Just Desserts (5 page)

Again, not that it was any of her business. It was just that she knew Trish and Rachel were standing with their ears to the door, hanging on every word, and she wanted to be the voice of reason designed to bring them back down to earth.

Preferably with a thud hard enough to shake some sense into their pretty heads.

They needed to know women could conduct business with a gorgeous (okay, so he wasn't just easy on the eyes, he was downright eye candy) man and not succumb to simpering, eyelash-batting flirtation.

“Any comments, complaints, suggestions?” she prodded Rafferty after he had finished examining the cake house like it was the space shuttle after a flight. “Your boss is going to be paying serious money. You might as well get exactly what you're looking for.”

“I'm looking for a drum set,” Rafferty said, too sharply for her taste. “Bass, snare—that's what we agreed on.”

“We haven't signed anything yet, Mr. Rafferty. If you want to find yourself another baker, that's fine with me.”

“Mom!” Lizzie sounded like she was choking on one of her Linzer tortes.

“Quiet, Elizabeth,” she said over her shoulder then swung back around on Rafferty. “All day long I've had the feeling something was going to go wrong and maybe this is the something I've been waiting for. I'm sorry but this whole thing feels weird to me. You're going to be throwing a party in a major Atlantic City hotel. I've been to events at those hotels. I know what they can do. You can't tell me that one of their pastry chefs couldn't whip up something big and gorgeous for you on a moment's notice.”

He looked genuinely surprised, which, if she hadn't been so annoyed, would have made her laugh out loud. “You're telling me you don't want the job?”

“I want the job more than I want my right kidney, but I still don't get why Tommy Stiles's lawyer drove all the way down to Lakeside, New Jersey, to buy a cake. There's something you're not telling me.”

“You're so making a mistake,” Lizzie said in a stage whisper.

Rafferty glanced quickly at her daughter and the look of respect in his eyes shifted something inside Hayley. Every time she thought she had him pegged, he threw her a curve. She'd taken a big chance, letting him work out the contract details with Lizzie. Not too many hotshot attorneys would have sat down with her kid, much less treated her with kindness and without condescension.

So why the sudden loss of enthusiasm? She had a lot of experience with men who blew hot and cold with their affections. For most of the years of her marriage she had accepted the shifting floor beneath her feet as part of the bargain she had made when she married Michael.

Well, she wasn't married any longer. She didn't have to accept anything from any man. Especially not from a stranger.

“Listen,” she said as the image of herself on
Entertainment Tonight
faded away, “you were real enthusiastic about my work until you saw this cake and now you can barely spit out two complete sentences. If you don't like what you see, then say so. I promise you I'm not going to impale myself on a cake server if you don't like it.”

“Mom!” Lizzie sounded like she wanted to lock her in a soundproofed closet and throw away the key. “What are you doing?”

“Your mom's right, Lizzie,” Finn Rafferty said. “I've been acting like a horse's ass and I'm sorry.”

“I never said you were acting like a horse's ass. I said you were—” She stopped. Maybe horse's ass was the best description after all.

“I like the real estate agents' cake,” Rafferty said.

“You don't sound very enthusiastic,” Anton said, a wicked gleam in his dark eyes. “I noticed that too, Hayley.”

“It's a great cake,” Finn said. “A cake among cakes. A cake that will live long in the memory of everyone lucky enough to see it.”

“Not funny,” Anton said.

“He's right,” Hayley agreed. “Not funny at all.”

“I like the cake. I didn't think you could pull it off but you did. You'll probably do a great job on the after-party. Your daughter drew up a perfect contract. The sun is shining. The birds are singing. I still have all of my hair. If I'm missing something, I'll be damned if I know what it is.”

She stood there, pen poised, and still didn't sign. What was her problem? All she had to do was bake a cake, not hand over the keys to the bakery. If the goddesses of sugar, flour, and pure creamery butter didn't rain blessings (and contracts) down on her head after the party in Atlantic City, her world wouldn't come to an end. But something continued to hold her back.

“I've been on the payroll almost fifteen years, if that's what's worrying you,” Anton offered. “They haven't bounced a check yet.”

Bless the bald-headed drummer for breaking the tension. The laughter came as a welcome relief.

“You're right,” Rafferty said to Lizzie. “She is a worrier.”

“Told you,” Lizzie said. “She even worries about Katie Couric's ratings.”

“Elizabeth!” she said through the new burst of laughter. “I explained that to you last week. I'm not worried about her ratings, I'm just…concerned.”

“You worry about news anchors?” Rafferty asked.

