Sugared (Misfit Brides #4) (13 page)

Kimmie stabbed her pie. “My mother’s going to split my bananas.”

“Oh, no, honey, your secret’s safe with us,” Pepper said.

“
All
of your secrets,” Natalie agreed.

“No. No. You know what? Fuggle it.” Kimmie rapped her fork against her martini glass, then went up on her knees on her stool. “Excuse me, I have an announcement,” she called.

The room went considerably quieter.

“Kimmie,” Pepper said, “sit.”

“You really should,” Natalie added, but there wasn’t any conviction to it, and her brown eyes were sparkling.

“My mother sold half of Heaven’s Bakery to the Joshanova,” Kimmie said.

The Josha-
what
?

“Well, not to the Joshanova directly,” Kimmie announced, “but to her cousin Birdie, who was his housekeeper, and when Birdie cashed in her cupcakes, he inherited it, so my mother only owns half of Heaven’s Bakery.”

Silence rumbled through the bar.

Kimmie sucked in a loud breath. “It’s probably bigger news that—”

Natalie yanked on her arm. “Kimmie, one secret’s enough.”

She and Pepper both leaned in and whispered fast and furious.

“No glass-kicking,” Kimmie declared. She pushed her palms to her temples as though she had a headache. “There’s been enough violence already. I want—I just want to bake cakes.”

She drained the rest of her drink, and when she pulled the glass away from her lips, they puckered. “Uh-oh,” she said suddenly.

“What-oh?” Pepper said.

“I should go home.” Kimmie giggled. “There once was a lady from Nantucket,” she declared.

Josh slanted a look at her.

She clamped a hand over her mouth.

Natalie snapped at the bartender. “We need a to-go box for this pie.”

“Take the whole thing. Bring the pan back tomorrow.”

“What’s up with the lady from Nantucket?” Pepper said.

Natalie shushed her.

“She had a family of fleas who forgot to say please,” Kimmie said. “And she gave them all lemons to bucket.”

Natalie had her arm buried in her purse. “Crap, I can’t find my keys. I’m sorry, Kimmie. I’m trying—”

“Roses are red, violets are blue, if you like me, my mother’s coming for you,” Kimmie rattled.

Pepper was staring as though Kimmie had six heads and a unicorn horn.

Josh could appreciate that. This was odd.

Even for Kimmie.

Shit
. But a drunk Kimmie—

“Crap. I
cannot
find my keys,” Natalie said.

“Here. Take my car.” Pepper shoved a key ring at Natalie.

“Not necessary.” Josh stepped up to the bar. “I’ll take her.”

“
Fugglemuffins
,” Kimmie said. Her lips twitched. Up, then down, then up again. “Twinkle, twinkle, little bar, how I dreamed you’d be a car…”

“We’ve got her,” Natalie said to Josh.

“Obviously. Friends always let friends make spectacles of themselves in bars.” Josh took Kimmie’s elbow. “Kimmie, let’s go home.”

Her elbow wobbled as if it were drunk too. “Mary had a coconut pie, its cream was light as snow.”

“I’ve got her,” Natalie said to Josh. She dangled Pepper’s keys.

“How much have
you
had to drink?” Josh said. Pointedly.

“I can’t—ah, two sips.” Her cheeks went an odd pink. “I’m
fine
. I can drive her.”

“
Fine
and
rhyme
rhyme,” Kimmie said.

Jesus
. “Kimmie, who’s taking you home?” Josh said.

She blinked at him. “Joshes are red, Pepper’s a Blue, Arthur’s in the doghouse, and my mom hates you.”

“She’s a three-phase drunk,” Natalie said. “First the poetry, then the dancing, then she passes out. And we’re getting close to the dancing
.
”

“I’ll be on your taillights the whole way to Kimmie’s apartment,” Josh said.

“There once was a girl named Kimmie, who loved coconut like it was yummy,” Kimmie said. “She had a bad dream, and started to scream, but then she was saved by her Joshie.”

Natalie looked at Kimmie.

Then at Josh.

She did a quick silent conversation with Pepper that involved brow tilts, nose wiggles, and lip pursing before giving Josh another once-over. “You know what? If you’re up for this, then she’s all yours.”

“Hey, Joshie, you’re so fine, you’re so fine your sugar’s mine,” Kimmie chanted.

