Kitabı oku: «Bringing Home a Bachelor»

“You’re playing with fire…”

Curiously enough, Mel didn’t ask herself if she wanted Pete.

She just exulted in the power of him wanting her.

She had a red-blooded man in a tuxedo who was very happy to be with her right now. And they had a beach all to themselves… Except it wasn’t so private, what with the hundred-odd windows looking down at them from the hotel.

Mel brushed those concerns aside for the moment—she’d just have to get him to his hotel room. For now, she had her hand on the prize. She squeezed him gently through his pants and Pete groaned.

“Mel,” he said hoarsely, “you really shouldn’t be doing that.”

Mel used her other hand to ease down his zipper. “Show me what you’ve got.”

Pete made a strangled sound in the back of his throat. “Melinda, you’re killing me!”

She smiled. “I know. But you’ll die happy.”

Dear Reader,

I’m sure you’ve heard the saying: you can’t please all of the people all of the time. And most of us, at some point, have felt that we can’t please anyone, at any time.

I was in a hotel registration line, witnessing a clerk gracefully accept abuse from a woman who clearly thought she was the disrespected empress of her own universe, when I got the idea for Pete Dale’s character. What would it be like to have a job that involved trying to keep people happy all day long?

Pete, the hero of Bringing Home a Bachelor, works at a luxury hotel with very picky customers. His job is to bring in more business, and therefore more money. But trying to please his customers, his boss, his good friend the groom, the woman he loves and her dragon of a mother—all at the same time—is a recipe for disaster!

Poor, professionally polite Pete has to take a stand, and it’s not one he’s comfortable with: no more Mr Nice Guy … at least when it comes to the people who are making his girlfriend Melinda’s life impossible.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading Bringing Home a Bachelor as much as I enjoyed writing it, as well as the two previous books in the All THE GROOM’S MEN series—Borrowing a Bachelor and Blame It on the Bachelor.

All the best,

Karen Kendall

About the Author

KAREN KENDALL is the author of more than twenty novels and novellas for several publishers. She is a recipient of awards such as the Maggie, the Book Buyer’s Best, the Write Touch and RT Book Reviews magazine Top Pick, among others. She grew up in Austin, Texas and has lived in Georgia, New York and Connecticut. She now resides in south Florida with her husband, two greyhounds, a cat … and lots of fictional friends! She claims to have real ones, too. She loves hearing from readers! Please visit her website at www.KarenKendall.com.

Bringing Home
a Bachelor
Karen Kendall

www.millsandboon.co.uk

1

WHAT A MONDAY. The clock said it was only 9:45 a.m., and Pete Dale, senior account manager for Miami’s Playa Bella Hotel, had already put out three customer-relations fires by the time his office phone rang ominously for the fourth time.

He squinted at the phone suspiciously, rubbed his temples and sighed. Who was calling now? The cantankerous, octogenarian charity-ball chairwoman? The pain-in-the-butt, preppy pro-golfer’s rep? Or the charming, chin-wagging Chilean who loved to chat for hours about every detail of his upcoming fiftieth anniversary dinner for two hundred?

Pete had jumped at the job with Playa Bella two years ago because it enabled him to return to the sun, sand and sea of Miami. But paradise had its price.

He picked up the receiver and held it to his still-burning ear—Playa Bella’s spa had managed to offend a Latin American dictator’s wife, and her secretary had just given him what-for. “Pete Dale. May I help you?”

“Pete!” A voice boomed like a cannon into his brain. But he didn’t mind, because it was the voice of a friend. His oldest friend, to be exact. He’d known Mark since junior high.

“Mark, my man,” Pete said with relief. “How are you?” He grinned and leaned back in his leather chair, letting his head loll to the side. “You ready for this weekend?”

Mark was getting married in five days, and Pete and the rest of the groomsmen had wild plans for him first. There was no bachelor party like a Miami-based bachelor party—they planned to put The Hangover to shame, though without actually losing their groom in the process.

