Sugared (Misfit Brides #4) (11 page)

“Oh, Esme,” Trish said with a laugh, “you really
did
get hit hard.”

Ice washed through Josh’s veins, followed by a shot of fire.

Kimmie
was
like him. The him he’d been when he’d come to live with the Kincaids.

Nervous. Flighty. Unpredictable.

Emotionally scarred.

Dammit
.

“Get my mother an ambulance,” Josh said to the manager.

“Already on its way, sir.”

He pointed to Dad, then to Mom. “I’ll be back, and I expect both of you to be in one piece. Understood?”

Mom beamed at him. Dad nodded grimly.

Josh was wrong.

Wrong, wrong,
wrong
.

Kimmie wasn’t a weird, miniature version of her mother. She was the product of being raised by that horrific bully of a woman.

And Josh had done the same to Kimmie—intentionally—that foster care had done to him.

He’d made it worse.

He couldn’t solve the Marilyn problem, but he could solve the
Josh
problem.

As soon as he found her.

K
immie had done
some fairly reprehensible things in her life, but running away from the club after what she’d done to Esme had to be the worst.

It definitely topped the time she’d put curdled milk in her mother’s birthday cake when she was eight and mad about having to have cake lessons instead of ballet lessons. Or the time in high school when she’d lied and told Max Gregory that she’d dreamed he had three penises and none of them worked, instead of admitting that she’d dreamed he took her to the Kimmie-dream version of Homecoming.

But instead of being punished by the universe for her cowardice and general bad person-ness, Kimmie was trailing Lindsey into a private suite at Wrigley Field. “I shouldn’t be here,” she whispered.

“No, you shouldn’t,” Lindsey agreed. “You should be in Bliss, baking cake, without the stress of your mother insisting that you fix her bad business decisions.”

After Kimmie had run out of the fancy country club, she’d hidden behind a gas station outside the club’s entrance and called Lindsey for a getaway car. She’d wanted to go get her own car from Sweet Dreams and drive home—she’d let Esme drive her to the club—but Lindsey had taken one look at Kimmie and declared she needed an afternoon at the baseball game instead.

Being coddled was annoying. “You know what? Baking is a great plan. I’ll go call a cab, and I’ll—”

“Sit.”

Lindsey pulled Kimmie over the plush carpet to a high-top table overlooking the crowd on the first-base line. Will was on the other side of the room, surrounded by kids of all sizes and a few adults, guitar in his lap. He nodded to Lindsey and Kimmie, then resumed talking to the kids and strumming his guitar.

“New friends from his trip to the children’s hospital this morning,” Lindsey said. A glowy, in-love smile warmed her whole expression. “Some days, I don’t know what that man sees in me.”

Probably a woman who would do anything for the people she cared about, from quietly supporting Bliss as an outsider for years, to creating her own charity to help families in crisis, to braving Chicago traffic to rescue a mess of a friend when she would’ve rather been watching her fiancé sing the National Anthem at a baseball game. “I think he likes your smile,” Kimmie said.

Lindsey laughed. “Hush.” She held up two fingers to someone behind Kimmie, then switched effortlessly into shark-lawyer mode with a lifted brow. “You have thirty seconds to tell me anything you don’t want my dad to hear.”

“Your dad’s here?” Kimmie squeaked. “
Pumplegunker
. Does he know? About my mom? And her plan for him?”

“Twenty-eight seconds,” Lindsey murmured.

“I had a dream I was an antelope except I was dressed as a walrus, but I knew I was an antelope because I had a cave in Iowa. But my cousin was a walrus who knew a mermaid. He wrote me letters.”

“Kimmie.”

“I might’ve killed Josh’s mom,” Kimmie whispered.

Perhaps a little too loudly. Several guys nearby turned to stare. Kimmie recognized most of them from the BillyVision videos she watched every week.

“I probably didn’t,” she said quickly. “She was breathing and her eyes were open. And the ambulance had its lights on when it went past, but not the sirens, and they wouldn’t have done that if she was dead, right? Plus, Josh would’ve texted me or called to chew me out or called my mother or—”

“Kimmie,” Lindsey said again.

“I accidentally hit her with a tennis ball, and she dropped like a sack of flour, and then Josh yelled at me to go away, and so I… I did.”

Her eyeballs stung the way they had when she’d raced out of the country club and across the parking lot, looking for somewhere, anywhere, to get away from her mistakes. A flaming cake sat in her stomach. “I think he’s being nice to me because he wants to incorporate Heaven’s Bakery into the Sweet Dreams empire,” she whispered to Lindsey. “He wants cupcake recipes, and he was acting like Sweet Dreams was the next best thing to Hershey’s Chocolate World or Willy Wonka’s factory. Like he was trying to sell me on working there. Or like he was trying to sell me on all the reasons to take Heaven’s Bakery’s cupcakes or wedding cakes to a mass-production level.”

