Sugared (Misfit Brides #4) (14 page)

Just because he intended to change her life didn’t mean he intended to let her know he was doing it for
her
benefit, not his.

She flashed him a wide, open smile. “Okay.”

He looked at the small cards printed with the goofy-looking carrot-people, then flipped them to check for markings.

“I don’t cheat,” Kimmie said.

“But you always end up with the winning carrot?”

“The cards like me. It balances the karma from my fortune cookies. It’s also why Mom won’t let me go to any of the bridal conventions in Vegas. She’s convinced I’ll end up in jail when I win too much money.”

She was utterly ridiculous.

And strangely cute.

“Yes, I’m sure I’m not adopted,” she said. “I get that a lot.”

“Didn’t say a thing.” Josh finished shuffling the carrot cards, slid one out of the middle without looking at it and put it on the bottom. Then he grabbed the massive deck of rainbow-colored cards and shuffled it too.

“I actually think it’s a compliment. Mostly.” She speared another bite of her omelet. “We play Killer Bunnies at Pepper’s house sometimes on Saturday nights. The single sons get really competitive, so I’m only invited a few times a year. They don’t like to always lose to me.”

“Single sons?”

“All the unmarried sons of the shop owners on The Aisle. I’m related to half of them. And my mother’s set me up on dates with the other half. But so far she hasn’t used her powers of mind control to make any of them marry me.”

Josh’s teeth clicked together. He grunted an answer. He didn’t have any illusions about all this marriage crap, but the idea of Kimmie being some kind of sacrifice to the marital altar to please her mother pissed him off.

Sure, she was odd, but she was also right—people liked her.

If Kimmie wanted the proverbial love that went with marriage, she deserved to find it. Despite her mother. Or maybe because of her mother.

She finished her omelet while he set up the rest of the game. The gray cat crawled into her lap and collapsed as though its bones had melted. The other one—the calico with the missing half-ear—sauntered into the room with a cottage cheese container on its head, sat down beside Kimmie and stared at Josh without blinking.

Guarding her.

Or contemplating eating Josh when its magic cottage cheese container hat granted the cat’s wish to be six feet tall.

Hard to tell with Kimmie’s cats.

He picked up his cards. Two bunnies, a couple of special cards, that nuclear warhead she’d launched last week, along with a stray asteroid and a new card called a Blown Trojan. He checked a grimace. “I’d offer ladies first, but I don’t entirely trust you in this game.”

She picked up her own cards and graced him with a bright Kimmie smile. “Go ahead. I don’t mind.”

The first few rounds went smoothly—they both had bunnies on the table, he deflected Kimmie’s food processor weapon attack, and one of her bunnies was taken out by a Terrible Misfortune. Something about lawn darts.

But instead of cussing like a sailor over losing a bunny, she giggled. “Did you ever play lawn darts? I did once, at a family reunion when we were still invited to family reunions, and then I had this crazy dream about riding a lawn dart through the air and trying not to pop the balloon animals, since we were on the same team against this giant blimp that was wearing my mom’s apron.”

Josh smoothed a hand over his lips. She really was like this all the time. And she was growing on him. “Have you ever looked into what your dreams mean?”

“I like my dreams. If I knew what they meant, I might not. This one time, I dreamed I was an intergalactic princess, and I was the nicest intergalactic princess in the universe, and my subjects loved me. Aliens and marsupials and humans alike. And that was really awesome. What if I looked up what that meant, and I discovered my dream was compensating for my subconscious knowing that nobody liked me in real life, when I’m pretty sure I’m a people person, and I like people liking me? That would be really depressing.”

“People like you,” Josh said.

She regarded him cautiously. “You don’t.”

That shouldn’t have hit him in the gut. He cared that he continued to deserve the Kincaids’ respect. He cared that he could count on Aiden. Whether the rest of the world thought he liked them or not didn’t matter.

He was a heel for making Kimmie Elias think he disliked her. “I’m unflavored cake batter,” he reminded her. “What do you expect?”

“You’ve actually been acting like a baked marble cupcake who still needs his frosting.” Her nose scrunched. “Is it my turn or your turn?”

