The Bakery Sisters (8 page)

“Look, I know it's bad, but it's not what you think.”

“Saying it didn't mean anything is not going to help you.”

“I'm not saying that. It's just I want you to know I'm sorry for how much this is hurting you.” His voice dropped.

Claire muted the television and tiptoed to her door. When she still couldn't hear anything, she opened it a tiny bit.

“I never wanted to hurt you,” Drew said.

Claire frowned. She was willing to admit she knew nothing about men and women and the complications of their relationships, but it seemed to her Drew was apologizing for the wrong thing. The problem wasn't that he'd hurt Nicole. The problem was he'd had sex with her sister.

Nicole seemed to agree with her. There was a loud crash, followed by a “Get out, you slimy bastard. Get out!”

Claire opened her door wider. If she had to, she was prepared to escort Drew out of the house. She wondered how he'd gotten in, then wondered if he still had a key. She would have to talk to Nicole about changing the locks. Before she could decide if she wanted to interfere, she heard more footsteps on the stairs. Who now?

Wyatt couldn't believe Drew had been stupid enough to show up here. There were some relationships that couldn't be fixed and his marriage to Nicole was one of them. There was no recovering from sleeping with Jesse. He couldn't figure out if Drew was too optimistic or just too stupid to know that for himself.

He climbed the stairs, only to come to a halt near the top when he saw Claire standing on the landing. She was speaking—at least he figured she was. Her lips were moving and there was probably sound, but he couldn't hear it. Not when every cell in his body had spun around to get a look at her wearing a baggy T-shirt and—he swore and prayed at the same time—nothing else.

Her face was washed clean of any makeup, her hair hung long and straight. She was barely covered to the tops of her thighs and he would bet every penny he had that she wasn't wearing a bra.

“He just showed up. I didn't know who he was, so I jumped him. I don't think the punctures are really deep. I don't actually care about him, but someone should look at those just in case. He could get an infection.”

He had no idea what she was talking about.

She took a step toward him. Yup, no bra. Worse, he could see the outline of her nipples pressing against the soft cotton.

Panties, he told himself. She had to be wearing panties. So that was something, right?

It wasn't enough as he imagined her in silk and lace and nothing else. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. Why her? That's all he wanted to know. He accepted that he had lousy taste in women, but why her? Why not someone reasonably intelligent and compassionate? Or just a regular person. Not the ice princess.

He moved past her and walked into Nicole's bedroom. Ignoring his stepbrother, he asked, “You okay?”

Nicole shook her head. “Get him out of here.”

“Sure.” Wyatt glanced at Drew. “You shouldn't have come. You—”

He stared at the deep puncture wounds on Drew's cheek and neck. “What happened?”

“Claire attacked him,” Nicole said. She sniffed, then gave both a sob and a laugh. “It was pretty impressive actually. She jumped him from behind and started hitting him with a shoe. They both went down. She got him in some kind of armlock, then stood with her foot on the back of his neck. I guess they take interesting classes at music school.”

Claire had attacked Drew to protect her sister? Who would have thought.

“She got me by surprise,” Drew said defensively. “I've been drinking. My reflexes aren't working right.”

Wyatt couldn't help grinning. “You were taken down by a girl?”

“Shut up.”

“I'd say make me, but we both know that's not going to happen. I doubt Claire weighs a hundred and forty pounds. Jeez, Drew, talk about embarrassing.” He grabbed his brother by the arm. “Come on. I'm taking you home. You can sleep it off.”

Drew pulled free of him. “I'm not leaving. I belong here. With Nicole. I love her.”

“You have a funny way of showing it,” Wyatt muttered. “Come on. Don't make me get Claire to beat you up again.”

“Get off me. At least I was willing to fight for my woman.”

Wyatt ignored the dig. Shanna hadn't been worth fighting for. “If you'd been faithful in the first place, you wouldn't have to fight.”

Drew glared at him, then stalked out into the hall. Wyatt watched to make sure he didn't go into Claire's room, then turned back to Nicole.

“You okay? One of his buddies told me he was drinking a lot tonight and talking about how much he missed you. He thought it was just talk, but I went by Drew's house to make sure he got home and he wasn't there. I came by and saw his truck in front.”

Nicole sagged back against the pillows. “I'm fine. He's an idiot and he won't even apologize for what he did. He's sorry he got caught, but I don't think he cares that he had sex with Jesse.” Tears filled her eyes. “I just can't believe it happened.”

Wyatt sat down next to her. “I know. He's too stupid to live.”