“Dancing next?” Josh said.

“Hurt her and die,” Nat said.

Josh bent and hefted Kimmie over his shoulder. “Not here to hurt her. I’m here to protect her.”

But so far, he was doing a crap job.

K
immie bolted upright with a gasp
. Darkness surrounded her, but she could still vividly see a casket in a bright, flowery room, feel the plush carpet beneath her feet, and see a bushy-haired, bushy-bearded blond man with sinister bat wings and fangs swooping over the chairs.

She dropped, heart thudding, scanning the darkness while a dull ache grew to a pounding at the base of her neck, craning to see the bat-man, straining to listen for the flap of wings.

The dark silence grew louder.

Home.

She was home. She blinked at the clock beside her bed. Three a.m. Boo and Peep shifted at her feet. All was quiet and normal and well.

Except for the dream.

She hadn’t had
that
dream since her early twenties. And knowing who—or what—the bushy-haired bat-man was gave her the willies in a way she never got from battling vampirates and llamaroos in her sleep.

Her better dreams usually came closer to dawn, but she was too wide awake to go back to sleep and hope for sugar moons and chocolate lakes. She was also afraid of the bat-dream repeating itself, so she swung her legs over the side of her bed and stumbled to the kitchen in the dark.

She needed the cure for a coconut hangover.

With the sink light on, she dug into her fridge for bacon, eggs, peppers, mushrooms, Gouda, butter, and onion. She washed her hands, then splashed water on her face, the images of her dream at the forefront of her brain.

Five minutes later, the vegetables were chopped, the bacon was cut into pieces and sizzling in the pan, eggs were beaten, and cheese was shredded. Boo was attacking a crumpled newspaper, and Peep had hidden in an empty overturned trash can. Kimmie’s dream was fading, but memories of how she’d gotten her coconut hangover—and what she’d done with a little rum in her system—were making her cheeks hot.

Josh had driven her home.

Nat had
let
him.

At least Kimmie had had the sense to lock herself in her bedroom and wait for him to go away once she’d gotten home.

“Smells good.”

“
Aack!
” Kimmie swung around, hot bacon grease flinging off her spatula.

Josh ducked, eyes trained on Kimmie. “Do you always eat breakfast in the middle of the night?”

Her heart was trying to flee her chest, and there he was, gorgeously handsome with his tousled hair, a white Blackhawks T-shirt outlining his pecs, and navy sweatpants slung low on his lean hips, acting as normal and unfazed as if they were having a picnic.

“I had a dream—” She stopped herself. “Thank you for bringing me home, but you didn’t have to stay.”

He didn’t answer, but instead propped himself in the doorway, one thumb hooked in his pants, watching her.

Something fluttered low in her belly. “I had a dream I was at my dad’s funeral, but instead of being dead, he was a zombie-bat.”

Kimmie was used to people smiling or laughing or giving her the
you’ve been sampling the special sugar again, haven’t you?
look when she shared her dreams.

Josh didn’t do any of those. He never
had
done any of those. “I used to dream I was on a mission to rescue my mom from the city hidden at the bottom of Lake Michigan,” he said. “I could only breathe until I started thinking about being underwater, and then I felt like I was drowning.”

Something else fluttered under her skin, something under her rib cage.

Everyone had dreams. And usually people shared one or two of theirs with her, but Josh—he wasn’t supposed to have dreams.

He wasn’t supposed to be human. Not in any likeable ways.

“You’re lucky to still have her,” Kimmie said.

“My first mom.”

Since the dawn of Josh coming into Kimmie’s life, he’d inspired many things. Lustful thoughts over his devilish handsomeness. Admirable thoughts over his ability to withstand General Mom’s orders and still continue breathing. Irate thoughts over his ability to mess with Kimmie’s life.

But the husky, vulnerable note in his sleepy voice coupled with what was possibly the most honest, open thing he’d ever said to her inspired a bone-deep need to hug him.

She gripped the spatula harder and concentrated on the frying pan. “Do you remember her?”

His hesitation hung thick in the kitchen while the bacon sizzled, and Kimmie had a flash of bat-zombie-Dad swooping through the water of Lake Michigan.

“Yes,” Josh finally said.

Oh, frogs and muffins, he sounded like a sad, lonely little boy.

