Life is Sweet (5 page)

“Not a boyfriend,” she said. “Or even boyfriend material. Just a man.”

Relief flooded him at her words, followed by a pinch of absurdity for feeling anything but neutral over the fact that this woman was saying that some man he didn't even know wasn't boyfriend material. It had nothing to do with him.
She
had nothing to do with him.
Get a grip.

He fell back on reassuring conventionalities. “Sometimes you gotta go with your gut.”

A smile spread across her face. “I barely know you—actually, I don't know you at all—and here I am asking you who I can trust. That's probably proof that my instincts are off-kilter.”

“My name's Matthew.”

“Becca.” She tilted her head. “And you're Olivia's . . . ?”

He thought for a moment. “Significant-other-dad? Olivia's mom is out of town on a job, so here I am. Buying forbidden horse magazines and the wrong kind of yogurt. Guardian fail all over the place.”

“I bet you're doing great.”

Her groceries glided forward, and Matthew started unloading his basket. “I probably should have used the self-checkout,” she said, noticing the meagerness of her pile next to his. “But half the time that takes me longer than waiting in line.”

He watched her interact with the cashier, admiring the easy way she had of talking to people. She wasn't overly friendly or effusive, just straightforward.
So there's a man in her life, but not a boyfriend. What did that mean?
Maybe there was a boyfriend she hadn't mentioned. Not that it was any of his business. His mind was obviously searching for a distraction from his own worries, which at this point only amounted to a vague uneasiness about Bob.

When she was done paying, Becca grabbed her grocery sack and smiled at him. “Have a good evening.”

“You too.” He turned to the cashier but was aware of Becca's progress toward the exit. His reluctance to see her go grew with each step. When she was nearly to the door, he called her name.

She spun back.

“As long as I'm practicing my dad skills,” he said, “I should probably add that it never hurts to remember the old stranger-danger lesson. Trust but verify, as the man said.”

Becca let the answer soak in, then nodded. “Right. Of course.”

She turned to go, and he blurted out, “It tasted great, by the way.”

She swung around. “What?”

“The strawberry cake. I had a slice after dinner. It was amazing.”

“Thanks.” Finally, she was able to make it out the door.

He turned back to the cashier, whose unblinking eyes and pinched lips disintegrated his smile. Clearly, she considered him a pathetic grocery store lothario.

“Does that woman look familiar to you?” he asked.

“Uh-huh.”

Thank God. It wasn't just him.

“She comes in here twice a week,” the woman explained over the
beep
of the grocery scanner.

Olivia skidded up behind him in time to stuff an armload of yogurt and two bags of chips onto the counter before the cashier had finished.

Matthew eyed the stuff critically, especially the chips. “Those weren't on the list.”

She lifted her chin. “Neither was frozen pizza.”

“Yeah, but—” He stopped, not in the mood to argue the comparative nutritional values of pizza and chips.

Olivia looked around. “Where's Becca?”

“She just left.”

“Dang! I wanted to ask her about my birthday party. We should have it at the horse barn where she keeps Harvey.”

“You want to have a party in a barn?”

“Not
in
the barn,” Olivia said, rolling her eyes. “With the horses.”

“I doubt Nicole will go for that.”

“Not even if I plan it all out so she doesn't have to?” She tugged on Matthew's sleeve. “And not even if you nag her for me?”

“Oh no,” he said, in his most emphatic, leave-me-out-of-this tone.

“Please, Matthew? She listens to you.”

“Not when it comes to horses.” Or anything to do with Olivia, actually.

“Well, shoot. Anyway, I can still ask Becca about it when I see her tomorrow.”

“When will you see her tomorrow?”

“When you buy me a cupcake after school.”

Even as he shook his head, a part of him was already relenting. That cake had tasted awfully good.

After he got home and Olivia retreated to her room—ostensibly to finish her homework, but probably to read her magazines—he called Nicole, who picked up on the second ring.

“Hey there!” Her voice was a little too loud, and the sounds of a bar or busy restaurant floated in the background. Wasn't it late to be out barhopping on a work night?

