Babycakes Read online

  “I do know,” Franco said, his responding smile sweet with just a little sadness. “And thank you.” Then, swinging directly around to Kit, broad smile right back on his handsome face and his Bronx roots fully back in his voice, he asked, “What will it take for us to persuade you to jump the hunka hunka hunky uncle’s bones, sweetheart?”

  “Persuade me to have a . . . a fling with someone I don’t want? Why would you even do that?”

  “Oh, you want.” Dre, who didn’t so much as glance up from her own project, spoke for the first time. “I was there. I saw.”

  “Googly eyes,” Lani provided. “I saw them, too.”

  “Oh, for the love of—” Kit lifted her hands in utter defeat.

  “Googly eyes never lie,” Alva added, smiling with apparent remembered pleasure, then started humming “Teddy Bear.”

  Cornered, Kit’s gaze circled the room . . . and landed on Charlotte.

  Recognizing what she saw in Kit as desperation, Charlotte said, “There is the child to consider.”

  Kit pounced on her comment like the shamelessly desperate woman she was. “Exactly. Thank you.” To the room, she added, “Little Lilly has been through the worst kind of hell a child could imagine. I was in my early twenties when I lost my parents and it leveled me. Still does, from time to time.” Like pretty much every day for the past year.

  She would have given anything to have had her mother with her during the trial, even for a day. “I can only imagine how it must be affecting her. She doesn’t need her uncle complicating her life by introducing new people into it.”

  “Well, she’s meeting a lot of new people here on Sugarberry,” Lani offered. “It’s her new home, so that will only continue. Besides, I thought she was adorable.”

  “Awesome kid,” Dre said, remaining focused on her project, which was creating a series of sketches, rather than baking. Everyone who’d seen the apron she had made for Kit in honor of the upcoming Babycakes launch had so completely swooned over it Lani had asked Dre to find a way to work the elements into something that could be used for a store logo and other marketing for the mail-order shop, much as she had for the cupcakery.

  “She is a great kid,” Kit agreed. “I had fun with her, turtle coloring. She’s bright and sweet, smart, and clearly adores her uncle. But she’s still—”

  “She invited you to the rehab center to color with her,” Lani said. “Sounds like she’s the one reaching out to you.”

  “Yes, she did, and it’s great to see she’s doing that. For all that she looks like this tiny wisp of a thing, she’s strong, and the more people she has supporting her, the more it will help her adjust—”

  “Seems to me Morgan is also responsible for that,” Lani said. “I mean, bringing her here to Sugarberry and getting her away from Olivia Westlake showed he’s not afraid to take a stand, do what he thinks is right.” Lani expertly shot warm truffle filling into another row of dark chocolate cupcakes as she talked. “From what I understand, his mother is a pretty formidable force.”

  “To put it mildly,” Alva added. “Morgan is doing right by Miss Lilly, bringing her here, letting her get to know her maternal grandmother.”

  “How did that go, by the way?” Lani asked Alva.

  “It could have gone better. Birdie was moved to tears just getting to spend some time with that darling girl. Imagine, being kept from your only grandbaby. It was a might overwhelming for the little one and Birdie felt just awful for being too excited. Though you can hardly blame her.”

  “Well, they are here to stay, so there will be plenty of time,” Lani said. “I think it will work out eventually. It has to. Everyone who meets Lilly loves her.”

  “I agree,” Alva said. “Of course, all that said”—she cast a sly glance in Kit’s direction—“adults need adult time, too.”

  Kit merely sighed and gave up any hope of keeping the conversation off her pathetic social life. “It’s a good thing I already love you guys, you know.”

  “We nudge because we care, mi amor,” Franco said.

  Kit laughed. “If this is nudging, I’d hate to see outright pushing.”

  “You’re right about that.” Lani grinned. “I still have their collective boot marks on my backside.”

  “And look where that got you,” Franco said. “Blissfully married to a hot, handsome Brit.”

  Lani sighed dreamily. “He is that.”

  “We got Riley hooked up with Quinn, too,” Alva said. “And Charlotte—”

  “I took care of that one all by myself,” Charlotte corrected.