Like he needed that hug. “I don’t remember my dad,” Kimmie blurted. “There are these fuzzy memories, but they could be sitting on Santa’s lap at the mall or my grandpa or my dreams, and I don’t know what’s real and what’s not. Everyone here knew him. They say he was a real people person. Everyone loved him. Even my mom.
Especially
my mom, I guess. They say she was totally different when he was alive. She took vacations with him, and she laughed, and she used to call me
Kimmie
too. She ran the bakery, of course, and they co-chaired Knot Festival and were in the Bridal Retailers Association together. Nat and Lindsey’s mom told me once that when my dad died, my mom didn’t know how to deal with the grief. She couldn’t control it, so she channeled it. And without anyone to temper her, she kinda… well. She sort of married Bliss itself. Sad, isn’t it?”

“She’s a rational, fully grown adult,” Josh said. “There are always options for dealing with grief. She chose poorly.”

Kimmie’s shoulders hitched. She knew Josh hated General Mom, but then, he’d hardly given her reason to appreciate him either. “Bliss has really grown under her leadership. We’ve gone from a thousand weddings a year to closer to five thousand. Knot Fest used to be locals only, but now, we fill up every hotel within a thirty-mile radius for a solid week. We sold out of tickets for the Husband Games last year, and this year, the Miss Flower Girl and Miss Junior Bridesmaid pageants are on track to raise twenty thousand dollars for charity. She can be a little hardheaded, and, erm, driven toward a goal, but she does solid work.”

“What’s she done for you?”

Kimmie pulled the bacon off the heat, then carefully scooped it out onto paper towels, grateful that he was showing his obnoxious side again. “She taught me to bake cake.” She slid him another look. “And to deal with difficult people.”

He pinched his lips and looked away.

As if Kimmie couldn’t deal with anything or anyone. “I might not be country club material, but I can out-sweet a caramel-coated coconut cupcake.”

“You
are
a cupcake.”

“Thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

“If you say so.” Being a
cupcake
generally helped her avoid most of General Mom’s wrath. And Kimmie didn’t have Lindsey or Nat or Pepper’s confidence, brains, or beauty, but she knew she was
nice
. And people liked nice.

People liked cupcakes.

She slid a pat of butter into the pan, then topped it with the two eggs she’d beaten. And when she snuck another glance at Josh, he seemed to be fighting a smile. His lips were twitching, but his brow held a crinkle.

“Do you always make breakfast after bad dreams?”

“After too much coconut.” She sprinkled the chopped veggies into the round egg mix, then added the Gouda and the crumbled bacon. “The bacon by itself usually works, but I’m hungry.” A double-strength Kimmie colada and the equivalent of a slice of coconut cream pie hadn’t exactly been a fortifying dinner. Leftover Chinese probably would’ve done the trick, but she couldn’t eat Chinese without rooting around for a leftover fortune cookie, and she definitely didn’t need any fortunes tonight.

“You go overboard on the coconut a lot?” Josh asked.

She shook her head.

He crossed the small space to stand beside her. He reached for a crumbled bacon piece that had escaped the omelet pan. “Why last night?”

“Felt like it.” She felt an odd sense of safety with him, but she didn’t feel a corresponding need to be stupid. He already thought General Mom was The Enemy, and while General Mom wasn’t a saint, Kimmie had said all she wanted to about her mother. Especially since thinking about her mother reminded her that the next doomsday was coming. Most likely around dawn. If not before.

Word would spread quickly about Kimmie’s announcement that General Mom didn’t own the whole bakery.

Furious
was too mild a word for what General Mom would be about having her secret exposed. She wasn’t big on having her mistakes aired in public, and not having enough flood insurance had been a big mistake.

Josh stood there, smelling like sleepy sin, staring at her, not saying a word.

She didn’t say anything else either.
That
was something else General Mom had taught her—how to withstand uncomfortable interrogation techniques.

He leaned closer into her space.

She refused to budge.

But that cupcake in her chest was bouncing on a trampoline again.

“The Joshanova?” he said.

His voice sent skitters over her skin. “It, erm, wasn’t a compliment.”

He chuckled.

And Heaven’s Bakery help her, that skittering on her skin went to all those delicious, secret places again.

The Josh Juan chuckle was not to be trifled with. Or souffléd with, for that matter.