“Mine.”

She thought he was becoming a better person.

Huh.

He flipped his card.

“Oh, look, you get to pick a carrot,” Kimmie said. “You should take Flo. She comes with a large prune Danish, which, let’s face it, is something Sweet Dreams would totally make, but if I make you feed your bunnies, she’ll cover you.”

He wasn’t sure what was weirder—the game or the fact that he actually understood everything Kimmie had said. “You don’t want that carrot for yourself?”

“It doesn’t matter how I play. I’ll still win.”

“Not if I have
all
the carrots.”

“You won’t.”

“Watch me.”

She laughed. “You’re cute when you’re wrong.”

And despite himself, he grinned. “Back at you, sugar.”

He finished his turn. Kimmie played another bunny, then drew from the stack. She made a face like she’d eaten garbage—eyes scrunched, tongue out, shoulders drawn up—and her whole body shook in a shudder. She flopped the card down almost as fast as she’d drawn it.

“Get roaches?” Josh deadpanned.

Those pretty blue eyes flew open wide even as shivers continued to visibly shake her body. “How did you know?”

It shouldn’t have been funny. But the laugh started deep in his stomach, and he couldn’t have stopped it if he’d wanted to.

“Seriously, how did you know? That card didn’t come up last week. I would’ve remembered. Josh Kincaid, have you been playing Killer Bunnies without me?”

He
didn’t
know the game had a roaches card. He didn’t know anyone else who dreamed about being an intergalactic princess. He’d never in his life spent time with a girl who thought he was a cupcake and who would be offended that he was cheating on her by playing Killer Bunnies with someone else. He held a hand up and shook his head.

“Well, you better hope you have some
Bug Off
in your hand, or my roaches are going to eat your bunny.”

She did another full-body shiver, eyes crossing, pink tongue hanging out, and Josh completely lost it.

It was nearly four in the morning, with no one else around but Kimmie, and he couldn’t stop laughing.

He laughed until his sides ached and his cheeks were sore and tears stung his eyes.

He was playing a game called Killer Bunnies with the whimsical, unpredictable, unsophisticated, crazy-in-a-fun-way Kimmie Elias. And he was having the best time of his whole fucking life.

He wiped his eyes, still smiling, and glanced up.

Kimmie’s cheeks were as red and jagged as he’d ever seen them, her mouth ajar, her eyes dark. She snapped her lips shut and made a show of loving on the cat in her lap. “You shouldn’t do that,” she said quietly.

Josh sobered immediately. “Kimmie, I wasn’t laughing at you. I was—”

“You shouldn’t laugh at all,” she said. “It’s very attractive on you.”

This time, he didn’t feel a hit to the gut.

This time, he felt a stirring further south.

“I’m tired,” she said quickly. She set the cat aside, stood, and cut a straight path toward her bedroom. The cottage cheese container cat darted after her, throwing off the container, which it then attacked with all the finesse he expected of the odd animal.

“Thank you,” Kimmie said. “For—for keeping me company. I think I can sleep now. And we have eight billion wedding cakes to deliver today, and six billion to prep for tomorrow, and cupcake season is seriously heating up with Knot Fest around the corner, and—anyway. Thanks. If you need an extra blanket, check the shelf in the laundry room.”

Josh leapt to his feet too. “Kimmie—”

Her door clicked shut.

Both cats were gone, the lights blazed, and her plate was still on the floor.

And Josh was ridiculously hard.

And even more ridiculously disappointed.

K
immie gasped
awake for the second time this morning, but this time, it wasn’t a dream.

It was her mother.

She was here.

Kimmie could
sense
it.

A distinctive knock rattled the pictures on her walls, and then—oh,
pumplegunker
—the ominous
click
of General Mom using her spare key reverberated throughout the entire building. Peep bolted from the foot of the bed to burrow under the covers and cower beneath Kimmie’s knees. Boo, on the other hand, pranced to the locked bedroom door and meowed at it.

“Kimberly Anne Elias, explain yourself,” General Mom boomed from the front of Kimmie’s apartment.

