Sugared (Misfit Brides #4) (28 page)

“Jackson Davis, I do not—”

“Hush on up and be a good sport, Anna Grace.”

Anna Grace laughed.

And it hit Josh in the solar plexus.

Kimmie should’ve been here laughing too. Or, better, they should’ve been anywhere
but
here. Laughing. Kissing. Touching.

He would’ve given anything to talk to her again. He wanted to kiss her, he wanted to hug her, he wanted to make love to her, but mostly, he wanted to talk to her. To see her smile. To know she was happy. To be the one who
made
her happy.

“Josh, I think someone’s waving at you,” Anna Grace called.

Josh straightened and whipped his head around, scanning the crowd, until his gaze landed on a familiar figure.

His dad.

He’d bought one of the big, white #1 hands, and he was wincing as he waved it.

Josh sucked in an obscenity.

Kimmie wasn’t coming.

She was here in Bliss—he’d seen her car when he drove past her apartment on his way here this morning—but she wasn’t in the stands.

She wasn’t coming.

She didn’t want him. He’d blown his chance.

The worst part was, he hadn’t realized what he’d lost until she was gone.

He gritted his teeth, and he dashed onto the field for another basket of towels, and he waited for whatever else these dingbats in Bliss wanted to throw at him.

After what he’d done to Kimmie, he deserved the humiliation.

K
immie was flipping
pages in a cake supply catalog and swinging her foot against the stool rung at the high counter in Bennie’s when someone sat down beside her late Saturday morning.

“You are a difficult woman to track down,” Esme Kincaid said.

Kimmie jumped. “Esme! Hi. I—erm—hi.”

“Did you lose your phone, sweetheart?”

“No, I—” Kimmie had left it at home. She didn’t want to know what was happening at the Husband Games or at Heaven’s Bakery. She didn’t want to take any more calls asking how she was doing. The bank wouldn’t call today—not on a Saturday—and if her friends wanted to find her, they’d figure out where to look.

She’d just wanted to disappear.

Esme gave her an
it’s okay
smile, then tapped a perfectly manicured rose-colored fingernail on a scalloped white cake platter in the catalog. “Beautiful. For your own shop, I hear?”

The last week, Kimmie had felt different. Stronger. Focused. Less awkward.

But sitting next to Josh’s mom made her want to blurt out a dream about marshmallow frog men in a conga line.

She gulped and nodded. “Kimmie Cakes opens in a week.” She couldn’t have done it this quickly on her own, but her friends had appeared and begged for tasks, and the décor, website, pictures, publicity, and equipment would be ready with a little help from a lot of people. Kimmie already had a dozen orders for parties in the next two weeks, which she’d be doing out of her own kitchen. And Rosita and Paige and nearly everyone she’d worked with at Heaven’s Bakery had called or texted to ask if they could come work for her. “Everything’s falling into place like it was meant to be,” she told Esme.

“Clayton and I are so very proud of you.” She smiled a sweet, motherly smile, and Kimmie said a silent thanks that Josh was adopted. Because if she’d seen any hints of him in Esme’s face, she might’ve cracked.

“And we owe you an apology,” Esme continued.

Kimmie shook her head. “No, you—”

“We do.” Esme squeezed Kimmie’s hand. “When Josh came to live with us, I went to work organizing fundraisers for homeless shelters and soup kitchens and centers for disadvantaged youth. Clayton himself took Josh shopping for clothes, taught him how to dress, how to talk, how to
think
, so that he could be a success, to give him the confidence that poor, lost, scared boy needed. But somewhere along the line, we forgot to teach him that appearances aren’t everything. We took for granted that he knew we loved him, and we forgot to teach him that sometimes people have to come before pride.”

Kimmie’s cupcake heart did a weird little jiggle. She stared down at the pictures of cake platters and blinked. Hard.

“He’d be horrified if he knew I were telling you this,” Esme continued, “but he still has so much of that scared little boy in him. He just hides it better now.”

Kimmie sucked her lips in.

That was the part that hurt the worst. For all his talk of protecting her from her mother, he hadn’t trusted her to protect his heart.

But she hadn’t exactly fought for it, had she? She’d been as much a cupcake with Josh as she had been with her mother.

“He’s at the football stadium,” Esme said.

Kimmie scrunched her nose. “The Bears are playing? I didn’t think football started until fall.”

“No, dear. The stadium
here
. He’s playing in the Husband Games.”

Kimmie shot out of her chair. “
He got married?
”

“Oh, honey, no. He’s playing for
you
.”