She folded the omelet and clenched her belly against the fluttering. “You didn’t have to stay,” she said again.

“Promised your friends I’d take care of you.”

“Oh, promises mean something to you?”
Fugglemuffins
. That was rude. Kimmie didn’t like being rude.

“When it’s convenient,” he said.

There went those sugared-up toddlers bouncing in her belly again. She rarely felt
convenient
for anyone. Not outside the bakery.

It was odd. Not unwelcome, but not flattering either. She poked her omelet, then flipped it. “I’m sorry I woke you. You don’t have to stay up with me. I’m fine.”

He leaned closer, the warm skin of his arm brushing hers. “Getting hungry,” he said.

For a flash of a second, she thought he was talking about
her
. But that was as ridiculous as the idea of General Mom agreeing to Josh’s plan of Kimmie buying her out of the bakery. Still, her cheeks went as hot as bacon grease. “It appears there’s most of a coconut cream pie in the fridge. And leftover lo mein. Help yourself.”

She slid the omelet onto a clean plate, then forced herself to move at a relatively casual pace to grab a fork and leave the kitchen.

“Going back to bed?” he said.

Again, he said it smoothly and easily, no implications or insinuations about Kimmie and beds and his relation to either or both, but her belly flipped like her omelet. “I don’t need to keep you up. I’ll go read for a bit.”

“A bit or the rest of the night?”

Josh Kincaid was inspiring too many warm squishy feelings tonight. Because he wasn’t using that seductive Joshanova voice, and he wasn’t using his bedroom eyes to telegraph improper suggestions he didn’t really mean.

Instead, he almost seemed to be honestly asking if she’d be able to sleep after her dream.

As if he remembered being unable to sleep after
his
bad dreams, and he was asking, in his own way, if she were really okay.

One corner of his mouth hitched up, and a challenge sparked in his deep blue eyes. “Because if you’re staying up, I owe you payback for that Killer Bunnies game last weekend.”

She blinked at him.

“I had a flame thrower I didn’t get to use,” he added.

“I had a quadruple lucky clover and never roll anything less than five. The flame thrower wouldn’t have mattered.”

“Prove it.”

Had this conversation been with any other man, she would’ve asked him to run away to Vegas with her. Right then.

He stood up to her mother, he took her home after she overdosed on coconut, and he genuinely seemed interested in playing an offbeat, geeky game with her.

But he didn’t love her.

He didn’t even
like
her. And really, that spoke poorly about his personality.

“When I wipe the floor with you, you have to do my dishes,” Kimmie said.

“When I obliterate your bunnies and steal all your carrots, you have to make me an omelet.”

“You’re on. But you’re going to lose.”

He grinned. “Never say that to a street kid, Kimmie.”

“You’re not a street kid anymore. You’re a pampered snack cake heir.”

“Doesn’t that make it worse?”

She opened her mouth, then shut it.

He chuckled again and pushed off the counter. And when he passed her on his way to the living room, he tugged on her hair. “As I said, sugar. You’re going to lose.”

She would definitely lose
something
.

But it wouldn’t be the game.

B
y the time
Josh had pulled down the Killer Bunnies box, Kimmie’s color had evened out. She wasn’t flushed, nor was she pale as a ghost. She’d wolfed down half her omelet—which smelled almost as delicious as her cupcakes—and now she was cross-legged on her fuzzy rug in her pink cupcake shorts and a white tank top that left little to Josh’s imagination.

She was flighty and odd and unpredictable, but he couldn’t keep his gaze from the nipples poking at her shirt.

He should’ve been thinking about letting her win to get on her good side for when he brought up his business proposition again. But sometime in the last week, Kimmie Elias had shifted from being a goofball he could talk into giving up a few cupcake recipes to a girl who needed protection from a bully.

Josh wasn’t much of a superhero—he preferred being the guy selling leaks to plumbers, because that put a roof over his head and food on his table—but he knew bad dreams.

He knew bad parents.

He knew terror.

And he knew it was time he did for someone else what the Kincaids had done for him. Which was why he’d brought an overnight bag and told his dad he’d be late getting to the office on Monday.

He set the box on the floor, then opened it up and started pulling out the various cards. “I’m picking the winning carrot,” he informed Kimmie.