Just Desserts (Main Street Merchants Book 4) Read online

  “That can be said about a lot of things,” Quinn replied. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was really impressed by his answer. “So what is your basic philosophy of life? Come on, Yogi Jonah. What is the world about, according to you?”

  “Well, it’s pretty basic. Look for peace and beauty wherever you can find it. Do an honest day’s work for an honest day’s wage. Never sell out. And never, ever, let anyone beat you at a donut-hole-stuffing contest.”

  Before Quinn could process his shift from the mysteries of the universe to his crazy idea for a duel, he’d already shoved six donut holes in his mouth. Not to be outdone, Quinn reached into the box and started loading her mouth as well, her knuckles bumping into Jonah’s as they went in for more at the same time. Quinn had never done anything like this before and she didn’t know how she was going to pull it off—she had a pretty easy gag reflex—but she couldn’t let Jonah just have that last piece of pizza. Okay, he’d paid for it, but that didn’t give him automatic ownership. He’d brought it to share.

  Quinn pushed donut holes into her mouth until she was sure she couldn’t fit anymore, but then she kept going. Thankfully, they were just squishy enough that she was able to tuck in an additional three before having to call it quits.

  Jonah had reached his limit too, but instead of spitting them out, like Quinn expected, he chewed and swallowed. Maybe that was part of this contest, so she did the same.

  “Okay, how many?” she asked.

  “Eight. And you?”

  “No way.”

  “What?”

  She shook her head. “We’re right back where we started. I got eight too.”

  Jonah let out a long, gusty sigh. “Okay, get the knife.”

  Quinn smiled as she grabbed a knife from the kitchen and went back out front. This cake-decorating class wasn’t going anything like she’d anticipated, but she was having an awful lot of fun. She cut the pizza precisely down the middle and invited Jonah to choose which side he wanted. He made a big show of studying the two sides for equality, then picked up the one on the left.

  “Okay,” he said after he’d swallowed his last bite, “let’s get down to business. You promised me a lesson.”

  “Yes, I did. We talked about making frosting roses, and I’ve got the stuff all ready to go.” They cleaned up their dinner mess, washed up, and then got to work. Quinn showed Jonah how to twirl the flower nail, and he had the decency not to make a carpentry joke.

  “Now push all the frosting down toward the tip, like you’re rolling up a tube of toothpaste,” she said. “If you get an air bubble in there, it will make a break in the frosting, and that won’t look as nice.”

  Quinn noticed that Jonah was standing a little closer to her than he was before. She thought about stepping away, but for some reason, she didn’t. She’d have to analyze that later. Right now, she needed to teach Jonah how to make roses.

  It was nine o’clock and they were both yawning by the time they finished. Jonah had now made thirty perfect frosting roses. He said it was so he could really get a feel for using the frosting bag, but she had the feeling he just wanted to stay at the bakery as long as possible. Something else to analyze later.

  “I guess I’d better head off,” he said, laying down the bag after adding the last leaf to a bright pink rose.

  “Thanks for coming in tonight, Jonah. And for the pizza. It was a lot of fun.” Suddenly the old awkwardness was back, and she didn’t know how to chase it away. It had taken a hot pizza and a box of donut holes to do the trick before, and they were now out of both.

  Jonah seemed to feel the awkwardness too. “I’ll see you in class Monday,” he said, touching her shoulder briefly before taking off his apron and heading for the door. “Night.”

  “Night.” Quinn locked up after him, wishing they’d been able to keep up the lighthearted banter, wondering what had changed, wondering if she just wasn’t meant to be friends with this philosophizing contractor.

  A man was leaning against her car when she stepped out of the bakery, and all her senses went on full alert until she realized it was Jonah.

  “Hey,” she said, walking up to him with her keys in her hand. She felt silly, thinking she’d use them as a weapon against an attacker, but she didn’t have a cudgel in her purse. Maybe she’d have to go cudgel shopping. “Forget something?”

  “Yeah. I forgot it was dark out here.”