Her knees buckled, and her pulse ricocheted like Boo was bouncing around inside her veins. “For… me? But—”

“He might struggle with the words, but his heart knows what he needs.
You
. He wanted to do this for you. And when my boy wants to do something, nothing—
nothing—
not rules, not tradition, not even your mother, will stand in his way.”

Kimmie’s lungs weren’t working right. she couldn’t catch her breath. Nor could she stop the stinging in her eyes. “He talked Nat into letting him play? For—for me?”

“He’s quite persuasive.” Esme winked.

It was a Joshanova move at its finest. Risk public humiliation in the name of love so he became a hero when she joined him on stage. She started to shake her head.

“Josh doesn’t lack for female attention,” Esme said. “If he just wanted a woman, he could’ve stayed in Chicago and taken three or four out this weekend. Probably all at the same time.” She rolled her eyes heavenward with a motherly sigh.

Kimmie grimaced. Esme was right.

“But he wouldn’t force his way into a game designed for husbands for any other woman, Kimmie. He’s doing this for
you
. You don’t have to go watch, you don’t have to join him, you don’t even have to love him, but I’d be remiss as his mother if I didn’t meddle in his love life.”

Esme squeezed Kimmie’s hand again. “You are very, very good for him. You’re the only one who’s ever gotten into his heart. Please, please let him love you.”

She dashed away a drop of moisture in the corner of her eyes, then smiled a wobbly smile. “Hope to see you again soon, Kimmie. Clayton and I both miss you.”

And then, as though she hadn’t put hope in Kimmie’s heart and shifted her entire world, Esme Kincaid left.

J
osh’s heart
had pounded itself into a state of exhaustion. His limbs were weary, he was hot, and he couldn’t see a damn thing.

Kimmie wasn’t coming.

Four events this morning, and no one had heard from her. Not her friends, not any of the Knot Fest people milling about, not even Marilyn, who had looked as though she might rip his arms off before Billy’s security detail stepped between them.

But he wouldn’t be half the man Kimmie deserved if he didn’t finish the Husband Games for her, so here he was, stepping onto the stage for the final event, blindfolded with CJ guiding him, so he could try to sniff out his blow-up wife and plant a smacker on her.

The blindfolded kissing challenge was the grand finale most years, Natalie had told him with a little too much glee. She’d also suggested he kiss the oldest competitor—
You’ll know it’s Vi by the cloud of flowery perfume
—to give her a boost of excitement.

The crowd was extra loud, the sun extra scorching, the feel of failure extra depressing.

But he wouldn’t be the man Kimmie deserved until he’d earned it.

“Number one,” CJ said.

Josh shook his head.

The crowd cheered, and CJ led Josh down the line. “Number two.”

“Not her.”

And so it went on. Past wife number three, then four, then five, six, seven. Josh was tenth of the thirteen men competing. The nine who had gone before him would be up here with their wives, happy couples who had put their trust and faith in each other. Who had made a commitment to each other. Who were risking the perils of life and God and accidents to find happiness.

What if Josh was never enough for Kimmie?

“Number eight,” CJ said.

Josh started to shake his head, but then—

Coconut.

He smelled coconut. And peppermint. And
Kimmie
.

The crowd’s noise rose until the stage shook beneath his feet. He couldn’t draw a full breath. His fingers shook, his knees quaked, and his pulse raced so hard his heart physically ached.

“Kimmie?” he whispered.

“No talking,” CJ said.

Hell with the rules.

Josh ripped off his blindfold.

And there she was. Dark blond hair glowing in the sunlight, blue eyes big and watery and hopeful, pink lips trembling, wearing a perfect pink T-shirt with
The Few, The Proud, The Cupcakes
scrawled across it.

“Kimmie,” he whispered again.

“Hi,” she whispered back with a hesitant smile wobbling to life.

The goal was to kiss her. To find her, and to kiss her.

But instead, he sank to his knees, wrapped his arms around her hips, and buried his face in her belly.

Noises roared around him. His throat was thick, his eyes burned, his nose itched, but she was
here
.

Kimmie had come for him.

Her hand brushed through his hair, the other latched on to his neck while she bent down toward him. “Josh, it’s okay.”

“You came.” His voice cracked, his arms shook, but Kimmie had him.

Kimmie had him. And she was all he needed.

“
I
love you
.”

Three more delicious words had never been invented. And they tasted as amazing in Kimmie’s ears as they did on her lips.

She’d pulled Josh off of the stage when everyone was distracted by CJ leading Will out to find Lindsey, and now, they were hiding behind the stands while the crowd cleared out. Josh had Kimmie wrapped in a tight hug, and he was showering kisses on her hair, her face, her neck, her ears. “I love you, Kimmie,” he said again. “Please tell me I’m not too late.”