“I’m ready—the question is, is Kendra?” Mark laughed.

“Nobody could be prepared to take you on for life,” Pete ribbed him.

“True. Very true. Listen, I called for a couple of reasons. One, to say hi. Two, er … you remember my sister Melinda, right?”

“Of course I remember Melinda.” Pete shifted in his chair.

He’d gotten a real shock when he’d run into her at a Dolphins game a couple of years back. Hadn’t recognized her. Though she’d looked familiar, he couldn’t place her. A tumble of dark hair, a sunburned nose, big blue eyes, and a curvaceous body made for a man’s pleasure.

She’d glanced at him, then turned to walk away with her friends. He’d been openly admiring her rounded ass and wondering what it would feel like in his hands, when she’d turned back toward him and stared, hard.

Busted, Pete pretended that he’d been searching for something.

Then she’d put a hand on his arm and said, in tones of disbelief, “Pete? Pete Dale, is that really you?”

He’d raised his ogling eyes and looked at her face again, puzzled. Where had he seen her before?

“Pete, I’m Melinda. Melinda Edgeworth. Mark’s sister.”

Shame flared in his gut as heat climbed his neck. “Mel? No way … oh, my God, it is you.”

He registered with surprise that she was blushing, too. Of course she was! He’d been fixated on her ass, pervert that he was, and she knew it. Oh, hell. “You’re all grown up,” he added, instantly wishing that he could take back the lame words.

She shrugged. “How are you?”

“Uh, great. You?”

And then her friends had hustled her away, before he could think to get her number. Not that he should have. Mel was Mark’s little sister, which put her strictly off-limits.

Mark’s next words brought Pete back to the present with a jolt.

“Melinda doesn’t have a date for the wedding, and I wanted to ask you if you’d, well, make sure she has a good time.”

“Sure, no problem,” Pete said easily.

“You’re the only nice guy of my acquaintance, and you know how it is with Mel,” Mark said.

No, How was it?

“If she’d just lose that baby fat of hers, her life would be different.”

Baby fat? Pete frowned, sat up straight in his chair and settled his elbows on his desk. “Oh, come on. Mel’s a very pretty girl.”

“Uh, huh,” Mark said, in dismissive tones. “You know, Kendra tried to give her some advice on how to eat, but it didn’t go over too well.”

Pete felt a quick wave of sympathy for Mel. Kendra was so thin that he wasn’t sure she even qualified for a size at all. He was pretty sure he’d heard of women who were actually size zero. Kendra’s legs looked like chopsticks, if you asked him, and her arms were toothpicks. She looked downright brittle; as if she’d break in half if she so much as stubbed a toe. Mark was lucky that she hadn’t punctured his kidneys in the night, with one of her elbows.

Put them side by side, Kendra and Melinda, and Pete’d take Mel any day of the week. She had beautiful skin, bright eyes, shiny dark hair that was always escaping the clip she wore to hold it back. And oh yeah, there were those abundant curves of hers.

Pete personally had never been a fan of the South Beach Swizzle Sticks that Mark had collected in college. And they tended to be low-energy and moody, since they were malnourished.

“Well, anyway. The family’s been a little worried about Mel lately. Something happened with a big account at the bakery last week—she won’t talk about it—and she’s been holed up in her shell, doing nothing but work. So if you’d just—I don’t know—get her out on the dance floor for a few numbers … well, I’d really appreciate it.”

“No problem,” Pete said again. “Mel is a very cool girl and I’d be delighted.”

“You don’t have a date to the wedding either, right, bud?” Pete gritted his teeth. “No, Mark, I don’t.”

“That’s what Mom and Kendra said—that you were coming stag.”

Thanks, Mom and Kendra. Appreciate it. No need to rehash why he was coming alone—that he’d been unceremoniously dumped by his wine-distributor girlfriend a month before. For the hotel manager of an entire cruise line.