Lindsey’s brows crinkled, and her lips quirked to the side. “Your mother would never allow that. And while she’s not God, she could definitely stop him if you’re right. I don’t know the particulars of their contract, but it seems highly unlikely that it would give him that kind of power without her authorization.”

“Yes, but she’s not
actually
going to live to four hundred and seventy-eight before she deigns to take a trip to the great bakery in the sky. And he has plenty of money. Why else would he hang on to a little bakery in Bliss unless he had long-term plans for it?”

“Does Josh know she’s considering retirement?”

“I don’t know, but look at The Aisle. Everybody else our parents’ age is talking retirement. And
his
parents are in their late sixties. He’s smart, Lindsey. He looks and acts like Josh-o Suave, but he’s also super educated and he was uber-quick to turn everything upside down and make it smell like roses when I tried to embarrass him by pretending we were dating.
And
he stands up to my mother. He could do real damage in Bliss if he put his mind to it.”

“And he has the resources to bankrupt you with a court fight if your mother isn’t following every bit of their agreement to the letter.” Lindsey sighed. “You’re sure he wants to pull Heaven’s Bakery into Sweet Dreams?”

“No. But what else could he want?”

“No idea,” Lindsey murmured.

“I can’t let him take over Heaven’s Bakery. I can’t. But I don’t know how to stop him. I’ve been trying to Kimmie him to death, but it’s not working. Every time I throw something at him, he doubles it and throws it back. The next thing I’m throwing is my cookies, except I won’t be throwing them, I’ll be tossing them. I just want to bake cakes. In my family’s bakery. Is that wrong?”

Her phone buzzed.

She froze.

It was on vibrate. Every call, every text buzzed the same. But it was Josh.

She could sense it.

She pulled her phone from her pocket and did a one-eyed squint at the readout, both looking and not looking.

Yep. It was Josh.

I need to see you. Where are you?

“That him?” Lindsey asked.

Kimmie handed over her phone.

Lindsey frowned at it. “The person in me says you should let him know you’re okay, but the lawyer in me says you should wait for further contact until you know his mother’s okay.”

Kimmie dropped her head to the table. “Oh,
fugglemuffins
.”

Two distinct
plink
s sounded on the table.

Arthur stood at the side of the table in a Cubs jersey, jeans, and a warm smile. “Hi, there, Kimmie. Glad you could join us.”

“I had a dream that I was wearing legwarmers made of porcupines and walking the runway on The Aisle in a high school fashion show. I was playing the planet Saturn.”

Arthur patted her shoulder and slid into the empty seat at the table. “Great day for a ball game. Too bad Nat wouldn’t let Noah come.”

Groans erupted around them. The big-screen TV in the corner of the room showed a replay of a home run. Arthur clapped. “Go, Cubs, go!” He chuckled. “Can’t say I’m looking forward to having a Braves fan as a son-in-law, but these moments make it worthwhile.”

Lindsey returned Kimmie’s phone. “You got another text,” she said.

My mom’s worried about you
, Josh’s message said.

“Oh, thank the sugar gods,” Kimmie said. If his mom was coherent enough to worry about Kimmie, she was probably okay.

General Mom would string Kimmie’s beans at how horribly Kimmie was bungling her job of getting back the bakery, but at least Josh’s mom was okay.

Esme was nice. Mischievous, but nice. And motherly. Like the mythical mothers who baked cookies after school and who read their children Dr. Seuss stories instead of an ancient copy of
The Complete Confectioner, Pastry-Cook, and Baker
.

Kimmie’s phone vibrated again.

So am I
, Josh texted.

“Right,” Kimmie muttered. “Lemon-faced sugar-sinner.”

Arthur peered at her. His dark hair had considerably more white streaks since he’d become friends with Kimmie’s mother, but his brown eyes were sharp as ever. “I hope that’s not your new beau.”

“Wrong number.” Kimmie jammed her phone in her pocket, then reached for the lemonade Arthur had brought. It wasn’t a Kimmie colada, but then, Kimmie didn’t need help with the dreams she was sure to endure tonight. Especially if General Mom got wind of what Kimmie had done. “Who’s winning?”

“The Cubbies.”

“Early in the game yet,” one of Will’s crew said.

“Yeah, don’t get too comfortable,” another added.

“Aw, let him have the win,” a third said. “We still got the rings.”

A round of laughter erupted.

“Watch yourselves, boys,” Will said. “Ain’t the best tactic to insult a team on their turf.”