  “True,” Franco said.

  “Overachiever,” Lani added.

  Charlotte smiled. “I just waited until no one was looking.”

  “Making notes . . .” Kit murmured and everyone chuckled, then looked at her expectantly. She gave them all a level look. “It’s not going to happen. Not with Morgan, or anyone. Not right now. It’s good for Lilly to have supportive people in her life, but that’s not the same thing as having someone intimately involved with her uncle.”

  “Kids are more resilient than you think. Besides, love and support is never a bad thing, no matter how it’s packaged, or with whom.” Alva lifted a hand to stall Kit’s response. “But, if it’s not to be with Morgan, you might want to keep in mind the pickings get pretty slim. Sugarberry doesn’t have too many bachelors. Under the age of seventy, anyway.”

  “There’s Dylan,” Dre offered.

  “The mechanic?” Lani thought about it. “I guess. If you like brooding James Dean types.”

  “And the problem with that is . . .” Dre left her comment to trail off.

  “You interested in him, ma petite amie?” Franco wanted to know.

  “I don’t go for guys born more than a decade earlier than me,” Dre said dryly. Then paused in her drawing. “But, you know, if I did . . .” She surprised them all by smiling and wiggling her pierced eyebrows.

  “Well, sometimes age is just a number,” Kit offered.

  “Sometimes,” Dre said. “Not this time.”

  Kit waited for the inevitable prodding and nudging. But everyone went back to work. Apparently there would be no boot prints on Dre’s backside. Just on Kit’s. How fortunate for her.

  “Well, dear,” Alva said, a few moments later, “if you’re planning on rejecting Mr. Westlake’s advances, then I hope you don’t likewise reject any future overtures from Miss Lilly.”

  “Of course not,” Kit said. “I wasn’t that harsh about it. I just think, given everything that’s happened recently in both our lives, we’d be asking for trouble to even consider—”

  “So . . . you have considered it then,” Lani prodded, grinning unrepentantly.

  “I didn’t say that. But while we may not be rebounding from broken relationships, we are rebounding from some pretty major broken life events.”

  “I can think of worse ways to drown your sorrows than by having really hot sex,” Lani said.

  “And she would know,” Char offered.

  Kit let her chin drop and just shook her head.

  “That’s the best kind of trouble to get in,” Franco added.

  “I’m taking a pass on any kind of trouble for the time being. I’m sure Morgan and I will form a nice friendship. We already have. It’s a small island, after all. Plus, I still want to help out Dr. Gabe with the turtles, and I know Morgan is doing work for him, and Lilly is involved with them, too. If she asks to see me, I’ll say yes. I want to reinforce her reaching out like that.” Kit lifted a hand to stall their collective replies. “But that’s it. I mean it. So you can stop with the boots on the butt. I’ll jump when I’m ready, with whomever I’m ready for. Just not right now. And not with him.”

  “Him, I’d jump,” Dre offered casually, head still bent intently over her sketch pad. Everyone’s head turned as one toward her. Feeling the scrutiny, she looked up and her lips curved just a little. “Sometimes age is just a number.” When everyone continued to stare, she scowled. “What? I’m
twenty-two for God’s sake. Haven’t we had the sex talk already, moms and dad?”

  “Speaking of ze sexy talk, mon amie, whatever happened with that divine grad student you were seeing?” Franco slid closer and Dre got a lot more interested in her work.

  “Seeing, but not dating. He’s a friend.”

  “You always say that,” Lani said. “And yet, you go on about this active sex life—”

  Dre looked up. “Friend. And not the kind with benefits.”

  Franco pulled up a work stool and sat catty-corner to Dre, propped his elbows on the table and his chin in his hands. With a knowing smile, he leaned closer. “So . . . if he didn’t make the ‘with benefits’ list, I’m dying to know who did.”

  Dre sighed. “There is no list. At the moment.”

  Kit knew then she was a small, small person, because she didn’t feel a bit of remorse for being taken out of the hot white glare of the sex life chat.

