“My sincerest thanks goes out to Brooklyn Palmer and her amazing team from Pie in the Sky bakery. Without them we wouldn’t have had such wonderful desserts, and a wedding cake that was not only beautiful, but absolutely delicious.” Imogene smiled as she raised her glass. “Thank you. Thank you so much, Brooklyn.”
Imogene’s husband wrapped a hand around her waist and looked at his new bride as he said to the crowd loudly, “Brooklyn made my wife very happy. For that, I’ll be eternally grateful.”
Pink bathed my cheeks as people clapped and turned their attention to me. Imogene’s wedding had been nonstop since Friday afternoon. Saturday had been complete insanity. What with the actual wedding, along with Southern Living taking photos and asking questions about every detail from the fine china to everything we had baked for the guests. Now it was early Sunday afternoon, and the festivities were ending as Imogene and her husband made some final speeches.
Despite Jazz being absent all week, we’d managed to pull off the biggest success of my career thus far. My team was, indeed, stellar, but the true miracle workers had been the Blue Angels. Darcy, Savage, and Duke, along with Willa and Waverly, had saved my ass.
Slash had dealt with my insurance company and had promised me that even big corporations were run by people in small offices and that I didn’t have to worry about it. I wasn’t sure exactly what he’d done, but by Friday afternoon I had a check in hand.
“You look radiant,” I said as Imogene approached me at the dessert table.
She wore a cream V-neck dress that plunged in front, and her cheeks were rosy.
“Aren’t you just wonderful,” she said as she embraced me.
“I saved a slice of your wedding cake and packaged it for deep freezing so you can eat it on your one-year anniversary,” I said. “Tradition and all that.”
“Thank you.”
“When do you leave on your honeymoon?” I asked.
“Tomorrow morning. When I’m back, can we have brunch?”
“I’d love that.” I gave her hand a squeeze. “I appreciated your speech. I really did. You have to know you just made my career. Thank you, Imogene.”
My inbox was full of requests from high-end customers wanting to book massive events with nearly unlimited budgets, and it was clear that my financial concerns were over. I’d gotten the one thing many people needed in life but so often seemed not to get: a break. It was a deluge of business—so much that I would be able to hire permanent staff to help oversee the daily running of the bakery. I could focus on clients and cake designs, and when the time came that I needed to step back, nothing would fall through the cracks.
“My pleasure. I’m sorry Jazz is going through a rough time,” Imogene said. “Will you give her my best?”
I nodded.
Brielle came to my side, eating a slice of quiche. My stomach rumbled, reminding me that I’d only had toast for breakfast and I’d wolfed down a granola bar in three bites a few hours ago.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” Imogene said. “But you look exhausted.”
“I am exhausted.” I pressed a hand to my sore lower back.
“Go,” Brielle said. “I can stay and supervise the cleanup.”
“You wouldn’t mind?” I asked gratefully.
“Not at all,” she assured me.
I stifled a yawn. “I might sleep for three days straight.”
“Yeah, sleep.” Brielle snorted.
I arched a brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means Slash.”
My cheeks heated once again, and both Brielle and Imogene laughed.
“He keeps you happy,” Imogene said. “I like that.”
“You can meet him when you’re back from your honeymoon,” I said.
“It’s a date.”
She hugged me one final time and then flitted around the gardens of her new husband’s estate, speaking to her guests.
“Jesus Christ,” Brielle said. “We did it. We pulled off the wedding.”
“By the grace of God. Thanks for staying and wrapping up.”
“Please, it’s easy compared to what you did this week.”
I hugged her goodbye and then went into the kitchen to say goodbye to Connie and Eddie. I needed to have a discussion with them about hiring them permanently and wanted to reward them for the outstanding job they’d done. Good help was hard to find, and I wasn’t about to let them go.
The drive home was long and by the time I made it I was tired and ready for a nap. The house was quiet—Slash was out with Colt and Boxer.
I’d just finished changing into a clean pair of stretchy pants when I heard the rumble of his motorcycle and then it was silent. A moment later, the front door opened, and Slash came inside.
“You’re back,” he said in surprise. “You’re early.”
“Brielle is dealing with cleanup. So I bounced and now I’m about to relax. I’m not moving from that couch for hours.”
He came toward me and pulled me into his arms. “I guess that means you’re too tired to go out tonight.”
“Way too tired.”
“Even for Mexican?”
“I just spent a week in a luxury hotel eating room service.”
“That was necessity.”
I nibbled my lip.
“You can order all the guacamole in the restaurant,” he said with a grin.
I swiped the keys on the counter and tossed them at him. “You’re driving.”
“Happy?” he asked with a grin.
“The happiest,” I said, leaning back against the booth. “I can’t wait for food. Thank goodness for stretchy pants.” I placed my hand on my belly and sighed.
“You look good in stretchy pants,” he said.
“Oh yeah?”
“You look better naked, but spandex is a man’s best friend.”
I snorted. “What about leather?”
He looked me over, front the top of my head down, and nodded slowly. “Yeah. I’d like you in leather, but with your hair down and your arms wrapped around me on my bike. With my name inked on you.”
“You want your name inked on me?” I asked softly.
“Yeah, woman. I do.”
“Where?”
His grin was slow. “Guess.”
I pretended to think. “Hmm, my forearm.”
“Nope.”
“My calf.”
“Try again.”
“Down my side.”
He shook his head.
“Then tell me,” I demanded. “Where?”