“Worry is good,” Anton said, still laughing. “When it comes to his kids, even Tommy's a worrier.”

She pointed toward Rafferty. “What was that look?”

“What look?”

“You shot Anton a look when he said, ‘even Tommy's a worrier.' What's that about?”

“Yeah,” said Anton, “what's up with that?”

“Remember that confidentiality agreement you signed last year? Personal observations are off-limits.”

“Too late,” Anton said cheerfully. “I already spilled everything I know.”

“He's joking,” Hayley said, amused by the look of intense horror on the attorney's handsome face. “I tried to get him to spill everything he knows but he refused.”

“I owe you,” Anton stage-whispered as he mopped his brow with the back of his hand.

Rafferty laughed with them but the uneasy look in his eyes lingered. Something was definitely off. She didn't know what it was exactly but her instincts were rarely wrong and she couldn't let go.

He wore an Armani suit, but once upon a time he had also worn an earring. The faint dot left from the piercing caught and held her attention. There was definitely more here than she knew.

“Here's the thing,” she said. “I'm not a glass-half-full kind of woman. My glass isn't just half empty, it has a hairline crack and it's about to shatter. This whole thing seems too good to be true and it probably is, and I wish I could figure out exactly what's bothering me about it but I can't, so maybe you could help me out here.”

They were all staring at her like she had lost her mind.

“Too much information,” she said. “I always do that. I get started talking and I can't stop.”

Lizzie groaned and buried her face in her hands.

“This is like winning the lottery, Mom,” her daughter pleaded. “Who cares why they picked you? They picked you! Work it!”

“You have a recommendation from the governors of two states,” Rafferty said. “Unless you've been passing off Entenmann's as your own, you're damn good and you're the one we want for the job.”

“You're right. I'm a culinary genius, the Van Gogh of baked goods, who would be decorating cakes for Charles and Camilla if I didn't live in New Jersey.”

They continued to stare at her.

“That was a joke,” she said. “Yes, it's true but I meant it as a joke.”

“Don't make jokes, Mom,” Lizzie said from behind her hands. “I'm begging you! Just sign the contract, pleeeeease!”

She looked at Finn Rafferty. She wouldn't be at all surprised if he went the Entenmann's route after all. “I'll sign it if you will.”

To her amazement, he reached for a pen.

Despite her misgivings, her heart leaped with excitement. He was actually willing to go the distance.

“We're leaving in five,” she said to Lizzie. “Tell Rachel and Trish they can go home. We'll close up. Don't dawdle!”

Lizzie was out of there in a flash.

Anton, whose cell phone had been beeping, stepped outside.

Rafferty signed both copies of the contract, then pushed them toward her.

“Your turn,” he said.

“Well, at least I'll be able to pay next month's mortgage without hitting the credit cards,” she said, quickly scanning the contract. “Fifty percent deposit, payable within forty-eight hours. That's a good thing.”

“Lizzie gave me the account number. It will be deposited in the morning and you should have access to it by the end of the business day.” He was watching her closely. Maybe a little too closely, as if he saw the same shadows gathering overhead that she saw.

“Would you tell me if I was right?” she asked as she signed her name twice. “Would you tell me if there was more going on here than baking a cake for a rock star?”

“No,” he said, “but I wouldn't tell you that you were wrong.”

“Are you going to tell me what the hell was going on in there?” Anton asked Finn fifteen minutes later as they headed toward the highway.

“How much have you figured out?”

“We didn't drive down here just to buy a cake.”

“Good guess,” Finn said.

“The girl has Tom's eyes.”

“She does.”

“And his smile.”

Finn nodded.

“The mother has his eyes too.”

“I noticed.” Beautifully expressive eyes that held more than a touch of wariness.

“Does Tommy know?”

“He sent me down here to check things out.”

They were silent as Finn rolled up to the tollbooth and grabbed a ticket.

“Damn,” Anton said as they merged with northbound traffic. “She was right, wasn't she. She thought there was something else going on and there is.”

“Mrs. Goldstein is a smart woman.” Finn shouldn't have told her even as little as he had back there but when she looked at him with those wary and beautiful eyes, he couldn't lie.

“And funny.”

“That too.”

“And not bad to look at.”

He'd tried hard not to notice.

“Admit it, friend,” Anton said. “You couldn't take your eyes off her.”

“I couldn't take my eyes off the kid either. It was like looking at Tom.”

“Agreed, but that's not why you were looking at the mother.”

“You've been reading too many romance novels, Anton.”

Anton actually flinched. “You're never going to let me live that down, are you?”