She nodded. “I don't love him anymore. I can't. But it still hurts.” She wiped her face with a tissue. “Thanks for coming by.”

“It sounds like the situation was under control.”

Nicole gave him a shaky smile. “She was an animal. I was impressed.”

“Drew will be humiliated for weeks. That should be worth something.”

“It is.”

He patted her arm, then stood. “I'll make sure he gets home in one piece.”

“Okay.”

“See you in the morning.”

He braced himself for the impact of seeing Claire again. She still hovered in the hallway, looking five kinds of sexy and practically naked. She was probably one of those women who claimed she had no idea what she did to a man, prancing around like that.

He hated the wanting that rushed through him, the heat and the need that made him feel primal and hungry. She was completely the wrong woman—not that he would ever be the right man.

Claire glanced past Wyatt toward her sister. She wished she and Nicole were talking so she could comfort her and maybe make what was a bad situation a little better.

“I need to talk to you,” he said, sounding almost angry.

She squared her shoulders. “I'm not sorry I hurt Drew.”

“Neither am I.”

“Oh. Okay. I thought you were mad at me or something.”

“I'm not mad.”

He stared at something over the top of her head. She turned but couldn't see what had captured his attention.

“It's about Amy,” he said. “My daughter.”

She folded her arms across her chest. “I know who Amy is.”

“Nicole looks after her a couple of days a week. After school. Just until I can get away from work. But with Nicole laid up and recovering, that hasn't been possible. I work construction, so Amy can't always be with me. Job sites aren't safe.”

Claire had no idea what he was talking about. Maybe he wanted her to drive Amy to her new babysitter.

“She likes you,” he said, sounding unhappy with the fact. “Would you be willing to watch her? It won't be for long. A week or so. I'll pay you.”

Claire blinked. Amy liked her? A happy warmth filled her body. “Really? She said she would like me to be her sitter?”

“Go figure,” he grumbled.

Amy liked her! Claire wanted to do a little happy dance right there on the landing. Finally, someone around here enjoyed her company.

“I like her, too,” she told Wyatt. “Of course I'll look after her. I'd be delighted. Just tell me when and where and I'll be there. You don't have to pay me. I'm happy to help.”

“Don't make this more than it is.”

“I won't.”

“You're grinning. It's weird.”

“I'm excited. It'll give me a chance to learn sign language.”

“There's nothing to be excited about. She's a kid. You watch her. End of story.”

Maybe for him, but this was the first positive thing to happen to her since she'd moved to Seattle.

“Starting tomorrow?” she asked.

He sighed heavily. “I'm going to regret this, aren't I?”

She held her happy dance inside. “Not even for a minute. Thank you, Wyatt.”

He grumbled something and left. Claire twirled to her room, went inside and fell on the bed.

This was a sign, she told herself. Things were turning around. Everything was going to work out great.

C
LAIRE WALKED
into the bakery at four-thirty the next morning. Sid saw her and started shaking his head.

“No.”

She ignored that. “I'm here to work.”

“We can't afford your help.”

“I did fine yesterday.”

“You had a breakdown.”

Claire didn't want to think about that. “I had a panic attack and I handled it. I helped out when you were in trouble. You owe me.”

“That's crap.”

She put her hands on her hips. “It's true and you know it. Plus, I'm Nicole's sister. This is a family bakery. I'm family. Put me to work.”

He glared at her. “Why do you want to be here?”

She thought of the line from
An Officer and A Gentleman.
Richard Gere's impassioned cry that he had nowhere else to go. “It's important. I'm offering you free labor. Why is that a problem?”

“Because two days ago, you ruined a batch of French bread. You're a pain in the ass.”

She winced. “The salt thing wasn't totally my fault.”

Sid glared at her.

She held up her hands. “Not that I won't accept my responsibility in the situation. Look, I'm just asking to help out. There must be something I can do.”

Despite the loud noise from the mixers and the hum of the ovens, she would swear she could hear his snort of impatience. Still, he didn't dismiss her again. Instead he yelled, “Phil, the princess is back.”

Phil, a tall, thin man, stuck his head out from behind a stack of racks. “Tell her to stay away from me.”

“I was thinking she could do the sprinkles.”

“What?”

Sid jabbed his finger at her. “Don't screw up.”

“Words to live by. I won't. I swear.”

Sid looked unconvinced as he walked away.

Claire turned to Phil and gave him her best smile. He glowered. “Come on.”

She trailed after him, weaving through narrow walkways, avoiding contact with any equipment. They came to a stop in front of a slow-moving conveyor belt.