“I wasn’t aware wedding cake bakers needed the ability to shout loud enough to wake the dead,” Josh answered beyond Kimmie’s bedroom door.

Kimmie shrank under the covers. General Mom couldn’t get to her.

Probably.

And Josh was out there.

He wouldn’t let General Mom tear the door down.

Probably.

“
You
,” General Mom bellowed. “This is
your
fault.”

“Always glad to displease your grace,” Josh quipped.

Fugglemuffins
. If he wasn’t careful, General Mom wouldn’t need to use the door to get to Kimmie. She’d incinerate the walls with her eyeballs. The temperature in the apartment was already climbing to molten caramel levels.

Kimmie needed to diffuse the situation. She started to fly out of bed, but stopped.

This
was
Josh’s fault.

Maybe he should clean it up.

“I made it distinctly clear to you that your continued involvement in Heaven’s Bakery was contingent upon you honoring the
silent
part of my contract with Birdie for a
silent
partner,” General Mom said. “In
all
transactions. Including the existence of said contract.”

Kimmie flinched. She shouldn’t have gone to Suckers last night.

Now, she not only hadn’t gotten back Josh’s share of Heaven’s Bakery, but General Mom was poised to gut Kimmie’s pumpkins.

This would only get worse the longer Kimmie stalled.

But she couldn’t bring herself to move.

“Well?” General Mom said. “Explain yourself.”

“When’s the last time you let Kimmie take a vacation?” Josh’s voice was deadly calm.

In fact, it was as calm as General Mom’s deadly calm voice.

Uh-oh.

“And again on the
silent
part of our agreement, Mr. Kincaid.”

“Silent isn’t working for me anymore, Marilyn.”

Kimmie slid a hand out from under the covers and snatched her phone. Calling 9-1-1 was extreme when the clash of personalities in her living room wasn’t likely to
actually
cause the building to implode or suddenly burst into flames. But she needed to be prepared.

Footsteps of doom sounded on the carpet outside.

Peep whimpered and burrowed smaller beneath Kimmie’s knees.

Kimmie could appreciate that.

“Let. Her. Sleep.”

Josh’s voice had gone deeper and even more deadly. Kimmie’s belly fluttered.

“Kimberly made a poor decision last night, and while I fully hold you accountable for the inspiration for her actions, she has breached my confidence and needs to answer for herself before she will be allowed to return to my bakery.”

“Are you threatening to fire her?”

“If need be. My employees know the consequences of—”

“Of what, Marilyn? Crossing you? Displeasing you? Doing anything but cowering before you?”

The fluttering in Kimmie’s stomach turned to something more like a dozen burnt cupcakes having a fistfight.

She needed to go out there. She could calm General Mom. Perhaps not Josh, but an apology and a promise to wash dishes for a month and to never, ever break her mother’s confidence again would go a long way toward ensuring her apartment building stayed standing.

“Kimmie has the day off,” Josh said. “Paid. Tomorrow too. She’ll return to work on Monday morning for her normal shift, doing her normal job, and if she so much as winces once,
I
will end
your
involvement with Heaven’s Bakery.”

“You can’t—”

“If you honestly believed that, you wouldn’t be trying so hard to get rid of me.”

The walls were still standing. Nothing smelled of smoke. Or sulfur. A river of blood hadn’t flowed under Kimmie’s door.

Kimmie blinked back tears.

No man had ever demanded something for Kimmie from her mother before.

Josh was her hero.

He shouldn’t have been. He was standing up for her because he liked spitting tar in Mom’s cake batter, not because he cared about Kimmie. Because he had a vested interest in getting cupcake recipes from her, not because he truly valued her as a Heaven’s Bakery employee. And he wouldn’t be around on Monday, standing between Kimmie and her mother when Kimmie had to answer for her big mouth last night.

But she still felt warm and gooey. Almost
loved
. Like a warm fudge brownie at a chocoholics convention.

A door slammed.

Boo yowled. Peep stirred under Kimmie’s knees.

Silence permeated the apartment.