“What are you calling about?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”

“No, I just wondered what you were up to.” He hitched his throat. “Wondered how you were, I mean.”

“Right now, I'm tired and grumpy and having dinner with some of the gang. What's up?”

“Nothing in particular.” His grip on the phone tensed. “I ran into Dave at the grocery store tonight. He hinted that Bob had cheated on his wife.”

Nicole laughed. “I believe that falls under the category of old news.”

“Really? I hadn't heard.”

“Why would you? You barely know the guy. For that matter, you barely know Dave.”

True. He frowned. “
Is
Bob cheating on her?”

Nicole let out a huff of exasperation and lowered her voice. “Look—it's sort of awkward to talk about here, and I can't believe we're wasting minutes gossiping anyway. Give me a buzz later, okay? Maybe before bedtime.”

“It's already ten thirty here.”

“Oh hell. I keep forgetting the time difference.”

So did he. “It's okay.”

“I meant to call you tonight or tomorrow anyway,” she said. “I'm not going to be able to make it back this weekend. We're hoping to get something done on Friday if the weather's better, so it won't make sense to fly back for what would probably be just a day and a half.”

He bit back a sigh. Nicole didn't need to hear his disappointment. Back when she'd been assigned to the wave project, she'd warned that she might have to spend a few weekends in Oregon.

“Call me this weekend,” she said. “We'll have more time to talk on Saturday. And we really do need to talk.”

“Really?” Alarm spiked in his chest.

“Give O hugs for me!” she chimed, and rang off.

For a few minutes, he perched on the edge of Nicole's queen-sized bed with its fluffy rose comforter and extravagant mountain of pillows, combing through every word of their short conversation, trying to weigh the meaning of each pause and inflection. What did she mean, they had a lot to talk about? And why exactly was it hard to talk about Bob?

Before calling, he'd convinced himself that his uneasiness about Nicole was just the normal product of distance and the paranoia that Dave guy had seeded in his brain. Also, there was that weirdness with the cake lady, Becca. He hadn't been tempted by another woman in years. And he wasn't really tempted now. He was just . . .

Attracted to her. That was it. Men checked women out. Women checked men out. It wasn't cheating—it was life.

But it wasn't
his
life. For two years he'd been dedicated to Nicole. He'd moved to be close to Nicole. He'd asked Nicole to marry him.

And she'd said no.

At the time, they discussed her refusal and agreed that it was not the right time. Nicole was too fresh from her divorce, he had no idea what dedication and patience being a parent took, and neither of them were so strapped for funds that they couldn't afford to keep their own places. They were in a privileged position of being able to live the best of both worlds—committed, but independent. In love, but not tethered.

Now he wondered if that wasn't exactly what he was missing in his life. A tether.

Chapter 4

Becca bolted up in the dark out of an unsound sleep and glanced at the glowing block letters of her alarm clock.
1:52
A.M.
Had she woken from a nightmare? She tried to think back, but the only thing she could call up from her tormented attempt at shut-eye was a blond kid with bad skin and a Napoleon complex.

Trust but verify,
Matthew had said. Good advice. She just hadn't known how to verify. Now she remembered that there was one person who could tell her more about Walt.

Steve.

She climbed out of bed and shrugged a hoodie over her pajamas. Maybe she was crazy. Maybe it would all be a big waste of time. She couldn't even be sure Steve would still be at the station when she got there, but she had to at least try to talk to him. At nine in the morning, an old ex-con she'd promised a job was going to show up at the bakery door. Knowing whether he'd been an ax murderer in a previous life would be useful information to have.

I must have been insane
. This was probably how a lot of well-meaning women ended up as swindle victims. Or in the morgue with toe tags.

Ten minutes later she stepped through the doors of the deserted gas station and food mart, prepared to eat crow. Relief filled her when she noted the blond figure slumped behind the register, eyelids heavy, reading a magazine. Steve looked up and recognized her. His lips flattened to the point of invisibility.