Yes, Maribel mixed business and pleasure very well indeed, and he’d just been too stupid to realize that she’d move on when she found a guy a few pay grades and career notches above him.

“So that’s perfect, then,” continued Mark.

“Yep. Perfect.” Pete was nothing if not agreeable. It was part of his job, part of his personality. It sucked sometimes, being a Certified People Pleaser, but placating various warring family members had set him on that course long ago.

So when Pete felt like telling people to take a flying leap, he generally stuffed his emotions and smiled instead. He offered to give them a courtesy discount, no matter how discourteous they’d been to him. He jollied them into a better mood. He sent them complimentary champagne and fruit baskets.

Pete hotly denied, though, that he was a member of the subspecies Doormaticus. Nor was he a butt-kisser or a toady. He was simply a customer-relations expert. He kept the peace, and there was nothing wrong with that, was there?

Pete handled situations with his trademark easy smile, a professional grade eye-twinkle and a voice carefully modulated to Soothe/Empathize on his Internal Customer Service Dial.

Everybody loved Pete … with the evident exception of his ex, Maribel.

Mark had called her a witch. Their fraternity brother Adam, a medical student, had said Pete was well-rid of her. And Dev, another fraternity brother, had offered to love-her-and-leave-her in a one-night-stand of revenge on his friend’s behalf.

Pete had politely declined this generous offer of male solidarity and explained to Dev that even he, as a former rock ‘n’ roll stud who still owned leather pants, couldn’t compete with the hotel manager of a cruise line—at least not in terms of business opportunities for Maribel.

“I don’t hold anything against her,” Pete told him. “It’s just her nature.”

Dev had coughed. “I don’t hold anything against scorpions, either, dude—but I still step on ‘em.”

Pete couldn’t help a snort of amusement at that, but he quickly banished it in favor of feeling magnanimous towards Maribel, and therefore superior. That really helped with the whole lovelorn depression thing.

“So,” Mark boomed, “I’ll see you guys Thursday night, then!”

“Yes, you will … though you probably won’t see us in focus for very long, my man. After a few shots, you’ll be seeing two of everyone.”

“I’m not sure I can handle seeing two of Dev,” Mark said, sounding a little alarmed.

Pete laughed.

“And don’t hurt me too bad, or Kendra will be pissed.”

“Why don’t we manage that possibility from the get-go,” Pete suggested. “Do not make any lunch plans with your bride for the next day.”

THE MORNING WAS NOT receding, no matter how much Melinda Edgeworth wished it to. In fact, the Miami sun was rising into the sky as cheerfully as it always did; defying her and shining down upon her lazy, moping self.

She wanted it to immolate her like a vampire so that she wouldn’t have to face her bakery and work. Tomorrow she had to deliver three hundred fresh chocolate croissants and three hundred vanilla raspberry scones to a medical convention, which meant that she and Scottie, her assistant, had to make them today.

That, in addition to a groom’s cake, an elaborate baby-shower cake, and a large order of petits fours for high tea at a ladies’ club.

Noooooo! Melinda closed her eyes again and groaned. She felt the small, warm body against hers stir. Mami, her little Schipperke mix, got to her tiny, fuzzy feet and yawned, sending a wave of hot dog-breath up Mel’s protesting nostrils.

Melinda opened one eye. “You have the breath of a camel, sweetheart.”

Mami yipped, climbed onto Mel’s chest and licked her face with gusto.

“That wasn’t an invitation to make me smell like a camel, too.” But Mami was irresistible, and knew it. Mel scooped her up, kissed her head, and tucked her under her chin.

Mami tolerated this treatment for a couple of minutes, but then wriggled free, yipping for her breakfast.

“Not open for business yet,” Mel grumbled. She rolled onto her stomach and stuffed her head under her pillow. At least she had her brother’s four-tiered wedding cake done. But there was so much else to tackle.