  “Um, what?” Who forgets it gets dark at night?

  He grinned. “I mean, I couldn’t leave and just let you walk out to your car alone.”

  Her heart skipped at least two beats. “But I come out here after dark all the time.”

  He looked around. “Are you sure it’s safe?”

  “This is Aspen Ridge. It’s probably the safest community in the entire country, unless you want to count the Amish communities, and even there, they sometimes have a horse break loose and go trotting through the streets, wreaking all kinds of havoc.”

  “If I were a master criminal, I’d choose a town exactly like Aspen Ridge to perform my acts of darkness. It would be the perfect cover.”

  She grinned. The banter was back. “Your acts of darkness, huh?”

  “But of course. Now, are you going to get in your car, or are you going to keep me up all night?”

  She didn’t want to say good-bye to him. She’d rather stand out here and talk about crime and Amish horses all night long, but that wasn’t the responsible thing to do, the Quinn thing to do.

  With nothing else to say that wouldn’t get her in trouble, she climbed in the car, and Jonah glanced in her backseat.

  “Just checking for bad guys,” he said, then closed the door and knocked on her hood twice.

  As she backed out, still giggling over the master criminal thing, Jonah saluted her, and she drove home feeling lighter than she had in days—embarrassment notwithstanding.

  * * *

  “Hey, Mom,” Quinn called out as she opened the kitchen door and stepped into her parents’ home. It was still hard for her sometimes to realize that she no longer lived here and hadn’t for a few years—even the walls were saturated with memories, and she loved coming here on her free Sundays. Who was she kidding—they were nearly all free.

  “I’m in the pantry,” came the reply.

  Quinn tossed her purse onto a kitchen chair and plunked down on one of the stools at the counter. Her mother was obviously in an apple cobbler kind of mood—all the makings stood on the counter surface, so Quinn picked up the knife and began to chop.

  “Hey,” her mother scolded, bustling into the room with her arms full of cans. “It’s your day off. You shouldn’t be cooking.”

  “That’s not what you tell me on Thanksgiving,” Quinn replied.

  “That’s because Thanksgiving’s not a day off.” Her mother kissed her on the forehead and then set down her load. “I’m making some quick chili and cornbread. Sound good?”

  “Heavenly. You get started on that and I’ll finish this cobbler.”

  While they worked, Quinn filled her mother in on Mr. D’s condition. “I just don’t know what’s going to happen,” she concluded. “And Maggie seems so exhausted.”

  “You’re just going to have to take it a day at a time.” Rose, Quinn’s mother, slid the pan of cornbread into the oven. “No one can predict the future, even as much as we’d like to. They’re lucky to have you, Quinn.”

  “That’s what they keep telling me. I wish I could do more, though—making cookies seems so inconsequential when they’re dealing with such huge issues.”

  “You’re not just making cookies.” Rose paused in opening a can of tomato paste. “You’re preserving Mr. D’s legacy, and that’s not something to be taken lightly. He’ll have that to cling to no matter what else happens.”

  “I guess I hadn’t thought of it like that.” Quinn set the cobbler pan on the counter next to the oven. It would go in right after the cornbread, after the oven cooled from 400˚ to 350˚. Rose badly wanted tw
o ovens in her kitchen, but they’d never had the money to remodel. “There’s always a greater good in situations like this, isn’t there?”

  “Absolutely. And you’re working toward it—don’t forget that.” Rose added a dash of salt to the pot and put it on the stove. “Dinner will be ready in about twenty minutes. Where are the men?”

  Quinn smiled. Her mother had always called her father and brothers “the men,” even when her brothers were six and eight years old. “My guess is that they’re watching some kind of sports on TV.”

  “And my guess is that you’re right.” Rose sighed and grabbed a dishcloth. “They know I hate it when they flip on the sports as soon as we get home from church.” She wiped her hands as she walked over to the staircase. “Hey,” she called down. “Dinner’s in twenty minutes.”

