Just Desserts (18 page)

“You don't have anything better to do than try to hook me up with a banker?”

“We've already tried to hook you up with a real estate agent, a dancer, a nurse, and enough freelance writers to start a women's basketball team. What are you looking for, a stripper with a Ph.D. in nuclear physics?”

“She lives in New Jersey,” he offered. “She owns her own business. She has a kid.” And wit, ambition, a sense of humor, great legs…

“That's it?”

“No, but that's all you're getting.”

Amber's younger sister Beryl, known to the family as the human whirlwind, burst into the room. Beryl was a jewelry designer who believed there was no part of the human body that couldn't benefit from adornment, a belief system that had led to some strange situations at airport security checkpoints.

“Damn it, Am! Thanks for leaving me with five car seats to cram into the limo. Do you know how long it takes to get five—not two or three, we're talking five—of those things secured? I had to rope poor Anton into helping me corral the kids. Your two actually made the poor man break into a sweat. It wasn't a pretty sight.”

Finn laughed out loud. “I would've paid to see that.”

Beryl wagged a finger in his direction. “Just you wait, Finn Rafferty! One day you'll be wrestling with a car seat and we'll be the ones laughing.”

“Only if I'm setting it up for one of your brood.”

“Finn's seeing someone,” Amber interrupted. “I think he really likes her.”

“Since when?” Beryl asked him.

“Go ahead.” He tossed it to Amber. “You seem to have all the answers.”

“She's not from around here,” Amber said, ignoring him, “and she has a kid.”

Beryl's eyes were alight with curiosity. “When are we going to meet her?”

“Don't you two have five kids in restraints waiting for you?”

“He's trying to change the subject,” Amber said.

“You think?” Beryl turned back to Finn. “You're lucky we're on the limo clock, faux brother, otherwise we'd get the truth out of you.”

“Not a chance,” he said.

“Nothing I like better than a challenge.” Beryl planted a sisterly kiss on his cheek. “Your secrets aren't safe from me!” She was out the door before he could think up a retort.

Amber tugged his hair in her familiar good-bye gesture then whispered in his ear, “Please, I beg you, do something about Willow before she asks us to call her Mom!”

“I don't think you have to worry,” Finn said. “Just be patient. This will all get sorted out.”

He watched from the window in Tommy's office as the two women dashed across the crushed shell driveway and climbed into the limo that had been transformed for the occasion into an oversized minivan crowded with kids, toys, suitcases, juice bottles, diaper bags.

The driver beeped the horn twice and he saw Beryl waving from the open window as they rolled down the driveway. Topaz, the youngest of Tommy's three daughters from his first marriage, was driving up from Virginia where she was studying for a master's in music therapy.

Winston and Zach had wanted to ride down on the bus with the band and the roadies but Tommy wasn't having any of it. They had been ordered to take the jet down to A.C. with their father. Only the teenage sons of a rock star would deem that cruel and inhuman punishment. Little Gigi and her mother, Margaux, were in Philadelphia visiting Margaux's parents. They would join the party Thursday morning at the hotel.

Willow was threatening to boycott the benefit concert and sulk alone at Tommy's Manhattan loft but Finn knew that the prospect of major press coverage rendered her threat moot.

Once a supermodel, always a supermodel.

If there was a camera within fifty yards, her face would be in the viewfinder. She would be working her pregnancy to its best advantage, angling for her own Demi Moore series of covers, while Hayley, who deserved the attention, worked fifteen-hour days and crossed her fingers that her Cinderella moment would last long enough to pay next month's rent and keep Lizzie in private school.

She hadn't a clue that in a few days her worries would be over.

He just wished he could feel happier about that fact.

Goldy's Bakery—Tuesday Morning

“You don't have to bite my head off!” Maureen glared at Hayley across the kitchen. “All I did was ask if the new bricks of yeast are in yet.”

“This is the third time you've asked today,” Hayley said, feeling both peevish and repentant. “I'm not holding the yeast hostage, Mo. You'll be the first to know when it gets here. I promise.”

“They don't have this kind of trouble at Abruzzo's in High Point.”

It was all Hayley could do to keep from lobbing a ball of fondant at the woman. “Mo, you've been threatening to leave us for Abruzzo's since Daddy Stan was alive. If you want to go, go. We'll miss you but I don't want you to be unhappy.”

“Who said I was unhappy?” Maureen snapped. “All I said was where's the yeast.”

If it wasn't the yeast, it was the starter for the sourdough or the vanilla extract imported from Madagascar. Maureen was a gifted baker whose pronounced diva tendencies sometimes turned the kitchen inside out. Her husband Frank coped with it by kneading bread dough with the kind of passion usually reserved for a heavyweight prizefight. The bread was great and so was his blood pressure.

Which was more than could be said for Hayley's that morning.

She put down her whisk and walked over to where Maureen was glaring at an innocent carton of eggs.

“I'm sorry, Mo. I'm a cranky bitch today. I shouldn't have taken it out on you.”