Get out of bed this instant and don’t be a whiner, said her Inner Drill Sergeant. You’re lucky you get to play with ganache and fondant and don’t have to work in a coal mine.

God, she hated her Inner Drill Sergeant. Why couldn’t he strangle to death in a loop of her small intestine? Or fall into a pit of digestive acid?

Twenty minutes later, Mami had her heart’s desire out of a can, while Melinda sat at her breakfast table, deeply committed to smothering her Inner Drill Sergeant in pancakes, butter, syrup and bacon. Lots of bacon, crispy, the way she liked it.

She pictured the Sergeant being pelted by the mouthfuls of food as she swallowed them. “That’ll teach you to nag me about work ethic and calories and exercise,” she muttered.

But it didn’t shut him up, of course.

No, he just asked her nastily whether she was finished yet, or whether she wanted to add another thousand calories to her breakfast—a third of a pound. He told her she was a disgrace. He told her that she was fat …

Just like Franco Gutierrez had, last week, when she’d smacked him for snaking a hand down her pants and fondling her bare butt. She’d chased him out of her shop with a rolling pin, instead of compromising her ethics in order to keep his very large Java Joe’s account.

Gorda! He’d spat at her. Cow! This was followed by something filthy in Spanish. The implication was that she’d be lucky if he deigned to ‘do’ her. Who was she to turn him down?

But she had, and it was going to seriously hurt her in financial terms. Java Joe’s, a big café chain, supplied almost twenty-five percent of her income. How was she going to replace it? She couldn’t go to her aunt Kylie at Sol Trust again. Kylie had made her the initial bank loan for the startup after Mel had graduated from culinary school and hung out her shingle as a pastry chef, but her condo was at stake as collateral. And she had to generate enough income to pay all expenses, plus her mortgage, her bills and installments on the debt.

Mel stopped eating and dropped her fork. Then she pushed her plate away, leaned her head on her arms and wondered miserably why she could run a busy high-end bakery, but lacked the competence to run her own body in the way she knew she should.

She picked up Mark and Kendra’s engagement photo and found her eyes watering at Mark’s expression of pure love for his bride.

Amazing. He hadn’t looked like that when he’d painted Mel’s Barbie with Barbiecue sauce—ha, ha—and broiled her in Mom’s oven in her pageant gown and tiny rubber shoes; or when he and Pete Dale had buried Mel up to her neck in sand and kept her there on the beach for hours, only letting her drink from a plastic water-gun aimed at her mouth.

She shook her head as she thought about the teenaged Pete, about the huge crush she’d had on him back then. She’d turned bright red every time he came near her, and either stuttered or—on one horrifying occasion—burped convulsively when she tried to speak to him.

She hadn’t seen Pete in years, except for the brief sighting at that Dolphins’ game, but he’d be at the wedding, of course. She ignored the brief flutter of her pulse and stared at Mark’s engagement photo again.

Her brother certainly hadn’t worn that expression of tenderness when he and Pete had removed the ladder from the edge of the tree house, leaving her stranded long past dinnertime.

And what Kendra saw in him, she wasn’t entirely sure. But then again, Mel was his sister, and had grown up with him. She’d seen the crusty dishes, dirty clothes and hidden, gross girlie magazines in his boyhood room.

Melinda liked Kendra. She did. Kendra had a good heart, even though Mel didn’t know how there was room for it in that tiny chest cavity of hers.

She was happy for Mark.

So why did she feel like moping in a corner? She pondered that question, which she couldn’t seem to answer.

You’re afraid nobody will ever look at you the way Mark is looking at Kendra, supplied her Inner Drill Sergeant. And you know why you’re afraid of that? Because you’re fat!

Melinda reached for the plate of pancakes again.

My self-esteem is not dependent on my weight, Sarge. So what if I’m not a human twig? And besides, I don’t care what you say. You’re only a figment of my imagination.

