Red Velvet Revenge (29 page)

Angie hopped out of the van and hurried over to Mel. “Oh, in all of the excitement, I forgot to mention we won the bet by a cake pop.”

“No way!” Mel laughed and approached the Bubbas with her hand out. They both grudgingly shook her hand.

“Let it be noted,” Bob said, “that barbecue men are men of their word.”

“I think this color is picking up the red highlights in my beard,” Billy said, and gave Mel a charming curtsy.

She laughed. “You know, if you hadn’t sabotaged our freezers and defrosted all of our cupcakes, I wouldn’t have had to make cake pops out of them, and you may have won the bet. The cake pops really put us over the top.”

The Bubbas gave her a confused look. “We didn’t sabotage your truck.”

“Oh, come on,” Angie chimed in. “You can admit it; it’s cool. We won, so we won’t be mad.”

The Bubbas put their right hands over their hearts. “We’re telling the truth. On our smoker’s ability to turn out perfect brisket, we didn’t mess with your van.”

Mel and Angie exchanged a look as the Bubbas attended the line that had formed.

“So, it was just an accident?” Angie asked. “How crazy is that?”

“Almost as crazy as you being friends with Lily,” Mel said. “So what gives?”

“Lily likes girls,” Angie said in a low voice.

It took Mel a minute, and then she said, “Oh, so that’s why Tate…”

“Yeah,” Angie said. They both looked at their partner while he helped Joe, Marty, and Oz get the van ready for customers again. The Bubbas helped, too, and in no time the van was back in business.

“I broke up with Roach,” Angie said. Mel snapped her head in Angie’s direction. Angie turned and gave her a small smile. “Lily sort of made me see that I, well, you know. And no, I haven’t told Tate yet, but I will. I promise I will.”

“Wow.” Mel didn’t know what else to say. “How did he take it?”

“I don’t think it was entirely unexpected,” Angie said. “Now, what about you and Joe? Are you two okay? That had to be scary being carted off like that. I can’t imagine what Jake was thinking.”

“He wasn’t thinking. Jake popped Joe in the temple, and he was unconscious for most of it,” Mel said.

“Wow,” Angie said. “That had to be scary.”

“A little bit,” Mel agreed.

She thought back to the barn and the scuffling noise and then remembered Joe’s proposal. Had he meant it, or had he just been rocked from the shot he’d taken to the head? She didn’t know. She certainly didn’t think she could ask him. If he’d been deluded, that would be humiliating. She supposed she’d just have to wait and see.

“I don’t know about you,” Angie said, “but I think I’m
ready to go back to one hundred and fifteen degrees of normal.”

“I hear that,” Mel said. She looped her arm around Angie’s shoulders and gave her a half hug. “So, shall we set the Bubbas free?”

“Let me just get a pic on my phone,” Angie said. She snapped a quick one of the two men hanging out of the cupcake van holding cake pops, and together they ambled over to the van.

Mel looked up and saw Joe watching her. His gaze was warm, and she got a little dizzy at the impact of his grin. Was she always going to feel that way around Joe DeLaura? Somehow, she had a feeling she would. She grinned back at him and winked, and was pleased to see he looked as flustered as she felt. Maybe, if he asked again…well, maybe.

The Fairy Tale Cupcake crew spent the night and the next day packing up, saying good-bye to their new friends like Ruth and Delia and the Hazards in between their visits with the sheriff to give witness to everything they knew.

Mel asked Joe what the odds were that Jake would get off. He said he didn’t know, but given that he had produced the gun that Ty had had that night in the stable, and that it matched the type of gun used to shoot Slim, things were not as bleak for him as they could have been.

Mel tried not to think about how different Jake’s life
might have been if his grandparents had claimed him upon his mother’s death. Despite what he’d done, she couldn’t help but hope that he got a second chance.

When they were leaving, Mel decided to ride with Joe in his car. Even though they still had to get through Dead Man’s Curve, she found she really couldn’t face doing it in the van.

They were departing the rodeo grounds when a flash of pink caught her eye. Up ahead, parked on the side of the road, was Olivia Puckett’s bakery van.

“What is she doing here?” Mel asked Joe, as if he could possibly give her an answer.

Mel pulled out her phone and quickly dialed Angie. She answered on the first ring.

“We see her,” Angie said. Oz pulled the cupcake truck alongside Olivia’s van.

“What is she—?” Mel began but Angie cut her off, “Hey, Puckett, you’re a little out of your delivery area, aren’t you?”