Slash leaned across the table and whispered, “Your lower back.”
“Lower back?” I raised my brows. “You mean a tramp stamp?”
“Damn right, your tramp stamp.” He grinned cheekily. “So, when I’m fucking you from behind, I can see my brand on you.”
“Brand? Your brand on me?” Somehow my voice became a screech and people at the table across the restaurant looked at me. I slouched in my seat, feeling my cheeks heat. “Damn it.”
“I’m guessing you’re not happy with the idea.”
“The idea? The idea isn’t the problem. It’s the word choice.”
“So what? I’ll get your name inked on me. You’ll brand me, too.”
My anger immediately diffused. “Oh.”
“Any requests for where?”
“Your canvas is pretty full,” I said with a smirk. “How about your d—”
“Here we go!” the waitress chirped, setting down our plates of food. “Hot sauce is on the table. Can I get you anything else?”
“I’m good, thanks,” I said.
“Same,” Slash replied. He looked at her when he gave his reply, and she tried not to stare when she saw his face, but even she didn’t do a good enough job concealing her interest.
When she left, I said, “You know, it’s weird, but when I look at you, I don’t even notice your scar anymore. I mean, I know it’s there, but it’s just a part of you. It’s familiar. Makes you look like a pirate.”
He smiled slightly. “A pirate, huh?”
“A sexy pirate.”
“Does that make you my busty wench?”
“If the corset fits,” I joked.
He lifted his massive burrito to his mouth and took a huge bite.
“You just don’t seem to care what anyone thinks,” I said. “Why is that?”
He chewed and swallowed, and then said, “What’s there to care about? Like I’m going to get caught up, worried about what some asshole who has a shitty life thinks and let him pass judgement on me and mine? It’s like having crazy people run the asylum.”
“Have you ever cared what people thought of you?”
“Not really. Not after I was old enough to know better. Made life a lot easier not giving a fuck what people thought. I wasn’t going to change who I was, so why care?”
“Yeah,” I said slowly, nodding.
“You care what people think of you?”
“Probably more than I should,” I admitted.
“Shit way to live. When you get to the point when you genuinely give zero fucks about people who don’t matter and what they think of you, you suddenly realize how much free time you have.”
“What about people you love and respect? Do their opinions of you matter?”
“Well, if I love and respect them then they love and respect me—and take me as I am. Otherwise, they’re not in my life.”
“Interesting,” I murmured. I attacked my food with verve.
We ate in silence for a few minutes and then he said, “Ah, I have good news I forgot to share with you. The contractor can start fixing the bakery around the middle of next week.”
“Thank goodness,” I said. “Thanks for handling that for me.”
“No problem.”
Without Slash, everything would’ve been delayed even longer. It was suddenly so easy to ask for his help. It didn’t mean I was a failure or that I couldn’t do it on my own. It was that I didn’t have to. I could lean on him. I wasn’t alone.
“I’ll get in touch with the city as well. Find out why the fuck they tore up the street and then didn’t fix it. I’ll handle the health department, too. Trust me, a couple of mentions of calls to the local media and the not so veiled threat of a team of attorneys ready to tear them apart and all that shit will go away. And if it doesn’t, then I just do what I do and get a little more personal… In the end, it goes away for you, babe. Promise.”
“You’re a miracle worker.”
“I prefer magician, but yeah.” He shrugged and then grinned.
“Just like you handled the Smith Corporation,” I said.
“Just like I handled them.”
The night before Imogene’s wedding, Slash had received a text from someone named Ghost. Early the next morning, when we were getting ready, Slash had turned on the TV to the local news station. Several warehouses and buildings in the same part of town the Smith Corporation had been buying properties in had mysteriously flooded overnight.
Without a word, Slash had looked at me and raised a brow. I’d asked him what it meant, and he told me messages could be sent both ways and left it at that.
We finished our meals, and the server came by with the check. Slash threw down cash before I even offered.
“When will you let me treat you?” I asked as I grabbed my purse.
“I have a way you can treat me,” he said, placing his hand on the small of my back and guiding me out of the restaurant.
“I’ve already done that,” I teased.
“Your mind is in the gutter. I like it.” He grinned and hit the clicker on the car. “No. Something else.”
“What?”
He opened the passenger door and waited for me to get in. “House hunt.”
“You want to go house hunting?” I got into the car, and he shut the door.
When he was settled into the driver’s seat, he said, “No. I don’t really want to go house hunting. If it were just me, I’d hire someone and say Take care of it. Then again, if it were just me, I wouldn’t need a house.”
“This is a milestone for a lot of people, you know?” I said. “Buying a house is a big deal.”
“We’re not buying a house. We’re buying a home. There’s a difference.” His gaze dipped to my belly. “We’re buying a home so we can put down roots, raise our family. If it were just me, I wouldn’t need a home. You get me?”
“I get you,” I said softly.
“So?”
“Yeah.” I smiled. “Let’s do it.”
He leaned across the console and kissed me. “I don’t care a lot about the house. What it looks like. The layout. Any of it. But I have one thing that I want.”
“Go on,” I said. “What do you want?”
“I don’t want to be able to hear any traffic.”
I smiled slightly. “City life taking its toll on you?”
“That’s putting it mildly. I want space. I want sky. I need to feel like…”
“Like you’re on the open road even though you’re not.”
He paused. “You get me.”
“Yeah, I get you.”
We drove home in companionable silence. Every now and I again, I’d look over at him, lost in thought.
How did I get so lucky?