“Well, I didn't want to be the one to point it out but you're definitely bitchy today. I told Frank you were probably PMSing.”

She told herself not to dwell on the fact that her employees were discussing her menstrual cycle over their coffee break.

“I'm not PMSing,” she said with the most nonhormonal smile she could muster. “Michie called in sick, Abbie is on a scheduled personal day, I forgot I was scheduled to speak at Career Day this afternoon at St. Barnabas, and if the rolled fondant doesn't arrive by one o'clock, I just might be forced to drive up to Whippany and kick some serious supplier butt. I am not PMSing.” She paused for breath. “What I am is freaking out.”

“Okay,” Maureen said in an uncharacteristically meek tone of voice. “That's fine.”

Frank gave the mound of dough in front of him on the workbench an extra hard punch with the heel of his hand.

“Go ahead,” she said to Frank. “You can look at your wife. I know I sound like a crazy woman but I'm not dangerous and it isn't personal. You can even roll your eyes if you won't. I don't mind.”

“I wasn't going to roll my eyes,” Frank denied.

“Yes, you were.” Maureen was all about contradicting her husband. As far as Hayley could see it was one of the cornerstones of their forty-plus-year marriage.

They were so busy bickering they didn't notice when Hayley stepped away. Escaped was probably a better word for it. What was with everyone? From the moment she flipped the
CLOSED
sign to
OPEN
yesterday morning, the questions and looks and whispers had been flying thick and fast. Let one nosy neighbor find you rolling around in the mud with a handsome stranger from New York and watch all hell break loose.

Patsy Coletti wanted to know if he was one of Michael's creditors who played a little rough.

Frank O'Donnell told Jerry Weinstein that Marie DiFranco heard Hayley tell Finn she would see him Thursday in Atlantic City, which started a line of conjecture that reached all the way into Lizzie's high school classroom.

What could she do but tell the truth?

Now the whole town knew she was making some special cakes for Tommy Stiles's after-party and the clamor for tickets was almost deafening. “I'm baking for Tommy Stiles,” she told her neighbors, “not hanging with him. If you want a world-class chocolate mousse cake with a ganache to die for, call me. If you want tickets for the show, you'd better call the box office.”

“Listen to Miss High and Mighty,” Joe Whetstone had said loud enough for her to hear. “She probably has a fistful of free passes. Remember the night her aunt Fiona found her in the backseat with Mikey G? She wasn't such a big shot then.”

And I remember the time your check for six dollars bounced and you refused to pay the bank charges on it, Joe Whetstone. One more Miss High and Mighty remark and I'm going to blow your cover.

She didn't remember anyone banging down her door for tickets to the Governor's Reception last year or for the Moonlight Benefit Gala for the Medical Center at Princeton.

But bring out a rock star and suddenly everyone's your friend. Or at least they were your friend until you said no. Half the people in town were angry with her and the other half were disappointed. Even Mrs. Lonergan from church, a woman who had waved good-bye to seventy-five a long time ago, had muttered something unprintable when Hayley tried to explain the situation.

She and Finn had exchanged a flurry of late-night e-mails the last two days. What had started as a lighthearted commentary on the quirks of her Lakeside neighbors had quickly become the highlight of her day. He was funny, self-deprecating, razor sharp yet kind. His wit had an edge to it but was never hurtful. He was the kind of man you could let down your guard around and not live to regret it.

She had typed up the story of the septuagenarian Stiles groupie but then decided at the last minute against sending it. Tommy's Lakeside demographics might not seem so comical to a man whose income was dependent on his client not outliving his fan base.

One good thing about the outbreak of Stiles mania in town was that it had diffused some of the curiosity about Finn's impromptu visit on Sunday. There were only so many gossip-worthy hours in the day and rock star trumped bakery owner's love life every time.

She had to admit, at least to herself, that she had been the tiniest bit dismayed when everyone eagerly accepted her explanation that Finn had driven down to see her on business. You would think at least one of her incredibly nosy and imaginative neighbors might have held out a little longer in favor of a romantic assignation.

But no. They were perfectly content with her story about prototypes and last-minute details.

Which should have made it easy for her to concentrate on the task on hand, but it didn't.

Under normal circumstances she had no trouble zeroing in on what she was doing and working toward her goal. Nothing ever knocked her off course. Not family troubles or financial woes, not even the time she slipped on a broken egg and broke her right hand.

She had never once missed a deadline, never kept a customer waiting. She delivered what she promised when she promised to deliver it, and she had little doubt that the reliability factor was every bit as important in her growing success as the beauty and general deliciousness of her baked creations.

So why now, on the brink of a major career breakthrough, did she feel as scattered and distracted and giddy as a teenager? Okay, so maybe it wasn't every day she spent a long, laugh-drenched afternoon in the arms of a gorgeous man who somehow managed to mingle the bad-boy vibe with a good heart that was visible even on short acquaintance, but that was hardly an excuse for staring off into space with a silly smile plastered across her face.