  “Thanks, Mom,” came the tenor voice of Quinn’s eighteen-year-old brother Tad.

  As Quinn set the table, she couldn’t help but think about Jonah and wonder if her brothers would like him. Tad would appreciate Jonah’s easy-going attitude. Markus, her twenty-year-old brother, would probably like Jonah’s entrepreneurial spirit. Markus was in the middle of setting up his own software company. Who does that at twenty? And then there was her dad, Ben. What would her dad like about Jonah?

  Then she pulled herself together. Why was she even thinking this way? He was a student in her class. He’d fixed the window. They’d had a great time together the night before—sure, it was almost like a date, but it wasn’t really a date, so she shouldn’t be putting it in the same category. None of this meant that he was going to be in her life even three months from now. He could get an offer to go build a mansion in Beverly Hills, decide he liked it out there, and move. Nothing was set in stone.

  And besides, he was annoying. He pointed out all her flaws—he’d called her stubborn and snobby. Who’d want to be with a guy like that?

  Then she laughed. That’s exactly what her dad would like about Jonah—his unflinching way of calling it as he saw it.

  “What’s so funny?” her mom asked from by the stove.

  “Hmm? Oh, nothing. I was just thinking.” Quinn put the last water glass on the table and came back into the kitchen to see how the food was coming along. The cornbread was ready, so after her mom pulled it out, Quinn set the oven to 350˚ and left the door open a crack to help it reach that new temperature.

  “You’re not going to tell me what you were thinking? Come on—I’ve been waiting about three minutes now for you to spill it.” Rose leaned one hip against the counter.

  “I’m not sure I’m ready to share. But when I am—if I am—I’ll let you know.”

  “Ah. One of those things.” Rose nodded. “Okay. But just know that I’ll be dying of curiosity until then.”

  Dinner was everything it should be—warm, delicious, and spent laughing and joking with her family. Quinn looked forward to Sunday dinners at her parents’ all week—they rejuvenated her like nothing else could. Sometimes she even got here early enough to go to church with her family, and that made it all the better. But far too soon, the clock said it was time for her to go.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “but I have to be at the bakery early tomorrow. It’s been closed for a couple of days, and I have to get some inventory on the shelves before we open.”

  “I wish you could stay the night once in a while,” her father, Ben, said. “I worry about you driving on these canyon roads.”

  Quinn tilted her head to one side. “My house is only half an hour from here, and I hardly call those ‘canyon roads.’ Sure, they twist and turn a little, but they’re not dangerous.” Secretly, though, she was pleased that he was worried about her. There was something nice about still being Daddy’s little girl.

  “Well, be safe. And let us know when you get home.”

  “I always do.” She gave her parents each a quick hug and slugged her brothers on the shoulders before heading out to her car. It wasn’t even dusk yet, and she sighed. This is what she wanted and what she was afraid she’d never have as long as she worked at the bakery—a family. And a life.

  * * *

  “I’m so glad you both came in,” Quinn told Becky and Kenny the next morning as they gathered in the bakery kitchen. “I know it’s murder to be here this early, but just remember, you’re doing this for Mr. D.”

  “Yeah, it’s kind of early,” Kenny said around a yawn. “But I’m glad to help.”

  “Me too,” Becky said.

  “All right, let’s get busy. Becky, I’ve swept and mopped and wiped until I think I took the finish off the floor, but would you give everything one last swipe? We need to make sure that there’s not even one particle of sawdust anywhere.”

  “Sure thing,” Becky said. She grabbed a couple of bar towels and a spray bottle on her way out front.

  “Kenny, you get started on bread, and I’ll get started on cookies and cupcakes. I had to throw away everything we had on hand, so we’re starting from scratch. Do an extra-big batch of French bread today—I’ve noticed we’re selling out of that a lot earlier than we used to.”

  Kenny gave her a salute and headed off to the giant bread mixer in the corner.

  Quinn glanced at the clock. It was four a.m. No one should have to be at work at four a.m. She’d have to see if she could come up with some kind of reward for her workers. They were really showing their loyalty right now.