  Lani executed another perfect row of cupcake filling shots. “Everyone has a list.”

  “You mean you used to have a list,” Charlotte said. “You’re married. The icky, gooey, googly-eyed-in-love-with-your-husband-forever kind of married. Give your sadly neglected list to someone else. It’s the charitable thing to do.”

  “Takes one to know one,” Lani shot back. “Just get Carlo to an altar somewhere already.”

  “Carlo and I are not icky, gooey. We actually show restraint.”

  Everyone in the room snorted at that, including Kit, who had worked with the lovebirds in the past and knew them to be quite capable of being exceedingly over the icky, gooey line.

  “Even when my Harold was alive, I had a list.” A wistful smile curved Alva’s bright red, lipsticked lips.

  Once again, as one, everyone turned to Alva with a mixed look of anticipation and possible dread at whatever she might say.

  “Really?” Lani bravely ventured.

  Alva placed a sugarcoated palm directly over her heart, half covering the head of the purple-maned My Little Pony on her apron. “Oh my, yes, dear. Harold and I had a deal. If Tab Hunter, Paul Newman, or that handsome, young Jimmy Stewart ever crossed my path and gave me so much as a wink and a smile . . . well, my Harold, bless his soul, would have understood. Some things a girl just doesn’t say no to.”

  Charlotte frowned. “You wouldn’t really have—”

  “Well, dear, now that they’ve all gone to their great reward, I suppose we’ll never know.” Alva smiled and the twinkle even Kit had come to recognize for the mischievous glint it was, made her faded blue eyes sparkle. “Now I have a new list. And no Harold.” She smiled as if reviewing the list and went back to work. “It could happen.”

  “I’m not asking.” Franco sent a look of warning around the room. “Some things are better not left to the imagination.”

  “Did Harold get a list?” Kit wanted to know.

  “Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, and Mitzi Gaynor.”

  “And?” Lani asked with an eyebrow wiggle.

  “Skunked, both of us,” Alva said with a light laugh.

  Everyone chuckled; then Lani said to Kit, “Oh, before I forget, I took those extra pillows and linens I told you about upstairs to the apartment earlier.”

  “Great, thanks. I appreciate that.” Since agreeing to take the job, Kit had been staying in the small, one-room apartment over the main bakery, which also doubled as a storage room for overflow store supplies. She’d thought she’d have more time to look around for a place to rent, but once she’d signed on, Lani had jumped straight into the new project like a kid with a new toy. Not that Kit could blame her. To have an idea and see it come to life was pretty exciting. She was well caught up in Babycakes, and just as dedicated to making it happen by their self-imposed deadline of the cookbook publication as Lani and Baxter were.

  What felt like all the time in the world would disappear sooner than they thought. The past few weeks had already gone by in a blur. Kit was thankful for the all-consuming focus a project of that scope demanded. It felt like a life preserver, one she was clinging to for all she was worth.

  She had to stay equally focused on the whole balance thing. She’d already talked to Dr. Gabe about volunteering through the holidays when a lot of his interns had family obligations. She’d figure out how to handle things when she bumped into Morgan again. She’d thoroughly enjoyed the coloring session with Lilly, despite the lingering sexual tension that had continued to sizzle in the air between her and Morgan Surely that would die down in time if she ignored it long enough.

  Surely.

  Fortunately, Lilly had been blissfully unaware of the adult undercurrents in the room, focused totally on her newfound love of turtles. Kit’s heart had melted when Lilly had introduced her to the rehab turtle she’d named Paddlefoot. Honestly, only someone with a heart of stone could spend time with Lilly and not be captivated by her. Oh-so-serious one moment, too quiet the next, shy at times, and quite direct at others, she’d smile like the little girl she was at something silly Morgan would say to her. Something he did often, Kit had noted. Perversely, it made the whole tension thing even thicker. Hunky uncle, indeed.

  But respecting his efforts and commitment to raising his niece was not going to sway her decision to remain uninvolved. She could adore Lilly, respect and like Morgan, and be turned on like crazy whenever she so much as thought of him, and still manage not to jump into bed with him. She really needed to stop thinking about that, and would, as soon as everyone stopped trying to nudge her there.

