Sugar Rush Read online

  “Okay, now you’re making that up. That’s Oliver Twist.”

  He shrugged, smiled. “I’m not that good a storyteller.”

  Her smile drooped. “Baxter, that’s ... that’s horrible.”

  “Which answers the question of why you don’t see that stuff in my bios anywhere.”

  “Actually, the gossip rags would eat that up with a spoon. I’m stunned they haven’t put it out there.”

  “They won’t, because I’ve never put it out there. No one from those days remembers me. No one will connect my childhood to me.”

  “I can’t believe that. You’re a pretty memorable guy, and as a child, I can only imagine the incorrigible charm factor worked twice as well in your favor.”

  “I was definitely incorrigible, aye, but there was very little charming about me in those days. I didn’t learn the value of a well-placed wink and a grin until I was a little older and started noticing the waitresses.”

  Leilani rolled her eyes, but she’d slowed down her steady beach march. She kept glancing over at him as they continued walking. “You don’t want to hear it, but I am sorry.”

  “For? You don’t get to pick your childhood. I’m not deeply scarred by it or anything. It was what it was, and it led me to the path that would become my passion. So, I can hardly complain about how I got there now, can I? Seems rather ungracious, don’t you think?”

  “I honestly don’t know what to think. But ... I’m glad you’ve put it in such a healthy perspective.”

  “We Dunnes—well, this Dunne, anyway—doesn’t believe much in wallowing, either. I took the positive, and ran with it.”

  She nodded, and smiled. “Well, that I definitely understand.” She glanced over at him. “Pretty amazing, though. A lot of kids would have crumbled under the weight of the situation.”

  “You do what you have to do. I wasn’t special. It was just survival and dumb luck. I can only take credit for not being stupid and throwing away the one chance I had.”

  “Did you know from the first kitchen you wanted to be a chef?”

  “My first goal was just to eat, but once I got going, I decided I wanted to go from scraping and washing dishes to being a line cook. Maybe, if I was really, really lucky, I’d become a sous chef one day. My dreams were focused, but small. And so was I. You know what kitchens are like. The ones I grew up in make any kitchen you’ve been in look like the Disneyland version of a chaotic kitchen. I didn’t have the physical presence as a ten, or even twelve-year-old lad, to take any kind of stand. I learned, growing up as I did, that it was better to keep your mouth shut if you wanted to stay fed.”

  “When did that change?” She motioned to him, head to toe. “Small of stature you’re definitely not. Quiet and shy are hard to fathom as well.”

  “I was never shy, simply careful. Seen and not heard was the better path. I was gaining height more rapidly by twelve, thirteen, but still scrawny and a little uncoordinated. Gangly, all arms and legs. No more than eight stone. It was around fourteen, I think, when I started filling out. Summer before I turned sixteen I grew four full inches in less than five months.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Indeed.”

  “I’m still trying to picture you in a fast kitchen as a ten-year-old. I can’t imagine having any child in a kitchen like that!”

  “I was never really a child, luv. By ten and three, I’d seen more than most do well into manhood. I just needed my body to catch up to what was inside my head.”

  “And when it did?”

  “I figured out that trying to be the toughest guy in a back alley kitchen didn’t make much sense.” He smiled. “Even Caroline Haxfield would have lost more than her ponytail in those places.”

  Lani gaped, then grinned. “That is so ... wrong. Funny, but wrong. So, what was your strategy, then?”

  His smile grew. “Well, I’d also figured out about that whole wink and a smile thing right around then. My height gave me a bit more advantage outside the kitchen than it did inside.”

  “Ah.”

  He chuckled. “Oh, ah, indeed.”

  She elbowed him for that, as they walked, but she was laughing, too.

  “I also figured out that in order to make sous chef, I had to find a kitchen where they actually used one.”

  She laughed. “So, where did you end up?”

  “Well, I made friends with a certain, um ... lady who was from a decidedly different part of London than I had ever been in.”