On shaky legs, Kimmie crept out of bed and peeked out of her room.

Josh rubbed his neck while he stared down at his phone, but he tilted a look at her.

There were dark smudges beneath his eyes and tight lines around the corners of his mouth. But something softened in his expression. “You okay?”

Kimmie’s heart melted like butter in a saucepan.

He wasn’t a plain marble cupcake. He was a full-flavored German chocolate cake with double coconut frosting, served with a side of homemade butter pecan ice cream. “I—thank you.”

He nodded.

Boo, in a rare show of normal, twirled at his feet, rubbing her face on his dark sweatpants, then swished her tail against his legs.

“Are we—” She swallowed. “Can we be friends?”

Something tightened in his chiseled jaw. He swept a gaze over her face, then lower, then back up.

He nodded again.

He broke eye contact to look at his phone, then tossed it on the couch.

She needed to make a phone call or two of her own. Warn Rosita to warn everyone else that General Mom would be in a mood. Promise to get in as soon as Josh left. Apologize for things coming to this. Maybe call a priest or a reverend or that nice Bruno in Billy’s crew for spiritual and bodily protection when she got to the bakery.

“Any good breakfast places around here?” Josh asked.

“They serve great waffles at the Johnny and June B&B. Usually you have to stay there to get breakfast, but I can call and see if there’s room for you this morning. They like me.”

Josh frowned at her.

“Not like
likes
me. Just like everyone likes me. They really do. Around here. They’re used to me, and—”

“Room for both of us,” he interrupted.

Kimmie slowly closed her mouth.

He was asking her to breakfast.

He turned away and grabbed a black duffel bag from beside the couch.

An overnight bag.

Josh had planned on staying.

Fluffernuggles.

“Whenever you’re ready,” he said. “I’m gonna grab a shower. Do
not
open your front door for anyone while I’m in the bathroom, or I will hunt you down and enlist the help of every last one of your friends to keep you here until your mother understands that she may not, under any circumstances, run your life for you anymore. Understand?”

She could handle General Mom—she had all her life—but there was something both scary and sweet about Josh’s protective side. She managed a nod.

“Good.” He headed toward the bathroom. “And figure out what you want to do with your day off. I’ll be disappointed if it’s boring.”

K
immie hadn’t been kidding
about the waffles at the ridiculously named B&B. They were so light and buttery, they deserved to be called something else. “These are better than Birdie’s, and she made some amazing waffles,” Josh told her.

“Oh, you don’t have to say that.”

Unlike the funny girl he’d played Killer Bunnies with in the middle of the night, this Kimmie was nervous and jumpy. Her eyes were too wide, and she kept sweeping glances about as if she were afraid her mother would appear out of thin air at any moment.

“It’s true.” He winked at her. “But Birdie’s lemon chiffon cake was better than yours.”

“Bite your tongue,” Natalie Blue suddenly said beside their table. “
No one
makes better cake than Kimmie.” She grinned at Kimmie. “Feeling okay this morning?”

Flames, Josh decided. Kimmie’s cheeks were sporting flames.

“A little mortified, but it’ll pass,” Kimmie said.

Natalie eyed Kimmie’s hand. “No ring yet?”

“The engagement was so s-sudden,” Kimmie stammered.

“Haven’t found the perfect diamond yet,” Josh said.

Given Kimmie’s honesty last night, Josh was surprised she hadn’t denied their engagement. But she hadn’t.

And he wouldn’t.

Not until Marilyn Elias had stepped down from Heaven’s Bakery and quit tormenting her daughter.

The cozy dining room was nearly empty. Natalie pulled a wicker-back chair to their linen-draped table. “Have you set a date?” she whispered. “I heard a Knot Fest bride canceled her wedding. They had the main courthouse gazebo booked for the wedding and the Rose and Dove for the reception. Thursday of Knot Fest.”

Kimmie’s eyes bulged at her friend. “My mother would spit vinegar if we took a spot from a tourist on the waiting list,” she said.

Huh. Making his fake future mother-in-law
spit vinegar
was appealing.