  “Whom will you be spending Thanksgiving with?” Alva asked.

  The question sent a direct ping to Kit’s heart, catching her off guard. The last one had been strained, as the court case had been just getting under way. They’d all still lived in the family home, then. This Thanksgiving would be the first holiday in her whole life spent anywhere but the family home.

  It was only when Charlotte answered that Kit realized she’d been lost in thought and missed part of the conversation.

  “We’re going back to New York to spend time with Carlo’s family.”

  “With the engagement ring on this time?” Lani asked, somewhat pointedly.

  “Yes,” Charlotte said, wiggling her hand, where a small but beautifully set antique diamond resided on her ring finger.

  “Good,” Lani stated. “It’s about time.”

  Kit had already heard the saga of Carlo’s extensive Cuban family having met Charlotte the previous fall and liking her a great deal . . . as long as she was only their beloved son’s business partner. Their enthusiasm had waned considerably when they’d found out this past summer that he’d actually proposed to her before meeting them. With a family heirloom ring, no less. One they hadn’t actually seen her wear yet.

  Charlotte sighed. “Yes, well, Carlo’s grandmother still has a curse on me, but his mother no longer refers to me as that woman.”

  Lani smiled dryly. “Progress, then.”

  “At this rate, I’ll be cleaved to their bosom . . . oh, sometime around my seventy-fifth birthday.”

  “What about your folks?” Alva asked. “Are they coming back this year?”

  “Of course not. Why would they when there is no wedding date? That’s fine. Once in nine years is all I can handle.”

  Kit also knew Charlotte had left Dubai at eighteen to come to the States to attend culinary school . . . and escape her parents’ control over every aspect of her life. To hear Alva tell it, Charlotte’s parents had planned out her entire future, including whom she would marry, the number of grandchildren she would bear them, how far apart they were to be born, and would have specified gender, and in what order, if they could have arranged that, too.

  The one thing Kit had learned from her short time with the Cupcake Club was that having family issues was apparently a lot more the norm than she would have guessed. Even Morgan could be included in the group.

  “Why not elope?” Kit asked.

  “We’d be universally disowned by both famili
es.”

  Privately Kit thought that didn’t sound like such a bad trade-off, but she of all people understood the complexities families represented.

  “I try not to think about it, but to be honest, it’s been over a year since the engagement and . . .” Charlotte, who was possibly the calmest person Kit had ever met, looked somewhat flustered and dropped her gaze to her engagement ring, prompting Franco to slide his stool almost the full length of the worktable from Dre, stopping it a fraction of an inch away from Char.

  He lifted her left hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it, then looked up with those heartbreaking eyes of his. “Ma cherie, just give me the word, and I will have them all killed.” He dropped the French accent and went straight back to the Bronx. “I have connections.”

  Charlotte laughed, even though her eyes were suspiciously glassy. And, yet again, Kit wondered why all the good ones were gay.

  “Thank you.” Char hugged Franco’s shoulders. “You guys are all the family I need.”

  “Maybe you should stay here for the holidays,” Alva suggested. “Start new traditions.” She clapped her hands together. “We should have our own holiday dinner together. I’ll host!”

  Lani opened her mouth, then closed it again, and appeared thoughtful.

  Charlotte shook her head, but there was a distinctly wistful look in her eyes. “Carlo’s family would definitely never forgive me if I kept him away.”

  “Sounds like he needs to grow a pair if you ask me,” Alva commented, sending them into snorts of laughter, Charlotte included.

  “You’re not necessarily alone in that opinion,” Charlotte said, “but their culture is very different, very matriarchal, especially in his family.”

  “Well, you’ll be the matriarch of the family you and Carlo begin . . . why not start your reign of rightful terror now?” Lani asked, a conspiratorial smile on her face. “Besides, I heard from Riley last night that she and Quinn will be back on the island the day before Thanksgiving.”

  Charlotte’s eyes lit up, and she appeared to waver.

  “At least think about it,” Lani asked.