  Lani wiggled her eyebrows. “How ... salacious. Are we talking a Mrs. Robinson sort of deal?”

  He raised his hand, like an oath-taker. “I don’t kiss and tell. But she did help me work on getting rid of my EastEnder accent, polish me up a bit.”

  “She was your Henry Higgins then.”

  “She was an angel. To me, anyway.” Baxter smiled. “And a Henry, too. All rolled into one amazing package.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “I lost the glow of my youth, as it were, and she moved on to other ... friends.”

  “Ah,” was all Leilani said, but her tone was kindly, and compassionate. “I’m sorry. Was that hard? It must have been.”

  He lifted a shoulder. “It was simply what happened next. She was and will always be someone very special to me.”

  “Have you seen her? Since ... you know? I can imagine she’d be pretty proud of you. At least I hope that’s the kind of person she was.”

  “I’ve never met another person like her, that’s the truth. I tried to look her up, years later, but never was able to track her down. I wouldn’t be surprised if she wasn’t around to be tracked. She tackled life with passion, and was always rather fearless. At least that’s how I remember it.”

  “What did you do, after you parted ways?”

  “I’d discovered the joys of chocolate by then, and making sweet things, delectable things. Her father had been a candy maker and she definitely had a taste for sweets. I’d made it my mission to see to, um, all her needs ... so, I poured some of my burgeoning energies into developing my baking skills, but it quickly became my passion in earnest. I’d already switched from kitchens to pastry shops before we parted, learning as fast as I could. I stayed on that path. I knew that was where I was meant to be. I lived, ate, breathed, slept, and dreamed pastry.” He smiled, thinking perhaps he had at least one affectionate family memory after all. “And, at core, I have Emily to thank for that.”

  They walked for another several yards in silence, then Leilani elbowed him again.

  He glanced down at her. “What was that for?”

  “Nothing. Just—” She looked up at him, and the moonlight caught and highlighted the structure of her face, lending a sparkle to her eyes. “You’re a very gallant man. And a kind one. I don’t think anyone can teach that part.”

  “I—thank you.” He was caught off guard, by the sentiment, and the affection for him that colored it.

  He stopped then. She took another step before she realized it, and turned back. “Baxter?”

  “My real name is ... well, I don’t rightly know that, I suppose. But the one I was given by the sisters was Charlie Hingle.”

  She walked back to him, but there was no hint of amusement on her face, no teasing smile, just honest curiosity. “When did you change it?”

  “When? Well, I lied about it long before I made it legal.”

  “Why? Were you teased about it for some reason? It seems rather ... normal to me.”

  He lifted a shoulder, a hint of self-deprecation coloring his smile, and his response. “Maybe it wasn’t gallant enough.”

  She smiled at that. “Is that really why?”

  “No. I ... I don’t know why I lied the first time. I guess ... well, I guess when I found that first kitchen, when they let me come inside, I felt like ... I don’t know. Like I was my own person. Like it didn’t matter where I came from, or who I came from. I could be anyone I wanted to be.”

  “You just wanted the right to define yourself
, to choose who you were going to be,” she said.

  “That was exactly it.”

  “So, where did you come up with the name? Had you been thinking about it?”

  He shook his head. “They’d ask my name and I’d tell them the first thing that popped into my head. Nobody cared, but they had to call me something if they wanted me to work. It only mattered to me. I’m sure more than a few others working in those same kitchens weren’t using their real names. It wasn’t a particularly—shall we say—well-heeled part of town. Nobody poked into your business too closely.”

  “So, when did it become Baxter Dunne?”

  “Around the time I was working to lose my accent, posh myself up a bit.”

  She smiled more widely then. “So, did you come up with it? Or did ’enry ’iggins?”

  He smiled at that. “It was mine. Cobbled together from ones I’d used over the years.”

  “When did you make it legal?”