“Plus you’re poopy-heads,” one of the smaller kids said.

“See?” Will said. “Can’t have poopy-heads on my crew. Also, you’re offending my wife-to-be.”

“I’m not offended,” Lindsey said. “I’m plotting revenge. There’s a difference.”

“Technicalities, lawyer lady.”

Kimmie’s phone buzzed again, but she ignored it. This whole pretending-to-be-Josh’s-girlfriend thing was too stressful. She needed an afternoon off. Time and space to be herself with no expectations or deceit or games.

Except the baseball game.

She’d played softball for a few years in grade school, when Lindsey and Nat’s mom had volunteered to get her to practices.

Her face suddenly went hot.

She’d done nearly the same thing to Arthur then as she’d done to Esme today, except she’d hit Arthur decidedly lower. “I’m never playing sports again.”

“Never say never,” Lindsey said.

Usually Kimmie would agree, but not today.

She squirmed her way through the game. Lindsey offered to find her a slice of coconut cream pie, but Kimmie wasn’t hungry, and her right arm was starting to ache from all the tennis.

Lindsey steered the conversation to normal topics. Arthur kept a running commentary on the game and the players. By the end of the sixth inning, Kimmie had almost lost the urge to use the bathroom as an excuse to sneak out of the stadium and go home.

Random people associated with Billy Brenton stopped to talk to Lindsey occasionally, so Kimmie almost missed it when Bruno, the burly bouncer General Mom had introduced her to at the cakemageddon wedding, leaned in to whisper something to her friend, his gaze on Kimmie.

Lindsey coughed. “Excuse me?”

He whispered it again. Then both Bruno and Lindsey looked at Kimmie, Bruno with the same kind of suspicion he’d had when General Mom introduced them, Lindsey with the kind of contemplation that made Kimmie’s stomach flop like an interrupted soufflé. “Let him in, but tell Billy,” she said to Bruno, even though her gaze was firmly focused on Kimmie. “He’s been wanting to meet Kimmie’s
fiancé
.”

Kimmie bolted out of her chair.

Josh had found her, and he was taking their game to a new level.

“In fact, I’ve been wanting to meet Kimmie’s
fiancé
too,” Lindsey said.

“I have to pee,” Kimmie blurted.

“Any man who can talk his way past Wrigley Field security
and
make it far enough inside to talk to Will’s crew here will find you anywhere. Would you prefer that meeting happen in private or with your family here?”

Kimmie’s eyes had lemon juice in them, and her nose tickled like she’d inhaled sugar dust.
Family
.

Bliss was her family. Lindsey and Nat and Arthur were her family, even if Arthur never married General Mom.

They couldn’t solve the bakery problem, but they loved her.

The door opened, and Bruno gave Josh the eyeball of
I will enjoy squeezing you like a marshmallow if you displease me
.

Josh didn’t blink.

Instead, he walked in and swept a quick gaze about the room until his attention settled on Kimmie.

It took one step for his confident, arrogant Snack Cake Romeo swagger to appear. And while Kimmie had grown used to the determination and drive that always lurked in the square of his jaw and the focus in his brilliant blue eyes, now there was something deeper.

Something new.

And Kimmie didn’t know if it meant he’d added some chocolate to his potential, or if she was about to get squished.

She squared her shoulders—General Mom would’ve been proud—and marched up to him. She pointed to the nearest door and said, “There.”

He didn’t say a word, but he took her elbow and firmly steered her to the little side room.

The men’s room.

Almost appropriate.

Kimmie clenched her stomach muscles and tried to keep her breathing steady, even though her pulse was pinging around like a squirrel on a triple shot of espresso. “
Fiancée
?”

He backed her against a wall, his arms on either side of her, his broad shoulders and rich, earthy scent blocking out the world.

She gulped.

“
Fiancée
works much better for getting answers than
girlfriend
does. And I needed to find you.”

I needed you
.

Holy frosting buckets.

“H-how’s your mom?” she asked.

He muttered a word that would’ve earned Kimmie a week of dish duty if she said it in her mother’s kitchen, then pushed away and jammed a hand through his hair. “
My
mother is fine. But
your
mother—”

A muscle in his jaw ticked.

All of Kimmie’s secret places flared to life.

Whatever this was, it was… unexpected. Real.

Kimmie pushed herself flatter against the cool papered wall.

Josh pinned her with an intense, blue-flame gaze, and when he spoke, there was a command in his voice. “Fifty grand for five cupcake recipes.”

“No.”

The word slipped out on its own. But Kimmie didn’t want to take it back. She did want to fan herself, but she wouldn’t take back the
no
.