Or was it?

When a woman hadn't kissed a man in a while, she tended to forget the power of that simple act. When a man came along who actually knew how to kiss (and seemed to enjoy it), what woman wouldn't be knocked sideways with feelings she thought she had left behind in high school? Was it any wonder they ended up in bed?

Who would have guessed sensuality and easy familiarity could be such a powerful combination? In the past, sexual chemistry had been equal parts uneasiness and desire. Laughter had been shadowed with self-consciousness and a touch of fear. Throughout the years of her marriage, she had managed to keep her true self so under wraps that she had forgotten who the real Hayley Maitland Goldstein was. Before long she couldn't tell where that emotional high-wire act ended and where real sexual desire began.

She had been herself with Finn, her muddy, unkempt, wet-haired, cellulite-rippled self, and he hadn't even blinked. In fact, if you judged by their lovemaking, he actually liked that rumpled self. Was it possible that the whole man/woman thing could be this easy, this much fun?

An e-mail had been waiting for her when she logged on that morning. A sexy, silly message shot through the ether at three in the morning while she slept, designed to make her laugh softly as something close to delight rippled along her spine.

No wonder she was having trouble concentrating on work.

“Get a grip,” she ordered herself, then wished she hadn't when she caught the looks being sent her way by her employees. “Not you,” she said. “I was talking to myself.”

Maureen shot a look at Frank, who shot a look across the kitchen to Terri, one of their interns, who pretended she was engaged in an epic battle with a tray of doughnuts in desperate need of glazing.

Hayley had never been so glad to hear her cell phone warble in her entire life.

“You sound terrible, Michie,” Hayley said in greeting. “What are you doing on the phone?”

“Tommy Stiles is on the E! channel talking about the benefit concert. Put on the TV now!”

Hayley raced for the back stairs. “Which one is E!?”

“You know…
True Hollywood Story…101 Fashion Mistakes…When Good Actors Make Bad Movies
—” Michie stopped to cough up a lung.

Hayley winced. “Don't talk, please! I feel like I should be calling nine-one-one for you.”

“I hope I didn't give it to Lizzie. She stopped here yesterday on her way to her party.”

“I didn't hear that,” Hayley said, mentally putting her fingers in her ears. “We definitely don't have time for a sick kid around here.”

She leaped over a pod of sleeping cats, dodged an enthusiastic Rhoda, then switched on the television in the living room.

“Discovery…A and E…Food Network…okay, there it is.”

“You're out of breath,” Michie said between bouts of coughing. “You need cardio.”

What she needed was oxygen but she wasn't about to admit that even to Michelle.

Stiles was talking to one of the station's interchangeable hot chick reporters who was probably old enough to be his next fiancée but too young to have any idea who he was.

“He looks pretty hot for a guy in his sixties,” Michie said.

“Come on, Michie,” she said with a groan. “He's been nipped, tucked, and lifted.”

“You don't know that for a fact.”

“They all do it,” she said. “Famous people can't grow old in this country. It's against the law.”

“I like his hair,” Michie said around a sneeze. “I wonder who does his highlights.”

Nice eyes,
she thought as she raised the sound. Some crow's-feet and laugh lines but they were a beautiful shade of blue-green that reminded her of Lizzie's.

“…Always a Jersey boy…” he was saying to the clearly smitten reporter. “We believe in giving back and the South Jersey Children's Hospital Network is a cause worth supporting.”

He looked like an old rocker with a bad-boy vibe but he sounded like somebody's suburban dad, which made Hayley laugh just a little.

“He seems like a nice guy,” Michie said.

“That's what Finn says.”

“Finn's the lawyer, right?”

“Yes, and Anton's the drummer.”

Michie launched into an almost operatic bout of coughing that made Hayley's throat hurt in sympathy.

“We could double date,” Michie said. “I get the drummer. You get the lawyer. Wouldn't that be amazing?”

“You're married,” Hayley reminded her. “I think Charlie might frown on extramarital dating.”

“I told him I'd give him a pass if Angelina Jolie ever comes to town. The least he can do is let me go out for dinner with Tommy Stiles.”

“I thought you were talking about Anton.”

“I dream big,” Michie said, laughing. “It's Stiles or nothing.”

“Forget it,” she said dryly. “I think you're too old for him.”

They cut to a short clip of hospital footage meant to inspire then jumped into a discussion of Tommy's upcoming marriage.

“Have they mentioned the concert?” she asked Michie.

“I missed the very beginning but I haven't heard anything yet.”

“I don't think he'll mention the after-party, do you?”

“Honey, he's a grown man. He's not going to talk about cake.”

But he was going to talk about his latest woman.

“Willow is successful in her own right,” Stiles was saying. Yadda, yadda, yadda. She wanted to hear more about the concert, which might inspire him to talk about the after-party and the fantastically wonderful cake decorator who was going to rock the guests with her creations.