“Josh counts as a tourist,” Natalie said. “Especially if he brought enough people to fill the vacant rooms here.”

“How many rooms?” he asked.

Kimmie gaped at him.

Natalie’s smile went wider and more devilish. “Three, I heard.”

“Good number. My parents and best friend will each need one.”

“And so will you,” Natalie said. “Can’t have you staying with Kimmie the night before the wedding, now can we? That would be improper.”

“I had a dream I had to make a buffalo groom’s cake out of cotton balls and toads, and the toads wouldn’t stay still, and the cotton balls formed a country rock band that got more play than Billy Brenton.”

She was nuts. And the weird thing was, he honestly liked it. “Love your dreams, sugar,” he said.

She kicked him under the table.

Freaking adorable. Who knew?

“And will you be playing for Kimmie in the Husband Games?” Natalie said.

Hell. Kimmie wasn’t nuts. This town was. “The Husband Games?”

“It’s a
huge
tradition in Bliss for men to compete in the Husband Games, especially newlyweds. Think Olympics, but with domestic and romantic events instead of track and field and swimming. We pack the stands for it at the high school football stadium every year, and it’s usually the younger husbands who compete to be named Husband of the Year.”

No way in hell would Josh make a spectacle of himself at the ridiculous Husband Games. Who did that? Losers and whipped pussies.

And
married
men.

Josh stifled a shudder.

“Josh wants to take a honeymoon right away,” Kimmie blurted.

“And miss the Husband Games?” Natalie
tsk
ed. “Josh, seriously. Do you have any idea what it would mean to Kimmie if you played?”

“There’s always next year.” Kimmie’s shoulders hunched in.

“Love doesn’t have to be public to be real,” Josh said tightly.

Natalie’s smile turned sickeningly sweet and irritatingly calculated. “Oh, but I saw you at coronation last year. You brought
two
women as dates, if I recall. The paper put you on the front page. What will they say about poor Kimmie if you marry her two days before the Games and
don’t
play?”

“Nat,” Kimmie whispered.

Josh’s gut went tight. Forget the cupcakes. Aiden could get recipes from a food blogger. Right now, Josh needed to talk Kimmie into the best spin for how she was going to dump his ass so neither of them had to be tortured with talk of these idiotically sappy Husband Games again.

If Natalie wanted to prove he wasn’t the right man for Kimmie, she’d done a bang-up job.

“Just saying, everyone knows grooms do best their first year,” Natalie said. “And I’ll bet your mother’s head will explode when you win with a snack cake heir.”

“Can we not talk about the snack cakes?” Kimmie said. “It makes my stomach hurt.”

“Understandable. Those things taste like reheated sandpaper.”

“Sweet Dreams snack cakes aren’t meant to be heated,” Josh said.

“I know. And they still taste like reheated sandpaper.”

Kimmie giggled, but it was a fake, high-pitched thing.

“Are you two doing wedding planning today?” Natalie asked.

“Got that under control,” Josh said before Kimmie’s face could go even redder. He nudged her foot with his. “What should we do today, Kimmie? Bungee jump off that cake monument? Streak down The Aisle? Go skinny-dipping in the lake?”

“My husband has already done all three,” Natalie said.

“I saw most of them,” Kimmie added on a wince.

Natalie grinned. “You should take Kimmie miniature golfing. She loved it when we were little, but around here, we don’t get much play time.” She patted Josh on the shoulder. “I’ll let the host know you want her rooms. Make sure you put down a deposit by tonight, or she’ll give the rooms to someone else.”

She stood, bent to give Kimmie a quick hug and whispered something, then waved. “Gotta go. I have eight Knot Fest errands to run before noon.”

“Miniature golf?” Josh said to Kimmie after Natalie was gone.

She winced. “You don’t have to play babysitter all day. I’m sure you have better things to do.”

“Nope.”

“If this is about your plan—”

“If I wanted to talk business,” he said quietly, “we’d be talking business. But I’d rather spend a day with my friend.” With the end goal of accomplishing business for both of them and getting Kimmie out from her mother’s control at the same time.