“Probably not,” Finn agreed. “It was a memorable sight.” Anton sprawled out in the back of a private jet, lost in something called
The Flame and the Flower
.

“Gotta get your happy endings somewhere.”

When the man was right, he was right. “Things not going well with Lyssa?”

“Not going at all,” Anton said, gazing out the window. “She says she's filing for divorce.”

He didn't have to ask why. Life on the road with a rock band was great when you were twenty-two and single but when you were pushing forty-five and married, it was a whole other animal. It was hard to build a marriage when you were on the road eight months of the year.

“You should ask her out,” Anton said, circling back.

“What is this, high school? I'm not asking her out.”

“She's your type: tall, skinny, not likely to put up with your shit.”

“Not funny,” he said, although he was laughing. He wasn't about to get into the wisdom of dating a woman who would probably turn out to be Tommy's daughter. “Want to pick up some burgers? There's a McDonald's at the next rest stop.”

“If you want to change the subject, that's cool.”

“I don't want to change the subject. I just don't want you running with the wrong idea.”

“That you thought she was hot?”

“Is this going somewhere,” Finn asked, “or are you just trying to break my balls?”

“She asked me about you when we were working on the cake.”

“Yeah?” He slid a glance in his friend's direction. “What did she want to know?”

“If you were married.”

“What?”

Anton started to laugh. “Gotcha.”

“You're a real son of a bitch. You know that, don't you?”

“I've heard that a few times before.”

“That's all she asked?” Could he sound any more like a sixteen-year-old kid without a date for the big dance?

“She tried to get some on Tommy but I stuck to what's been in
People
.”

“Smart move. That way we won't have to sue your ass from here to L.A. for breach of contract.”

The thought of Tommy suing one of his own made them both laugh out loud.

“When's he going to tell her?”

“I don't know but I almost told her the whole story when she was signing the contract.” Only loyalty to Tommy had stopped him but it had been close.

“Some people would be real happy to find out their father is a famous rocker. Everyone knows Tommy takes care of his own. She won't have to worry about paying her bills anymore, that's for damn sure.”

“I don't think she'll be one of them.” The woman he'd met had something to prove.

“She drives a twelve-year-old Buick,” Anton pointed out. “She cuts her own hair. Her life is going to do a one-eighty when she finds out about Tommy.”

The thought depressed the hell out of him and, once again, he didn't know why.

Usually he rolled with things the same way Tommy did. The Stiles clan grew larger, the family tree more complicated, and the updates and codicils to Tommy's will more frequent. It was what it was and the emotional fallout washed right over him and away.

Tommy wasn't an absentee father with a checkbook and a guilty conscience. He was the real deal, a hands-on parent who didn't just want the best for his kids, he tried to help them achieve it. Okay, so maybe he had a few tats, some random piercings, and an addiction to highlights and supermodels, but when it came to family nobody did it better.

If Hayley Maitland Goldstein turned out to be Tommy's daughter, the sky would be the limit. That dented Buick would be history. Her Target days would be over. Tommy, in his benevolent way, would roll over her like a gift-wrapped tank.

Finn tried to imagine what it would feel like if someone walked into his life right now and claimed to be his father. He couldn't wrap his brain around the concept. By the time you reached your thirties, you had a pretty good idea who you were and where you came from. You knew why you were the way you were and if you didn't, it was only because you weren't paying attention.

That wasn't the case with Hayley Maitland Goldstein and her daughter, Lizzie. There was no way they could see this coming and as far as Finn could tell, they had Jane Maitland, Ph.D., to thank. The good doctor knew how to keep a secret. How she had managed to keep that particular secret for thirty-eight years was one of the things he hoped to find out someday.

In the meantime Hayley was living over a bakery in South Jersey with a beautiful young daughter whose IQ was higher than Finn could count. She had an ex-husband who was down in Florida looking for trouble and probably finding it on a regular basis. She worked hard, took care of her kid, and maybe dreamed about winning the Pick-6 so she could upgrade her kitchen.

Discovering she was the daughter of a multimillionaire rock star could be the best thing that ever happened to her. Tommy would wave his magic checkbook and wipe away her debt. He would see to it that her bakery had the newest and best of everything. Her daughter had talked about Cinderella moments and maybe it would be once the dust had settled.

One thing he knew for sure: the truth was going to slam into the two of them like a runaway train, and no matter how much he wished he could soften the blow, there wasn't a damn thing he could do to stop it.

Back in New Jersey

Hayley pulled into the parking lot then looked over at her daughter. “Do you think we should do this?”