  Chocolate chip cookies were definitely her first priority. She put the butter and sugar into the mixer to cream, then added the vanilla. She’d missed these smells, even though it had only been a couple of days. The flour poofed up like it always did when she first added it, but this time, it wasn’t an annoying mess. It was a welcome home.

  With that batch in the oven, Quinn started on some vanilla cupcakes. She’d also throw together some donuts and muffins—those were very popular with the morning crowd.

  “The front looks awesome,” Becky said, coming back into the kitchen. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen it so clean. It’s weird not having that table in front of the window, though.”

  “Yeah. We’ll have to get that replaced as soon as we can. Here, would you scoop the rest of the cupcake batter while I start the donuts?”

  “Sure.”

  With the three of them working quickly, they were able to start refilling the display case. Quinn knew she’d be mixing up new batches of this, that, and the other all day, but that wasn’t anything too entirely new—she’d just be doing it a little faster.

  Before it seemed possible, it was time to open, and she told Becky to make sure the coffee pot was ready to go. Their morning crowd was right on time, picking up muffins, donuts, and Styrofoam cups of dark roasted goodness. Quinn watched their inventory take a huge hit—they usually had time to make twice as much breakfast food. She wished she’d been able to do some prep work on Saturday night—that usually made Monday morning so much easier—but giving Jonah that make-up lesson had really cut into her time.

  Not that she could complain. For only the eightieth time that morning, she thought about the way he stuck out the tip of his tongue while he concentrated. It was just so cute.

  She was almost resentful when the phone rang, pulling her back to reality.

  “Hey, Quinn,” Maggie said. “Do you have any cakes that need to be done?”

  “No, we’re free and clear,” Quinn replied.

  “I was afraid of that. Marco’s having a hard day, and I thought I could bring him down for a little while.”

  “Well, like I said, I don’t have any big cake orders. Does he want to do some sheet cakes? I don’t have any on display right now, and it’s looking kind of empty.”

  “Hold on. I’ll ask.” Quinn could hear the murmur of voices in the background, and then Maggie came back on the line. “He says anyone can decorate a sheet cake. He doesn’t want to come in just for that.”

  “I could pretend we have an order,” Quinn said. “Something really elaborate.”

  Maggie sighe
d. “I think he’d see through that. I just told him your slate was clean.”

  “I wish there was something I could do. Does he want to come down just for a visit? He doesn’t have to work every time he’s here, does he?”

  “In his mind, yes, he does.” Maggie sighed again. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll see if he’d like to go visit our son. That usually cheers him up.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t do more.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  After Maggie hung up, Quinn held on to the receiver for a long minute. What must it feel like to go from being the heart and soul of a thriving business to someone who isn’t even needed on a daily basis? Mr. D had always taken such good care of his family, and she knew it was driving him nuts that now they had to take care of him.

  Chapter Seven

  The day went by faster than Quinn could even track. Everyone had heard about the accident, of course, and they were showing their support by coming in and ordering pastries by the dozens. It was awesome for business, but Quinn was kept busy throwing flour into the mixer all day long. Kenny had restocked the bread display nicely and was now helping her with cupcakes, even though he was supposed to go home at noon.

  “I didn’t have anything else going on today,” he said when she asked him. Becky was equally fine with the extra work, but Quinn had noticed something else—the two teens seemed to be having an awfully good time talking to each other while they worked. Quinn smiled. They were both good kids—she couldn’t see any harm in a little flirting.

  At long, long last, it was time to close the doors. Quinn sank into a chair, not even bothering to take off her apron. The displays were half empty because of the steady stream of customers they’d had all day, but she could remedy that in the morning. She rested her eyes for a moment, trying to stave off a headache. Her eyes flew back open, though, when she heard a sack of flour shift in the storeroom. She’d known when she grabbed one that afternoon that the one below it could slide right off the stack and into the wall. She needed to tidy up the entire place. Right now, she had to get ready for her cake decorating class.