On Any Given Sundae (15 page)

If she weren’t such a good girl, she’d
consider making a bargain with the devil to keep Rob here in
Wilmington Bay for a little longer. Then again, she probably
couldn’t hold his attention for more than another week or two, and
all she’d get in the end would be the pain of watching this
miraculous thing that’d happened between them dissolve and the
misery of seeing him fall for someone else—someone prettier and
more interesting—before taking off for good.

No. She’d make no bargains. No promises. No
vows. She wouldn’t let her hopes get all tangled up in this
astonishing relationship. She’d just enjoy it for however long it
lasted…and then let it go.

Yeah, right.

They worked side-by-side all morning, filling
orders and eating up that sundae and two others, before Nick ambled
in around noon. He wore dark sunglasses and hadn’t yet shaved for
the day.

“Hey, guys,” he said, his voice raspy.
“Gretchen called me and ordered me—I mean, she said I could find
you both here. I, um, look—I got really drunk last night, which I
think you know, so I’m sorry if I embarrassed you, Elizabeth, or
offended you, Rob, or did anything especially stupid because—”

“It’s okay,” she said, cutting him off.

Rob pretended to punch Nick in the gut.
“All’s forgiven. This time,” he said.

Nick looked more than mildly relieved but
also a tad confused. “You sure?”

“Yep,” Rob said.

“Oh, yeah,” she agreed.

“Okey-dokey—I mean, that’s good. Thanks.”
Nick slouched against the counter, his hands cradling his dark
head. “I’m gonna go back to bed then. I’m making my brother Jason
give me the day off, but I’ll be back at five-thirty for my first
shift.”

“Terrific.” Rob waved him toward the
door.

Nick took a few steps backward then scowled
at them. “Look, I know I’m majorly hung over right now, but is
there something going on here that I don’t know about?”

Rob rested his arm on Elizabeth’s shoulders
then pulled her in tight toward his to-die-for body. “Like what?”
he said to Nick.

“Like—I don’t know. I’m just getting a weird
vibe, but that’s probably crazy, right?”

“Right.” Rob turned Elizabeth to face him,
leaving not a millimeter of space between them. Every single bit of
her skin in connection with his tingled. He leaned in and kissed
her. A good, long, hard one.

Nick pulled off his dark glasses and squinted
at them. “What the hell? When did that happen?”

“Thanks for your help, Nick—I mean, your
apology,” Rob said with a broad grin. “You can go now.”

Her Greek buddy opened his mouth to speak
but, for once, closed it again. He smiled, saluted them and was out
the door before you could say “Spanakopita.”

Rob laughed and kissed her again.

“Promise me you’ll work every opening shift
with me this week,” he said when the coast was clear of both
friends and customers. “Please. I know you’ve still got a lot of
writing to do, but I love having you here beside me.”

Despite her vow not to make any promises,
there was no way she could refuse an appeal like that.

“You’re on,” she told him. “But I want a
promise from you, too.” She knew she couldn’t ask him to stay
beyond the date of their uncles’ return, but she felt pretty safe
with this one. “I-I want one of your specialty ice cream sundaes
every morning. With the works. Do I have your complete
consent?”

“You do.” Rob looked at her, something
intangible in his expression. “And you should know, this handsome
Italian-American businessman is a man of his word.”

Ah, yes. And a man of her dreams.

***

One hour and forty-seven minutes into their
Thursday morning shift, the phone rang.

Rob ran over to grab it, but he was too late.
Whoever called had hung up. He shrugged and returned his gaze to
tracing visual patterns on Elizabeth’s sexy legs. Oh, the things he
wanted to do to those legs…and to about two hundred of her other
body parts.

Ever since midnight on Sunday—hell, even
before that—he’d been crazed with wanting her, but they’d confined
their physical activities to making out, feeding each other ice
cream, making out, holding hands at his Mama’s house and making out
some more. Even Tony admitted to Rob in private that their
relationship sure didn’t look like a charade now.

Well, it wasn’t. The fact that it couldn’t
last the week didn’t make the bizarre sensations he was feeling any
less memorable. She was a phenomenal lady. And she was brilliant,
so it was better that she didn’t have him hanging around for long.
Her infatuation with his body would wear off soon enough.