But in spite of her tough retort, he’d gotten to her, as the voice behind years of subconscious programming by fashion magazines, television and movies. And his message was: you’re not desirable unless you’re thin.

Mel added more syrup to her plate and finished every bite of the pancakes. She only hoped she would fit into her bridesmaid’s dress on Saturday.

2

MELINDA EDGEWORTH HAD vanished—bridesmaid dress, pearls, up-do and all—and she hadn’t even had the courtesy to leave a glass slipper lying around as a clue to her whereabouts.

Pete hunted for Mel in the posh wedding crowd at Playa Bella, with no success. She’d disappeared faster than a Swedish meatball down the gullet of a guest.

He accounted for the other four bridesmaids, who were easy to spot in their matching turquoise gowns, but Melinda wasn’t among them.

Not a good sign. Pete frowned, recalling even through the fog of his continuing hangover what he’d promised Mark: to make sure his little sister had a good time at the wedding.

Mark and Kendra had tied the knot in a beautiful ceremony less than an hour ago. The photographer had rounded up all the groomsmen, including Pete, and taken a goofy shot of them admiring Kendra’s ring. Then he’d rounded up all the bridesmaids, including Melinda, and taken an equally goofy shot of them in a gaggle around Mark with the blue garter that was now, presumably, back around Kendra’s thigh.

After that, Melinda had gone missing.

Pete lurked outside the ladies’ room for a couple of minutes, with no luck. Then he tried dialing her room in the hotel, but nobody answered. Finally he dug another couple of ibuprofen out of his pocket, swallowed them dry, and ducked out the back doors.

It was like stepping into a postcard of sunset, sand and ocean waves. The Hotel Playa Bella was located, true to its name, on the beach—on a tiny private key in downtown Miami. That meant the beach, too, was private and open only to guests of Playa Bella. Since Pete worked there in account management, and was specifically in charge of new business development, he’d been able to cut Mark and Kendra quite a deal.

Pete put a hand up to his bleary eyes—God, what had possessed the groomsmen to do all those shots last night?—and looked out towards the water. Sure enough, he spotted a turquoise-draped figure with a brunette updo, walking in the sand with her shoes in her left hand.

“Mel?” Pete called, but he knew it was futile. No way could she hear him over the wind. He looked down at his shiny formal shoes, then back at the sand, and groaned. He sat down on a deck chair and untied his laces, slipped off the shoes and peeled off his socks. He rolled up his pants to his knees and headed after her.

The ocean breeze had picked up, and the force of it plastered his shirt to his chest as he approached her. It also did things to Melinda’s dress that he couldn’t help appreciating. The flimsy fabric clung to her curves like plastic wrap, and he got a very intimate look at her generously proportioned, sexy derriere.

It was wrong of him to look. Mel was Mark’s kid sister, the pudgy little girl that they’d buried to the neck in the sand, petrified with ghost stories and trapped in the old tree house when they’d stolen the ladder …

But look Pete did. And the closer he got, the more he liked what he saw. He hadn’t noticed her body at all during the rehearsal dinner—she’d worn something shapeless and forgettable—but the turquoise bridesmaid dress was also fitted at the waist, and more than a little snug in the bust area.

She seemed to sense his gaze on her, because as he approached she turned toward him, and he was faced with a heavenly eyeful of deep, shadowy cleavage. Her breasts strained against the fabric that confined them, and he himself strained mightily not to look at them.

He failed.

Her face became pink as she said, “Hi, Pete. What are you doing out here?”

Heat rose in his own face. “Looking for you.”

“Why?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I was going to ask you to dance.”

“Me?” Mel swung a champagne bottle out of the folds of her skirt and lifted it towards her lush, pink mouth as Pete raised his eyebrows. She drank, her lips kissing the bottle. He watched the liquid pour into her mouth from inside the dark green glass, the sight erotic as hell. His own mouth went dry.

Little sister. Mark. Again, he had to remind himself.