“The sprinkle attachment is broken,” Phil said as he handed her a hairnet and gloves. “You're going to put on sprinkles by hand. Not too many, not too few. You got that, Goldilocks?”

She nodded, wishing she knew how many were the right amount.

“That's what you're wearing?” he asked.

She glanced down at her black wool slacks and knit sweater, then nodded.

He muttered something, passed her what looked like a giant salt shaker, then hit a button on the conveyor belt so it started moving again.

Chocolate-covered doughnuts inched toward her.

“Sprinkle,” Phil said.

She hated that she wasn't dressed right and found his disapproving attention unnerving. Worse, when she upended the shaker over the first doughnut, about a pound of sprinkles tumbled out.

“Just great,” he muttered.

“I'll get it,” she said, trying not to sound defensive.

“It's sprinkles. There shouldn't be a learning curve.” With that, he left.

Claire quickly learned the right angle for the shaker and began to cover all the doughnuts evenly. Chocolate iced changed to white iced and she kept sprinkling. When her right arm got tired, she switched to her left, then back.

Thirty minutes later, both her arms burned and trembled, but she didn't stop until Phil reappeared and switched off the conveyor belt.

“Muffins on trays,” he said by way of explanation and started walking.

She put down the sprinkler shaker and followed him.

They stopped in front of racks and racks of huge, warm, steaming muffins. Her mouth began to water.

Phil pointed from the muffins to big empty trays that would fit in the display case. “Keep the same kind on the same tray. Fill the trays. Got that?”

She nodded and went to work.

After muffin duty, she dumped dozens and dozens of bagels into bins. At six-thirty, she ducked out of the bakery and drove back to the house. She made coffee, then carried it upstairs with two fresh muffins.

Nicole was still asleep. Claire crept into the room, put everything on her nightstand, then tiptoed out. She was back at the bakery by seven-fifteen and put to work shoving loaves of bread into plastic bags.

 

N
ICOLE WOKE
and rolled over. It took her a second to realize the smell of coffee wasn't just her imagination, and that next to the carafe was a plate with fresh muffins. Muffins that could only have come from the bakery.

It was barely seven-thirty, which meant Claire had gotten up early, driven to the bakery, picked up the muffins and driven back. Perhaps not a big deal for anyone else, but for the piano princess? Actual work?

Nicole sat up slowly, holding in a groan as the movement pulled at her incision. She ached, which was how she started each day lately. She knew she was healing, but the process was a whole lot longer than she wanted it to be. There were—

Memories from the previous night crashed in on her. The fight with Claire, what she, Nicole, had yelled at her, Drew showing up, Claire attacking him.

Her sister had been possessed, leaping on his back and swinging that high heel like a knife. She'd managed to wrestle Drew to the ground, which was damned impressive. Claire had protected her, even after everything that had been said.

Nicole reached for the carafe and poured herself a cup of coffee, then sipped the hot liquid.

Claire was like one of those puppies that just kept coming after you, no matter how many times you told it to go away. Except Claire wasn't a puppy and Nicole hadn't told her to go away—she'd told her she wished she were dead.

“A pretty horrible thing to say,” she murmured to herself. Worse, she'd meant it at the time. Not yesterday, but twelve years ago, when their mother had died, she'd really wanted Claire to take her place.

It shouldn't have been like that, she thought sadly. It should have been different. She and Claire had been so close when they were little. Like most twins, they knew what the other one was thinking. They'd been there for each other. Then one day Claire left and Nicole had felt as though someone had cut off her arm.

She'd spent weeks crying, wandering from room to room thinking that maybe if she kept looking hard enough, she would find her sister. But Claire had been really gone—probably lapping up her new princess life, she thought bitterly.

Familiar anger filled her—resentment for all Claire had experienced, annoyance that she, Nicole, cared. Genuine rage for being stuck behind to take care of everything.

Then she sipped the coffee again, coffee Claire had made and brought. Okay, maybe it wasn't the beginning of world peace, but Claire was making an effort. She could have left the first time Nicole told her to. But she hadn't. She'd hung in and kept trying.

With anyone else, she would have assumed that had to mean something. But with Claire…Nicole couldn't figure out if all this was a game or not. But maybe, just maybe, it was time to stop assuming the worst.

Shortly after noon, Claire climbed the stairs. She knocked on Nicole's open door, then stepped in.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“A little better.”

“Good.”

“Thanks for bringing me the coffee and the muffins. They were good.”