Jacques had all but told him she’d only
accept true, long-lasting love before committing herself. “She’s
got high principles,” he said earlier in the week, his voice so icy
as to be almost threatening. “She won’t put up with shallowness or
weak promises.”

Rob didn’t argue with him, but Jacques made
it clear that even if he liked Rob well enough in the sweets shop,
he disapproved of Rob’s romantic connection to Elizabeth.

Gretchen, although basically supportive, eyed
him distrustfully when she thought he wouldn’t notice.

And Nick…well, he was still pretty
oblivious.

The phone rang again and, this time, Rob got
it.

“Hello? Tutti-Frutti,” he said.

“Roberto!”

“Uncle Pauly?”

“
Buon giorno!
How are you?”

“Good. Great. All is well. Tutti-Frutti is
doing just fine, although everyone in town misses you both. How has
your trip been going? How is Siegfried? What about Anita? And, oh,
do you have the details yet on when your flight comes in this
weekend?”

“Ah, Roberto, such a responsible boy you are.
We knew we made the best choice when we chose you and Elizabeth to
run the shop. Isn’t that right, Siegfried?”

Rob heard some words to the affirmative and
several delighted exclamations in German. An unidentifiable
something
in his uncle’s tone niggled at him, though.

“So, uh, your flight?” he asked again.

“Is little Elizabeth around there anywhere?”
Uncle Pauly said instead.

“Ah, yeah, sure.” She’d just finished with a
customer, so he motioned for her to come by him.

“Good, good,” Uncle Pauly said, somewhat
distractedly, Rob thought.

The two uncles were whispering back and forth
on the other end of the line and, when Elizabeth got to the phone,
Siegfried took over.

“
Liebling?”
Siegfried said to her.

She and Rob held the receiver so both could
hear. “Hi, Uncle Siegfried. We miss you. How is everything going
over there? Is Aunt Anita recovering?”

“
Wonderbar!
Yes, Anita is doing so
well, we are all very pleased. And Europe—being back in Germany
again—it’s a magnificent thing. There is nothing like home.”

This statement was followed by no less than
eleven straight long-distance minutes of description, on everything
from local landmarks to regional restaurant delicacies to friendly
visitors who came by to see Anita, with interjections by Uncle
Pauly on all things Italian, as gleaned from the European cable
channels and the occasional tourist.

During the uncles’ one-sided conversation,
Rob caught Elizabeth’s eye. Not one, but both of hers were open
wide and looking very green and worried.

So, she sensed something was up, too.
Terrific.

It finally came out about three minutes after
the Bavarian food report.

“So, we decided to stay on a little longer,”
Siegfried said cheerfully. “Since Anita’s health is improving
steadily, we thought we might take a little excursion to Italy, for
Pauly’s sake. So he, too, can enjoy a visit to his homeland. And
then we’ll return to check on your aunt again. Make sure she’s
still recovering.”

Neither Rob nor Elizabeth opened their
mouths.

“
Liebling?”

Uncle Pauly’s voice boomed over the line,
too. “Roberto?”

Elizabeth was the one who’d gained enough
composure to actually speak. “Uh-huh?”

Well, so it wasn’t exactly eloquent, but she
sure had one up on him. He couldn’t make a single damn sound.

“You said everything was going well,
Roberto,” his uncle said. “This is true, isn’t it?”

He managed a “Yeah,” but that was all.

“Okay, good. So, say hi to your Mama, and
we’ll see you both in early August then.”

“Maybe mid-August,” Siegfried corrected.

“W-W-What?” Elizabeth squeezed her eyes tight
and clenched the phone until her knuckles shown like hard
ridges.

“WHAT!” Rob yelled into the line a heartbeat
later.

“Oh, sorry,” Siegfried said. “The connection
must be getting bad. I said we’d be back in August sometime. Don’t
know the exact date yet, but Pauly and I will keep you both posted.
Thanks for all you’re doing. We’ll be in touch.”

“U-Uncle S-Siegfried!” Elizabeth said in the
loudest voice he’d ever heard her use.

“Oh, yes, I almost forgot. I love you, too,
Liebling.”

“Bye, Roberto!”

And then their crafty old uncles hung up on
them.