  “When I got my first real job, with an honest paycheck. Before, it had always been cash under the table, sometimes food, or a place to sleep. But when I had to fill out actual forms, I paused over the name. I couldn’t write in the real one. It had never felt real. It wasn’t me. So I put down Baxter Dunne, then when I got paid, I went and made it legal.”

  “A little backward, perhaps. And weren’t you still underage? That didn’t cause problems?”

  He shrugged. “It all got worked out.”

  She smiled. “Well, I can see how that whole thing might be a little complicated to include in your celebrity bio, but I’m still surprised no one ever ferreted it out.”

  Again, he lifted a shoulder. “There’s no one to know. Except me. And now, you. I’ve never told another living soul.”

  “Why? It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

  “No, and I’m not. But it’s mine, not for public consumption.”

  “What do you tell interviewers when they ask about your childhood?”

  “Just that I grew up hard and worked kitchens my whole life. It’s the truth. They don’t need the details.”

  She nodded, then looked up into his face. “Why tell me?”

  “Because we’ve been talking about me not knowing all there is to know about you. And you were sharing about your family, telling me about yourself. I guess I wanted you to know that it went both ways. You didn’t know me, either. And ... I wanted you to.”

  She paused for a moment, then nodded. “Fair enough.”

  “Does it matter? Now that you know?”

  “In what way do you mean?”

  “Does it change anything?”

  “I appreciate you telling me, sharing that with me. You know you can trust me with it. I won’t tell anyone. Not even Charlotte.”

  “That’s not what I mean. Does it change what you think of me?”

  “Of course not,” she said, without hesitation. “Why would it? I mean, it helps me to understand more about you, but, if anything, it just makes you more”—she paused—“it just makes you more. That’s all.”

  He lifted his hands, wanting to cup her moonlit face, wanting—needing, perhaps—to make contact in a more tactile way. He was feeling more connected to her in that moment than he’d ever been, and he wanted to ... engage all his senses. Sight ... smell ... sound. Touch.

  Taste.

  “Leilani ...”

  She looked up into his eyes, searching for what, he wasn’t quite sure.

  “Coming here, getting to know you ... it just makes you more, too. Do you understand?”

  “Baxter”—she took a small step back—“you conceded, remember? You said you knew, agreed even, that we can’t—”

  “That’s all I’m saying, Lei. That’s ... all I’m saying.” He curled his fingers into his palms, and dropped his hands back to his sides.

  She looked down at the sand between their bare feet. “We should be getting back. It’s late.” When she looked up, she was smiling, but whatever it was he’d been seeing her in eyes, almost from the moment she’d gotten into the car—that extra little sparkle—was gone.

  “Right. Right.” Too late. He didn’t regret telling her. Didn’t regret anything he’d said. But he did regret the loss of that spark.

  He turned and gestured for her to lead the way. As he watched her trudge quietly back down the beach, lost in her own thoughts, he found his drifting as well.

  He had always gone after what he wanted. Always. He believed if he worked hard enough, he could achieve any goal. It had been no small thing for him to admit that, where Leilani was concerned, he couldn’t get what he wanted. For once, no amount of hard work was going to achieve that particular goal. In the end, Leilani also deserved to have what she wanted, to achieve the goals she was working toward. And he didn’t fit into that picture. Nor could he make his goals dovetail with hers.

  He knew exactly what he wanted. All the parts of Leilani Trusdale—the parts he knew, the parts he’d yet to discover. He didn’t need to know another thing about her to know the absolute truth, the utter certainty of that want.

  But he had nothing to offer her that she wanted. She didn’t want his life.

  The question now was ... what kind of life was he going to have, going forward without her?

  Chapter 11

  Leilani punched her fist into the dough. “You should see it, Char.” She punched again. “My poor, adorable, cute little shop thwump it’s overrun, with cables, cameras, racks of lights, and thwump and strangers. Tromping all over it. Putting their hands—their stranger hands—all over my stuff.” She shuddered. Then punched the dough again.

  Charlotte gently elbowed her out of the way. “Killing our bread isn’t going to change that.”