“I was just doing my job,” he said.

“I know. I came to apologize.”

He eyed her doubtfully. “At two
A.M.
?”

She strolled over to the counter. “You see, I have my own Walt headache now. I promised him a job.”

The guy did everything short of smacking his forehead. Strangely, she almost liked him in that moment. At least, she felt a sense of camaraderie between them. “Why?” he asked.

“Guilt,” she confessed.

“Oh man. He was only here for a week and a half, but he was pretty useless. I hope you've got some other workers to pick up the slack.”

“Well . . .” She hadn't worked up the nerve to break the news about her new hire to Pam, who would be absolutely thrilled to have an ex-con as a coworker. “See, I don't have a lot of experience with personnel, like you must have.”

He sat up straighter.

“I'm not a big outfit like this. . . .” She tried to assume a look of awe as she gestured around the brightly lit room with its shelves of snack food, refrigerated cases, and displays of lighters, car air fresheners, and beef jerky. “You must all do some serious background and reference checking before you hire someone. . . .”

He grunted in surprise. “You came to
me
to give a reference for Walt?”

“Not a recommendation. Just to know . . . a little.”

Steve gnawed on his chapped lower lip. “I'm not sure I can say anything. The station could get sued.”

“I doubt that. In any case, this is just an informal talk. I mean, Walt hasn't really
applied
for a job or anything. I just need to know, in a casual way—you know, person to person?—whether I should be afraid for my life.”

He chewed this over for a few seconds more, then came out with it in a rush. “He was a jailbird, but that was a while back, and he finished his parole.”

“He told me that himself. He didn't say why, though. . . .”

“I talked to some guy in California, and he told me he's an old druggie. Like, heavy-duty junkie, maybe. Then he knocked over a liquor store and got sent up for that. Armed robbery.”

“Oh God.”

“I think it was a really long time ago. Like, way back in the nineties. The officer said he'd been clean since then.”

“Oh. That's good, I guess.” Dandy.

“Yeah, so now he's basically just a washed-up old loser. Can't imagine him working up the energy to rob anybody these days.”

She nodded. She was having a hard time squaring the soft-spoken Walt with the words
junkie
and
armed robbery.
“Well, thanks for giving me the info. That's what I needed to know.”

“You still going to give him a job?”

“I don't see why not.”

“You will, in a couple of days.” After a moment, he hunched his shoulders in a shrug. “Then again, he might not even show up for work at all.”

“That would solve my problem then, wouldn't it?”

 

Half of her hoped that Steve's prediction would come true and Walt wouldn't even show up, yet the other half was rooting for the old guy to pull himself back together. So she wasn't entirely disappointed to see him standing by the bakery door when she came downstairs to open up.

“Morning,” he said.

She remembered he didn't have a car. “How did you get here?”

“I walked a ways and caught a bus.”

Given Leesburg's limited transportation system, there was no telling when he'd left Ferber Road in order to arrive here on time. She still didn't know what she was going to do with him now that she had him.

Inside, she flipped on the light. Usually this was her favorite part of the day—arriving, getting things set up, and beginning a day's work in solitude. Now she tottered around with self-conscious movements, as if she inadvertently found herself onstage before a live audience. “First thing, I usually make coffee,” she said, narrating her own actions for lack of anything else to say. “For myself. Want a cup?”

Walt looked as if he could use a jump-start. His face appeared sallow and puffy, as though he'd just rolled out of bed. He scratched his forearm in a way she'd noticed before. She couldn't tell if he had itchy skin or if it was a nervous tic.

“Thank you, but I don't drink a lot,” he said. “And only decaf now.”

“I have a pot for decaf, too,” she said.

He hurried over. “Then let me make it. You just get on with your business.”

This
is
my business,
she thought resentfully. But she stepped back, letting him take charge of the coffee as she went around flipping things on—more lights, the computer she kept at the shop, the ovens. “If you need any help . . .”

“I think I've got it,” he said. “I've worked in kitchens some.”