“What’s the matter, Pete?” she asked, throatily. “You’ve never seen a girl drink from the bottle before?”

“Uh,” he said stupidly, around a tongue that felt thick and woolly. “Would you like a glass?”

“No, thanks.” She smiled at him. “It would spoil my whole Barefoot Bohemian Bridesmaid thing.”

“Oh. I get it,” said Pete, who didn’t.

Yeah … that was another oddity. Melinda Edgeworth wasn’t at all bohemian. Not the sort of girl you’d find wandering a beach barefoot, slugging back booze from a bottle. And yet here she was. Looking like a whole lot of big, blue-eyed trouble, with her updo acting like voodoo on him.

For somehow, over the years, Mel’s freckles had faded and her huge blue eyes—he remembered, with shame, how they’d called her Bug-Eyes—now fit her lovely face.

“Want some?” Mel asked, extending the bottle to him.

Pete took it, touched his lips to where hers had just been, and drank. The wine was cold, dry and effervescent. He felt his hangover stir sleepily and pull the new alcohol over it like a blanket. Yeah, that was it: a little hair of the dog would cure everything … and he’d just drown this sudden, unwelcome and inappropriate lust of his for Melinda.

She walked a couple of paces ahead of him, then bent down to pick up a small sand dollar. The fabric of her dress molded, once again, to that curvy backside of hers, and if she wasn’t wearing a thong, then his name was Abraham Lincoln and not Peter S. Dale.

Pete barely restrained a groan.

Mel stood up with her prize and smiled. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? So amazing that nature can create something so perfect.”

He nodded and held out the champagne bottle, but almost dropped it when Melinda slipped the sand dollar into her cleavage. She took the bottle without noticing that he’d practically started drooling.

“That gives me an idea,” she said. “I’m going to make pies that look like sand dollars … and cookies that look like starfish. Maybe cakes shaped like fish, too. It’s a perfect theme for Miami.”

“How about suns and boats?” Pete suggested.

“Great idea.” Mel upended the champagne bottle again, drinking deeply. “I’m going to make it, Pete, no matter what anyone says.”

He drew his eyebrows together. “Of course you are. Why would anyone doubt that you’re going to be a success?”

Pete noted with alarm that a good three-quarters of the bottle was gone.

“You wouldn’t believe,” she said, after finally taking a breath, “how many demeaning comments I got while I was enrolled at the Culinary Institute.”

“What do you mean?”

“Pastry chef?” Mel mock-scoffed. “Oh-what-cute-cupcakes-you’ll-make-for-your-kids-one-day.” Up went the bottle again. Glug, glug.

Pete’s radar detected deep wounds hidden under Mel’s words and consumption of champagne. “Who said that to you?”

The wind had blown a stray lock of hair free and into her face. Mel attempted to blow it back into place, but failed. “My brother Mark, for one. And my dad asked me if I could really support myself by baking cakes and pies.”

Pete had been ready with a rejoinder about what a jerk the comment-maker was, but he shut his mouth. “I’m sure they don’t mean to be unsupportive.”

“Right,” she said. Glug.

“So what about your mom?”

“My mom doesn’t take it seriously either, but she does order lots of cakes for her friends’ birthdays and other occasions.”

Melinda was perilously close to finishing off the bottle of champagne. Her speech wasn’t slurred, but Pete noted that every time the tide came in, she leaned backward a little. And every time the water rushed away again, she leaned forward, unconsciously echoing its rhythms. Her face had begun to flush, too, because of the alcohol.

Pete deduced that she’d drunk the champagne very quickly, and that more of its effects were going to creep up and clobber her any moment now. Time for a little friendly interference. “Hey, Bug-Eyes,” he teased. “Give me some of that.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, but handed over the bottle. “I could have lived without being called that ever again, you know.”

Pete winked and gave her a friendly shrug. He took two large gulps and k.o.’d the champagne. Then he set the bottle in the sand and manfully restrained a belch.