Her heart was caught in her throat, so she settled for kissing his cheek, his chin, his collarbone instead of answering.

“I kept dreaming I was naked and late for my cupcake final,” he said.

Kimmie choked out a laugh and squeezed him harder. He smelled like sunshine and male and lemons. “You’re just saying that.”

“No. No more just saying anything.” He let a soft kiss linger on her lips, then lifted his head and met her gaze square-on. “Complete truth. No spin. I love you, Kimmie. You put the sunshine in my life. You are the most beautiful creature God ever put on this earth. Your heart, your smile, your dreams, your cats, your T-shirts—
all
of you. Utter perfection.”

“
Josh
.” A girl could get used to hearing she was perfect.

He threaded his fingers through her hair and gripped her tight. “But I’ve been terrified I’ll lose you,” he whispered. “That you’ll be in an accident. That you’ll get sick. That I’ll love you, but you’d go away anyway. Like my mom. Like my foster moms. Like Birdie. But Kimmie, even if I knew you’d be gone tomorrow, I’d still want to spend today with you. If I can make you even a fraction as happy as you make me, then I couldn’t be anywhere else but with you.”

“Josh, no one has ever made me happy the way you do. You
see
me. You believe in me. You make
me
believe in me.”

“Let me love you.” His hands caressed her sides and slid down to grip her hips. “Marry me, live with me, give me every third Tuesday if you can’t stand me any more than that, but please, Kimmie. I can be more than unflavored cake batter. Let me prove it. Let me love you.”

“You’re better than a triple coconut German chocolate cheesecake with a Kimmie colada chaser.”

“Now that’s enough to make a man choke up.”

“No spin,” she reminded him, but really, what girl could resist smiling at that devilishly handsome grin?

He pressed another kiss to her lips and tugged her hips firmer against his until she felt a familiar bulge. “Can I take you home?” he whispered.

“For living in sin?” she whispered back.

“For forever.”

“I love you, Josh.”

“I love you, Kimmie. For now and for always.”

A
soft rustling
pulled Kimmie out of an odd dream that wasn’t entirely comfortable, but not scary or unusually weird either. “Sshh,” she heard Josh whisper. “We have to go up the stairs
very quietly
so Mommy doesn’t hear us coming.”

“Because it’s her birthday!” Mason hollered.

Kimmie smiled to herself, the dream still lingering, but in a good way. Despite her three-year-old son’s insistence that he was a ninja, he hadn’t yet learned the art of inside voices.

“We sing quiet, Daddy,” Mason’s twin, Cora, proclaimed just as loudly.

Kimmie stifled a laugh.

“Go on up, Princess Diva,” Josh said. “You too, Ninja Boy.”

“Daddy, you carry my cupcakes?” Cora said.

“Absolutely, angel.”

The twins thundered up the stairs of the little farmhouse she and Josh had bought when they found out Kimmie was pregnant. Mason barreled into the room first, green cape billowing behind him, a foam cat mask covering his blue eyes, his blond hair in desperate need of a trim. He flung his solid little body onto the bed, and the cats scattered. Cora dashed in wearing her pink rhinestone Diva pajamas Grandma Esme had given her for her birthday. Kimmie pushed herself up to sitting and pulled Cora into bed with her, tucking the quilt around both of them. “Good morning,” she whispered, kissing Cora’s crazy blond curls.

Mason bounced across the bed, doing ninja moves that were almost as good as some of Kimmie’s from her dreams.

“Mama, I was quiet when Daddy say be quiet, but Mason say my cupcakes is ugly,” Cora said.

“Everyone’s cupcakes are beautiful,” Josh said. He strolled into the room in sweatpants, a Bliss Bachelors’ T-shirt stretched taut over his chest, and an impressive case of bed-head.

His lips quirked while he held the cupcake plate for Kimmie’s inspection. The cupcakes were coconut—she thought—with pink frosting and gold edible glitter, all of them mashed and mangled and clearly made with as much love as two three-year-olds could cram into a cupcake. He would’ve been horrified to sell them at Kimmie Cakes, but his eyes were warm and proud. “They’re works of art,” he added.

Kimmie smiled at him.
He
was a work of art. And so much more.

“I want a cupcake!” Mason shouted.

Kimmie snagged him and pulled his squirmy body onto her lap. “No cupcakes until I hear everyone’s dreams.” She patted the bed beside her and gave Josh a pointed look. “You too.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He slid the cupcake plate onto the nightstand, then climbed in beside her, wrapping his strong arms around all of them, a cozy little squishy family of her own. He pressed a kiss to Kimmie’s bare shoulder, and she leaned into his solid body.