“Oh, bloody hell,” Elizabeth whispered.

His sentiments exactly.

CHAPTER NINE

Rob decided, from that moment forward, he
wasn’t going to let anything throw him.

He spent the next week making vows:

He’d deal with life in Wilmington Bay for as
long as he had to, knowing he’d get to leave as soon as the two
uncles returned. But, in the meantime, he’d…

Relax.

Be positive.

Enjoy what there was to enjoy.

And try to keep his emotions on an even keel
with Elizabeth. Just because they had a little more time together
than he’d thought, it didn’t mean the expected end wasn’t going to
happen. And so, he’d just have to find a way to liven up the summer
a little more. Distract them both a bit.

“Another customer headed up the walk,”
Jacques said, still using his frosty voice more often than not.

“I’ll get this one,” Rob told him. “Why don’t
you take a break from the counter and finish up the stuff you were
doing in the backroom with the lemon bars?”

The Frenchman muttered his agreement in a way
that was not exactly rude, but not exactly warm and fuzzy
either.

Rob missed the easy camaraderie he and the
other man had shared prior to him and Elizabeth going public with
their relationship. Now there was always something in the air
between him and Jacques. If Elizabeth hadn’t said she considered
Jacques simply a good friend, he’d have thought there’d been some
kind of romantic history between them.

“Hi, Rob,” one of the regulars said. “Can I
get a scoop of Vanilla Fudge Almond and one of Raspberry Burst in a
waffle cone please?”

“Coming right up,” Rob told the guy. “Want a
topping today? We’ve got nuts, sprinkles, chocolate chips, crushed
cookies…you name it.”

“Got any chocolate-covered raisins?”

He shook his head. “We don’t carry that one,
but it sounds like it’d be good.”

The man nodded vigorously. “Oh, it’s the
best. How about candy cane slivers? My wife loves that.”

He shook his head again. Man, by comparison,
their in-house toppings were starting to sound kind of boring.
“Sorry, but you’re giving me a lot of good ideas.”

“What about those candy-coated sugar rocks
that jump and pop around like fireworks in your mouth?”

“No, sorry.”

“Ah, I’ll just take my cone plain today,” the
guy said. “Maybe you’ll have some different selections soon and
I’ll give those a whirl.”

As the customer paid, the spark of an idea
began to take form in Rob’s mind. A way to add some needed
excitement to the coming week.

“Do you think,” he asked the man, “that other
people in town would be interested in being creative with their
toppings, too? That some of them have other unusual favorites?”

“Heck, yeah. You should meet my sister Leah.
She puts caramel apple slices on her ice cream. And her husband Cal
likes—and I’m serious about this—toasted blueberry waffles, cut up
into cubes, sprinkled on top of his ice-cream bowl like
croutons.”

Rob nodded. “Weird.”

“No kidding, but it ain’t bad tasting
either.”

“You think if we asked the good people of
Wilmington Bay to bring in a sample of their favorite ice cream
toppings, they’d do it?”

“Oh, absolutely.” The guy licked his cone and
waved farewell. “Sounds like good fun.”

“Hmm,” he said as he watched the man leave.
Fourth of July was coming up in a few days. People were always
milling around the shop. This might give them something new to talk
about. Kind of like a Treat Swap for the community.

He pulled out a huge piece of tag board from
the storage closet and grabbed a few markers. He stared at it and
tried to think of the best way to advertise the event. He was still
staring when a couple of teen girls came into the shop.

“Either of you any good at drawing?” he asked
them.

The tall blue-eyed one pointed at the short
brown-eyed one. “She’s awesome.”

He told them what he wanted to convey and
handed the art supplies over to them. “You each get a fudge brownie
and a double-dip ice cream cone on the house if you can figure out
how to make this sign look good.”

The girls hooted their delight and set to
work.

Ten minutes later, some high school guys
showed up.

“Hey, what’re they doing?” one of them asked
Rob, pointing to the teen artists, deep in concentration.

He told them.

“Got anything else you need done?” another
boy asked. “Fliers, maybe?”

“I’ve got a killer graphics system on my
computer,” the third boy said.

Rob grinned at the young entrepreneurs, gave
them the event information and a free ice cream sandwich each. “You
get another one when you come back with the fliers.”