“I think we should,” Lizzie said. “I think we earned it.”

“It's a major splurge.”

“I think we'd be seriously deranged if we didn't do it.”

“No complaining at the end of the month when you balance the books.”

“Promise.” Hayley could see her daughter's wide smile even in the darkened car. “Besides, this time next week we'll be rich and famous.”

She didn't want to dim Lizzie's enthusiasm with a standard-issue lecture on counting unhatched chickens but she was a mother. She had to do what she had to do.

“It hasn't happened yet,” she said as they followed the Olive Garden hostess to a tiny table next to a huge display of Tuscan wines. “A lot can go wrong between now and next week.”

The hostess, who wasn't all that much older than Lizzie, quickly distributed the menus, ran through her spiel of specials, then went back to her post in the lobby.

Hayley had been running on autopilot since signing the contract with Finn Rafferty. Correction, she caught herself. Finn Rafferty negotiated the contract, but it was Tommy Stiles who had set the whole thing in motion and she still couldn't figure out why. Rafferty had admitted there was more to this than cake and that admission still had her unnerved hours later.

“I know what I want.” Lizzie turned her menu facedown on the table top.

Hayley couldn't help but laugh. “I know what you want too: salad with lots of red onion, no black olives, lasagna with extra sauce and grated cheese, and everything chocolate for dessert.”

“I know what I like,” Lizzie said.

“You've known what you liked since you were six months old and decided it was time to stop nursing.”

Lizzie's cheeks flamed. “Do we have to talk about that in public?”

She kept forgetting that they were sailing into dangerous waters these days, a place where every maternal utterance could stir up a tsunami of embarrassment and hurt feelings.

“Grandma Jane used to talk about placentas at the playground,” Hayley said as she scanned her menu. “I'd be sitting in the sandbox, wishing I could dig my way to China and disappear.”

“Mom! Could we not?”

“I'm just telling you that I understand.”

“If you understood, you wouldn't talk about stuff like that.”

“When you're a scientist, you'll be talking about things like that all the time.”

“Not in Olive Garden,” Lizzie said, rolling her eyes. “There's a big difference.”

They ate their way through the salad bowl, then threw caution to the wind and asked for a refill.

“Is this the life or what?” Hayley said as she reached for her glass of iced tea. “A bottomless salad bowl, all the breadsticks you can eat, and no dirty dishes to wash when it's over.”

“Maybe we can do this again next week after we deliver the cake to Atlantic City.”

“I was going to have Dominic deliver it.”

“What!?” Lizzie looked downright horrified. “You have to deliver it yourself! This is your chance to get noticed.”

“It's going to be huge, Lizzie. We'll need the van.”

“You've driven the van.”

“And it will be heavy. I'll need help.”

“I can help.”

“Help with muscles,” Hayley said. What she didn't say was that an after-party for a famous rocker probably wasn't the place for an overly articulate, highly impressionable fourteen-year-old girl. Especially not one with huge blue-green eyes and long blond hair.

“Then let me go along for the ride.”

“Not happening.”

“Why not?”

“Where do I start? How about this: I'm not going and neither are you.”

“But you have to go.”

“I don't recall seeing that spelled out in the contract.”

“Mom! This is your big chance. You have to go so you can bask in the glory.”

“We'll let the cake bask in the glory. I'd be happy basking in a flood of new commissions.”

“What about
Entertainment Tonight
and all of the local news guys? The place will be jammed with promo ops.”

She shrugged. “Word will get out.”

Lizzie narrowed her eyes and leaned across the empty salad bowl. “You're afraid!”

“I am not.”

“You are! You shouldn't be but you so are.”

It would be nice to keep at least one emotion secret from her daughter. She gestured toward her basic uniform of T-shirt and jeans. “Look at me. I'm not exactly red-carpet worthy. I'd need a whole new wardrobe.”

“Wear your whites like they do on the Food Network.”

“I haven't had my hair cut since Christmas.”

“Wear it in a ballerina bun.”

“All I have are sneakers and clogs.”

“Clogs are way cool. The interns on
Grey's Anatomy
wear clogs.”

“They wear running shoes.”

Lizzie was adamant. “Some of them wear clogs.”

“You think I should wear my red clogs?”

“Mario on the Food Network wears orange ones and he's famous.”

“How much television are you watching lately anyway?”

Lizzie ignored the question. “You'll stand out from the crowd. You need to work this, Mom. I mean, what are the chances something like this will happen again?”

“I'm still trying to figure out why it happened in the first place.”