The twins were too young for dreams, but since they’d been listening to Kimmie’s dreams since before they were born, they loved to play along.

“Who’s first?” Kimmie asked.

“I had a dream I was eating cupcakes,” Mason shouted while he wiggled.

She loved that boy.

“He is so your son,” Kimmie said to Josh.

He grinned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m much quieter than he is.”

“I dream the mermaid bears wanted to steal Grandma Marilyn’s throne and make her eat cat food, but the cat food was princess dresses,” Cora declared.

Josh straightened.

Kimmie squinted at her daughter. Usually Cora said she dreamed she was a princess or that she baked cupcakes like mommy.

“What color dresses?” Kimmie asked.

“They weren’t colors. They were water,” Cora replied. “Or bubbles. And Boo’s fur was buttercream.”

A shiver went down Kimmie’s arms. “Oh, honey,” she whispered, “you really
did
have a dream.”

“You gonna cry?” Josh murmured.

Kimmie’s eyes had taken on a telltale sting. “It’s like when they learned to walk.”

“But better, because she made your mother eat cat food.”

Kimmie choked on a laugh. “
Hush
.”

“She’s in Greece. She can’t hear me.”

And that might’ve been Kimmie’s best birthday present. Mom had finally given Josh a chance to run Heaven’s Bakery while she was off on an extended vacation with Arthur, who steadfastly refused to marry her, but continued to be her
special friend
. After the twins were born, Marilyn had decided Josh was tolerable and that Heaven’s Bakery needed to stay in the family until Cora and Mason were old enough to decide if they each wanted to go into the family businesses.

It helped that Josh had quit provoking General Mom as soon as Kimmie had agreed to marry him for real.

But Kimmie knew her husband well enough to know that he took all the satisfaction he needed in helping Kimmie run Kimmie Cakes so well that its annual income was generally double that of Heaven’s Bakery.

Truth be told, she did too.

“Well,
I
had a dream that I met
your
mother,” Kimmie said to Josh. She pressed a kiss to his scratchy cheek. “Your first mother.”

He blinked and rubbed his chest. “Did you?”

“Mm-hmm. She told me that the twins are perfect, but we should’ve stopped before we had the marshmallow baby. And we need to keep an eye on Mason, because he thinks cheetah ninjas are a thing, and if we feed him too many green beans, he might turn into one.”

Josh opened his mouth, then closed it again.

Kimmie leaned her head on his shoulder. “She also said she forgives me for throwing away your grandmother’s wedding ring at Lindsey’s wedding.”

He took her hand and lifted it. The light hit the diamond she’d worn since the second time he’d given it to her. “You wouldn’t have thrown it if you’d known what it was.”

She wouldn’t have. He had so few physical mementoes of his biological family. “I think your mom said the same thing. Or else she told me to blame the girelephants. It’s kinda hazy now.”

“Have I ever mentioned how boring my life was before you?”

“Once or twice.”

“I love you.”

She couldn’t have held back her smile if she’d wanted to.

“I had a dream that’s not fit for little ears,” he murmured in her ear.

“That wasn’t a dream,” she whispered back.

“It was the third time.”

She laughed even as her deepest parts pulsed with interest. “What are your parents doing today?”

“Waiting around for us to call and ask if they want the kids?” Josh said.

“Birthday cupcakes!” Mason shouted.

“Sing ‘Happy Birthday’ first!” Cora shouted back.

“They don’t really believe they’re getting more grandchildren if they keep taking the twins on our days off, do they?” Kimmie asked.

Josh grinned at her. “Can’t imagine where they get those crazy ideas.”

From him, no doubt.

“Can’t blame a guy for wanting time alone with his beautiful wife, can you?” he said.

“Considering how much I enjoy time alone with my handsome husband, I suppose not.”

“I’m the cupcake ninja!” Mason bellowed. He squirmed off Kimmie’s lap and tried a few more ninja moves on the bed.

“Mommy, we have cupcakes?” Cora said. “Pwease?”

Josh snagged the plate and brought it to the bed.

Kimmie squinted at the cupcakes again, and an unexpected laugh burst out of her. “You know what those remind me of?” she said to Josh.

“
Modern
art?”

“Our first kiss.”

He looked at the cupcakes.

Then back at Kimmie.

And the smile he gave her was better than his old Josh Juan smiles, better than any cupcakes, and even better than discovering her courage and taking charge of her life.

This man was her everything.

And she hadn’t needed a superpower to snag him.

She’d simply needed her cupcakes.

A
nna braced herself
, scooted into the car, and cranked the engine. Steam flowed out of the air vents. She tilted them away while the AC system caught up. After buckling in, she gave her rearview mirrors a quick check. The gearshift seared her palm, but she gritted her teeth and put the car in reverse anyway.