  “I know, but it might keep me from kneading that guy who keeps pawing through my aprons.”

  Charlotte looked up. “Why on earth is anyone pawing through your aprons?”

  “The producer, Rosemary? Privately I call her Rosemary’s Baby if that gives you any clue. She’s five-foot-nothing, somewhere between the age of sixty and infinity, steel gray hair cut into a short, razor edge bob, steelier gray eyes, and thin lips that are always pursed. You know what I mean? She scares me. Anyway, she got wind of the fact that I wear some of my collectibles to work and she thought it would make a cute story angle for the show. But apparently I can’t be trusted to pick out my own aprons.” Lani folded her arms. “My shop is overrun with cables and wires, I have pawing strangers, and I’ve been reduced to a cute angle.” She air-quoted the last part with yeasty fingers. “Remind me again why I signed on for this?”

  “Community goodwill?” Charlotte pasted on a fake smile.

  “Right. I’d rather run for Miss Kiwanis and wear a bikini made of palm fronds. That’s goodwill.”

  “That’s ... just wrong. Come on, knead some dough, we’ll bake, it will smell good, we’ll eat too much, and trash men.” Charlotte patted Lani on the shoulder. “You’ll feel all better by morning.”

  “I have to go back there in the morning. Very early in the morning.”

  “You’re used to early mornings.”

  “Yes, when it’s just me, a very big cup of coffee, three hundred cupcakes that need me, and the theme from Hawaii 5-0 keeping us all company. That is an early morning I can live with.”

  Charlotte grabbed Lani’s fist before she could punch the dough again. “Wine. We need wine. Let me finish up here while you pour us each a glass.”

  “You can have a glass. I’m getting a straw.”

  “Whatever keeps you from committing harvest bread homicide works for me.”

  Lani wedged herself around behind Charlotte and got two glasses down, then pulled out a dusty wine bottle from the cupboard.

  “So,” Charlotte asked, “how many glasses of wine is it going to take before you spill the beans on your date last night?”

  “It wasn’t a date.” Lani yanked out the cork with a bit more force than absolutely necessary. “It was a business meeting.”

  “
I found your sandy shoes on the front porch and rolled up jeans in the laundry this morning. Sand in those, too.” She gave a quick wiggle of the eyebrows as Lani handed her a glass. “I like how you islanders do business.”

  “It wasn’t like that. And what are you doing in my laundry ?”

  “Hey, I woke up, you’d come and gone, and I’d already caught up on Iron Chef. I made cinnamon rolls, then needed something to occupy me until Tyler Florence. Ultimate cheesecakes today. Tyler. And cheesecake.” Charlotte took a moment, hand to chest, sighed. “It’s the closest I’ve been to multiple orgasms since February. Your pantry is organized now, too. By the way, what is up with the fifty pound bags of flour?”

  “I stole them from myself. I knew we’d bake and I figured I was giving Baxter my whole shop, so his crew could buy their own damn flour.” Lani sipped, sighed, and shuddered with great pleasure as the bittersweet bite of grape slid past her tongue and down her throat. “Maybe if I just take the rest of this bottle with me tomorrow, I’ll make it through.”

  Charlotte slid the bread into the oven, picked her wineglass up again, and leaned back against the counter as she sipped. “So ... is this really about the shop invasion?”

  “This?”

  Charlotte widened her eyes. “I’m not in New York on speakerphone, I’m standing right in front of you. With two perfectly functioning eyes in my head.”

  “This”—Lani lifted her glass, then downed the last sip—“is about the shop invasion. And it might also have a tiny little bit to do with the date.”

  “I thought you said it wasn’t a date.”

  “It wasn’t.” She poured another glass, but just swirled the wine around in the glass without taking another sip. Finally she looked up at Charlotte. “But I wanted it to be.” She let out a deep, shuddering sigh. “I really wanted it to be. There was a moment, toward the end, that I thought—” She shook her head.

  “Thought what?”