Claire beamed. “You're welcome. I was happy to do it.”

About a thousand sarcastic comments exploded in Nicole's brain. They were coming so fast, she would have trouble picking one. She remembered what had happened yesterday, what she'd said and what Claire had done and vowed to try not to be such a bitch.

“You got up early.”

Claire eased into the chair by the bed. “I was at the bakery at four-thirty. Sid nearly had a heart attack. I promised I wouldn't screw up. I told him I just wanted to help. He didn't believe me at first, but then he put me to work. I did the sprinkles and sorted bagels and that kind of stuff.”

Idiot work, Nicole thought. Where the new kid always started. “Kid” being the key word.

“Why would you do that?” she asked. “Get up that early, go down there and do the crappy jobs?”

Claire frowned. “Because this is a family business and you can't go there yourself. I know I can't fill in for you specifically, but I can free up someone else to do what's important.”

The words made sense, but in this context they were way confusing. “You're a famous concert pianist. You probably make millions a year. Why do you care about the bakery?”

Claire stared at her as if she wasn't all that bright. “You're my sister. Of course I care.”

After everything that had happened. After all that had been said. For the first time in a long time…maybe ever…Nicole felt very, very small.

“Look, I—” She pressed her lips together. Apologizing wasn't her best skill. “About last night. What I said.” She sighed. “I'm sorry.”

Claire nodded. “I know. I'm sure I'd say the same thing in your position.”

Somehow Nicole doubted that.

“It's okay,” Claire added.

Nicole didn't believe that, either. But she'd apologized and now she would try to be nicer.

“The bakery is really interesting,” Claire said. “Everything happens so fast. All those products. Sid made me stay away from the chocolate cake, but I saw a few of them coming out of the oven.”

“The famous Keyes Chocolate cake,” Nicole grumbled. “It's a moneymaker.”

The recipe had been a family secret for generations, and a local Seattle favorite. In the 1980s, a local politician looking to make a good impression had delivered one to President Reagan. It had been served at a White House dinner where the president had declared it better than jelly beans.

Three years ago, Nicole had received a call from one of Oprah's producers, saying the cake would be featured on the show. Nicole had hired a company to handle the influx of calls, braced her employees for eighteen-hour shifts and flown to Chicago with high expectations.

Oprah had been lovely and had gushed about the cake for all of eight seconds, before shifting the conversation to Claire and a performance the talk show queen had seen just weeks before. There had been a brief flurry of orders, followed by nothing.

“I don't know how you do it,” Claire said earnestly. “Run the business. It's a lot of work. How do you know how many doughnuts and bagels to make, and what kind? All those people working for you must be tough, too. I only have to deal with Lisa and sometimes that's a problem.”

“We know what sells,” Nicole said, ignoring the need to snap at her. “We have years of history to look at.”

“But you run a very successful business.”

Nicole shrugged. “I've been doing it for years. I started helping out when I was a kid. By the time I was in high school, I was handling most of it. I took over everything a couple of years later.”

Her father had never been interested in the bakery. He'd done it out of obligation. But Nicole actually enjoyed her work.

“I couldn't have done it,” Claire said. “I don't have any business sense.”

“You don't have any practice,” Nicole pointed out. “Things would have been different if you'd stayed.”

Claire bit her lip. “I'm sorry I left.”

Nicole had the sense of being sucked into a conversation she didn't want to have. “You were six,” she said grudgingly. “It's not like you had a choice.”

“But you got stuck with everything here. The bakery, being on your own, Jesse.”

“I screwed up that last one for sure,” Nicole muttered, trying not to fall into the painful combination of betrayal, anger and hurt that always filled her when she thought about Jesse and Drew.

“I'm sorry about that.”

“How'd you find out?” Nicole couldn't imagine Wyatt talking about it.

“Jesse told me. She stopped by a couple of days ago. She's the one who called me to ask me to come help out.” Claire's mouth twisted. “I don't understand how she could have done that.”

“Me, either,” Nicole said, hating that she wanted to ask how Jesse was. Did she actually miss her? After what she'd done? Impossible. “Let's change the subject.”

“Okay. Wyatt asked me to look after Amy.”

“Have you done any babysitting?”

“No. Is it hard?”

Nicole thought of a dozen snippy comments, each more hurtful than the one before. Instead she smiled. “I guess it could be with another kid, but not with Amy. She's a sweetie. I'm sure you two will get along great.”

 

C
LAIRE WAITED
by the bus stop as Amy waved to her friends, then climbed down.