Something tickled her finger. She absently scratched it and gave the car a little gas. Something else tickled the back of her hand.

She frowned.

Sweat didn’t usually tickle. Not like that.

She moved to shift the car into drive and something dark scurried over her windshield. “What the—”

A line of fire ants marched across her steering wheel.

Anna shrieked. She threw the car into park and tumbled out of it. “Get off!
Get off!
” She raked her hands over her arms and hopped on her clogs to shake the little buggers off. The prickles moved to her back, up her neck, into her hair. She knew the ants couldn’t be up there, there’d only been one or two, but she scrubbed at her scalp anyway.

“Ma’am? You okay?” A guy leaned out the side of a red car behind her. She was blocking one of the exits.

“Oh, yeah, sure, you betcha.” She wiggled her itching toes. “Sorry. It’ll just take me a minute to get out of your way.”

Her car’s engine whined. Heat radiated off the hood and wrinkled the air. The backs of her knees tingled as if a hundred ants had gathered there for an impromptu Riverdance.

A car door shut behind her. “Need a hand?” he drawled in a local-boy kind of way.

“Everything’s fine. Thanks.” Because she carried insect-killer in her car all the time in case her car came down with a case of the ants.

It took some effort to not reach for her phone. This was the kind of thing Neil would’ve taken care of for her. And it pissed her off that she wanted to let the man approaching solve her problem.

She was an independent woman, dammit. She’d fix this herself. She squared her shoulders, marched to the edge of her door, and hit her trunk release. She scooted around the car to survey the potential ant weapons in her trunk. She had to have
something
useful. Maybe she could club them one by one with her jumper cables. Shoot her emergency flares at them. Drop the box of Neil’s junk on them. Label them to death with the label maker.

It’d worked on her marriage.

And there was that stingy feeling behind her eyeballs again.

Long runner’s legs ending in flip-flop–clad feet entered her blurred vision. “You got some friends there.”

If Neil had to leave her, he should’ve done it somewhere else. Somewhere without fire ants, somewhere more hospitable to her Norwegian coloring, somewhere with halfway intelligent locals. She shot her audience a look she should’ve tried on the ants. “Where I come from, they’re called a nuisance.”

Instead of shriveling up and dying, he flashed her a goofy grin. His dark-lashed eyes creased in the corners.

Those lashes and the mass of just-long-enough-to-be-curly hair on his head were proof positive a man could have brains or looks, but not both.

And that tingly sensation along her breastbone was proof positive she had no business being single. First she agreed to a date with Rodney, now she was getting hot over a redneck.

She was supposed to be worrying about the ants. Class. Her
life
.

He scratched his curly hair and surveyed her neatly organized trunk.

As if he could wield her jumper cables better than she could against an army of fire ants.

Instead, he swung her Windex out of the trunk like a gunslinger preparing for a showdown, then tucked her paper towels under his arm.

“My car is very—” she started, but then it hit her.

He wasn’t going to clean it.

Carbon-based ants, meet ammonia.

Forgetting simple chemistry principles was not a good omen for her degree.

Wanting to watch her unexpected helper go to battle against the ants wasn’t a good omen for her sanity.

Her skin flushed as if she were standing inside Hell’s boiler room. She reached for the Windex, but something stopped her before she could get close enough to grab it.

Something that tasted suspiciously like fear.

Not of him.

Of herself.

“I’ll do it,” she bit out. She flicked her fingers up, gesturing for him to hand over the Windex.

“Ain’t no trouble.” His gaze wandered down her body, and she felt a whomp in her chest beneath the tingles spreading to her rib cage.

“Be a shame to mess up them pretty clothes,” he said.

“I can handle this,” she said firmly. She gestured to his car. “There’s another exit two rows down. I’ve taken enough of your time.”

His eyes were big and blue as her wounded heart, but when he squinted at her like that, they went a shade darker to cobalt. “Now I’m sure it don’t matter none to you, but my momma’d have my hide if she heard I abandoned a lady with critters in her car.”

Anna stifled a whimper of frustration. She swiped at her forehead. She’d probably drown in her own sweat before she managed to wrestle the Windex out of his hands.

If she could get brave enough to get within touching distance of him. “I don’t know your momma, so you don’t have anything to worry about.”

He scratched his hair again, and she felt an intense desire to claw out that part of her that wanted to know how it would feel between her fingers.

Rebound
, her brain yelled.

Something more primitive was still clamoring about his hair.

…
E
xcerpt from SOUTHERN
FRIED BLUES by Jamie Farrell ©2013