“I’m on vacation,” Olivia yelled back. “You got a problem with that?”

“Yeah, I’ve got a problem with that,” Angie yelled. “Especially when you sabotage our van. It was you! You unplugged our freezers and defrosted all of our cupcakes.”

Olivia laughed and then sobered. “You can’t prove anything.”

Oz gunned the engine. Even from behind them, Mel could see Olivia grin.

“Oh, it’s on!” Marty’s voice came through her phone, and Mel gave Joe a look of alarm. He grabbed the phone
out of her hand and said, “Angie! Don’t do this! Do you hear me? Tate! Are you there?”

He dropped the phone in Mel’s lap. “They hung up.”

Mel glanced out the window just in time to see Oz and Olivia race down the dirt road.

“Idiots!” Joe said, and he stomped on the gas to follow.

They had gone only a half mile when there was a tremendous
bang
, and the pink van began to swerve. Olivia fought with the steering wheel but managed to get it to the side. A quick glance as they passed told Mel that she had managed to pop two tires.

She and Joe exchanged a look of relief, and then her phone rang.

“Did you see that?” Someone, it sounded like Tate, was yelling into the phone.

It was impossible to understand another word over all the whooping and cheering. “Apparently, they’re fine,” she said, and ended the call. “I can’t believe Olivia drove all the way up here to sabotage our van.”

“Really? Because she’d been so stable in the past?” Joe asked.

“Good point,” Mel said.

She sank back into her seat. Even dealing with Olivia’s kind of crazy felt more normal than the past few days, and although she had loved the gorgeous scenery and weather of northern Arizona, she was happy to be heading south.

“Let’s go home, Joe,” she said.

“We’re on our way, Cupcake,” he said.

Mel hadn’t planned on falling asleep, but the stress and pressure of the past few days had left her exhausted. Without
thinking about it, her eyelids drooped, and before they had even reached the grasslands, she was asleep.

A change in the sound of the engine eased Mel out of her slumber. She had wedged herself against the seat and the door, and her neck was stiff from being at an odd angle for so long.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“Just passed Payson,” Joe said.

Mel looked out the window to see that they were off the main road and on a dirt road that led into the desert. Joe drove a little ways down the road and pulled over. The sun was just setting, bathing the small canyon in front of them in a golden hue, a color that could only be found in nature. Mel gazed at it in awe.

“The brothers and I used to camp here. I thought it would be a good spot for us to stretch our legs,” he said.

“Good idea,” she said.

He shut off the engine, came around to her side of the car, and opened the door. Mel got out, grateful to stretch the kinks out of her legs and back. She paced a few steps down the deserted road and paused to glance up at the mountains in the distance.

The fireball of a summer sun slipped behind the ridge of the mountains and set the sky ablaze in the richest red she’d ever seen. She turned to point it out to Joe and saw him slowly sink to one knee.

“You never answered my question,” he said.

Mel felt her heart slow down, pounding through her body like a mallet on a gong.

The hot desert air scorched her skin as it swirled past them in a dust devil, taking stray leaves and Mel’s power of speech with it.

“I was telling you the truth in the barn when I said there was no one I’d rather be tied to for the rest of my life. It’s you, Melanie Cooper. It’s always been you. Will you marry me?”

Recipes

French Toast Cupcake

A vanilla cupcake with maple buttercream frosting and chopped bacon sprinkled on top.

Vanilla Cupcake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put paper liners in cupcake pan. In a large bowl, sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. With an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add vanilla. Add eggs, one at a time. Add oil and milk. Slowly add the flour mixture and mix until just combined. Fill the cupcake liners about ⅔ full. Bake about 18–22 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool completely before frosting.

Maple Buttercream

Cream together ½ cup shortening and ½ cup butter using an electric mixer. Add maple syrup. Gradually add powdered sugar and milk; beat until light and airy. Sprinkle with chopped bacon before frosting sets.

Vegan Chocolate Cupcake

A chocolate cupcake with a soy milk base and organic chocolate frosting.

Preheat oven to 350. Whisk together soy milk and vinegar in a large bowl and set aside until it curdles. Add the agave nectar, oil, vanilla extract, and almond extract to the soy milk mixture and beat until foamy. In another bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add to the wet ingredients and beat until no lumps remain. Pour into cupcake liners until they are ¾ of the way full. Bake 18–20 minutes until a knife inserted comes out clean. Cool on wire racks.

Vegan Chocolate Frosting