks to the painted advertising on the front windows. But he wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t at least look for anyone hanging around and at three in the morning; folks didn’t just walk around Oak Hollow unless they were up to no good.

Jax snatched up the mic again. “Ada?”

“Yes, Chief?”

“Have one of the officers patrol Flower Tree first thing in the morning just to make sure all’s well.”

“Will do.”

It took less than ten minutes to get from the bakery to the house he’d bought—as far away from his mother’s estate as possible, even though it didn’t take long to get from any one place to another in Oak Hollow. Despite having a population of just over ten thousand, the town was laid out in a close community. A far cry from close to a million in Austin.

Jax was dog tired as he crossed through the kitchen to set down the cupcakes Marissa gave him, but the tantalizing smell made him hold off on bedtime just yet. He popped open the box and planned to sample only one treat. A few minutes later, he’d eaten two of them and was eyeing a third, but the twenty-hour day was creeping up on him. He shut the box to save the rest for breakfast.

A few hours of sleep and Jax would be good. He didn’t even bother to undress, just laid on top of the comforter his sister had given him when he moved in. As soon as he woke, he was going to head back to Flower Tree, look around a little more and check in on Marissa. Maybe buy a few more of those cupcakes. He’d seen strawberry ones in the case. It would give him another excuse to see her again—unofficially.