“Do you know what a complex you and Mark gave me? I went crying to my parents and begged them to take me to the eye doctor so he could fix the problem! I had nightmares about becoming a fly—and no, I never saw the movie because I was afraid to.”

Pete struggled mightily to look sympathetic and suitably remorseful, but he burst out laughing instead. “I’m sorry,” he gasped.

To his relief, Mel began to laugh, too. “It’s not funny,” she exclaimed.

“Yes it is,” he said, backing away with his palms in the air in case she tried to smack him.

“Well, it wasn’t funny at the time!”

He got control over himself and tried to imagine how scary it would be to a six-year-old to wake up in the middle of the night, in the dark, terrified that she’d sprout several hairy insect legs and a pair of wings to go with her existing “bug eyes.”

Regret washed over him. “Mel, I’m truly sorry if we said anything to traumatize you back then. We were just a couple of dumb kids.”

“It was years ago,” she said dismissively. “Forget it.”

“Okay.”

She picked up the empty bottle and peered into it. “Hey! You drank all the champagne.”

Pete decided not to correct her, though he’d had approximately one-eighth of the bottle and she’d had the rest.

“That’s not very nice.”

“What can I say? I’m not a nice guy.” He grinned at her.

She frowned back. “Yes, you are. You weren’t always nice as a kid, but now you’re so nice that your picture’s next to the word in the dictionary.”

He found that he was mildly offended. “Not true.”

“It is, too. You took off your shoes and came all the way out here to talk to me.”

“I came to talk to you because I like you, not because I’m nice.”

“You said you wanted to dance with me.”

“Yeah …?”

“Well, that proves that you’re nice.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Pete said.

“Does too.”

“Does not.”

This was ridiculous—they were behaving like little kids.

“I wanted to dance with you because you’re a beautiful, sexy woman,” Pete told her.

Mel snorted and turned away. “Riiiight.”

He put a hand on her arm and tugged her back around to face him. “You are. What’s with the horse noise?”

Mel’s face, already flushed with alcohol, deepened a couple of shades. “Pete, I’m not one of Playa Bella’s high-roller clients. You don’t have to suck up to me.”

Stung, he opened his mouth to make an uncharacteristic retort. Then he saw the shimmer of tears in her eyes and stopped himself.

“I want some more champagne,” she said.

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”

“Not nearly.”

He shrugged. “Okay. I’ll get us some more in a minute. What’s got you so upset, Mel?”

“Nothing.”

“What’s Nothing’s last name? I’ll go beat him up for you,” he said teasingly.

“You’re going to coldcock my mother?”

Pete winced. “Okay, maybe not. So what did she do, honey?”

Mel expelled a long, quivering breath.

He waited for her to take another and blow that one out, too, staying quiet, not pressuring her to share. Pete knew how to listen. He was a pro. He listened to litanies of complaints from picky customers all day long. He then listened to staff complain about the complaints, as a matter of fact. So whatever Melinda had to say wasn’t going to faze him.

“My mother.” Mel laughed softly. “My stick-thin mother and her backhanded compliments …”

Uh-oh.

“She told me how lovely the cake looked—the wedding cake I did for Mark and Kendra. And in the same breath she said my life would be so different if I did something outside the ‘realm of temptation,’ the ‘calorie-rich’ environment of my bakery.”

Pete hissed in a breath. Ouch.

“Yeah, nice, huh?”

“It probably just came out wrong,” he said, trying to make her feel better.

She rounded on him. “Oh, so there’s a right way to say that?”

“Noooo, maybe not.”

“I’m really good at what I do! I’m proud of it!” Two angry tears overflowed Melinda’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

“Of course you are.” Pete wrapped his arms around her and tucked her head under his chin. He rubbed her back and tried very hard not to notice how good her hair smelled—like camellias—or how her breasts mounded solidly against his chest, or how his body reacted to her dangerous curves.