“Have you?” She imagined the prison mess hall from
The Shawshank Redemption,
which was the most intimate experience she'd had with life behind bars.

“Coffee shop back in California.” He caught her eye. “That's where I come from.”

“Oh?” She did a pretty good job pretending she hadn't known that. At least, she knew that was where he had lived while he was in jail. She had to remind herself that there was probably more to the guy than the fact that he'd done time. “Me too,” she said. “Lived there most of my life, in fact.”

“Why'd you leave?”

Telling the man her life story wasn't really what she'd planned— especially the first hour they were stuck together. But she didn't have a lot of other small talk to offer. “I just wanted a change, and a place that would be good for Harvey, my horse.” She nodded at the photograph of herself and Harvey. “Actually, when I decided to move from LA, I tossed a dart at a map to decide where.”

The map had been attached to a demographic chart at the film distribution company where she'd ended up in a snoozer of a job, with areas of the country color-coded to reflect people's age, disposable income, and movie-going habits. The moment the dart had landed in northern Virginia, it had felt as if the state was calling her. And once she'd hopped on the Internet and viewed the place, with its green hills dotted with horses and its charming small towns, she hadn't been able to resist the lure. She could start over here—live simply and do things she loved, among people who didn't view a normal, unpublicized life as a come-down. It was her second chance at life.

“Maybe it was rash, but I just wanted something different. I needed to retrench.”

Walt nodded. “I understand that feeling.”

“Why did you leave California?” she asked.

He turned away and started loading the second coffeemaker. “Just looking for something.”

That sounded ominous. Maybe it would be best if they tried to avoid chitchat. She retreated to the back of the kitchen and began planning. She preheated the two ovens, which usually stayed on most of the day. She liked to start the day baking the small things that were best fresh—cookies, brownies, cupcakes. The larger cakes she baked later in the day, because cakes usually tasted better after sitting overnight anyway.

She turned to the storage room, but then stopped herself. The room had no windows, just a back door that stayed bolted. Going in there, she would be out of sight of the street. Cornered. Vulnerable.

Oh hell.
If you're that nervous about the old guy, you should tell him to go right now.

She took a deep breath. “Walt?”

He snapped to attention. “If you want, I can get the floors all washed and shiny for your customers,” he offered. “The front window could use cleaning, too. And then . . . didn't you say something about deliveries?”

He hurried past her, into the storage room. Some homing instinct must have told him where she kept the cleaning supplies, because he went right to the broom. “Okay?”

Looking into those hound-dog eyes, she couldn't bring herself to tell him to go. She answered with a nod that was more obedient than enthusiastic. “Okay.”

The phone rang and she scrambled for it, hoping it was Pam or Erin. It just so happened that Pam had a showing and wouldn't be in until the afternoon, so all morning Becca would be on her own with the ex-jailbird.

With Walt.
She had to stop thinking of him as a jailbird.

Looking at the little display on her phone, she didn't recognize the number, although the area code was Los Angeles. Which was weird, because this was the shop's phone. Also, it would be early in Los Angeles. “Strawberry Cake Shop,” she answered.

“Oh—hello!” The woman's voice jangled a nerve. Not that her actual voice sounded familiar, but the tone did. The speaker exclaimed in that show-business eagerness of someone who was “on.” It was the phone enthusiasm of actors, agents, and desperate entertainment journalists, the kind of bubbly effusiveness that she could imagine flatlining the instant one party hung up. “I'm trying to reach Rebecca Hudson?”

“Speaking.”

“Really? Rebecca Hudson from
Me Minus You
?”

This was odd. Weeks went by now, occasionally even months, without that show cropping up. Seventeen years was a long time, and even in the age of YouTube, video-on-demand, and DVD boxed sets of everything, people had short memories. Most days she was able to convince herself that her attempt to ride off into the sunset had been successful. But this was the second day in a row that someone had sought her out because of the show.

She hesitated before admitting, “Yes, that's me.”

“Oh, terrific! Rebecca, my name is Renee Jablonsky. I'm the casting director for the reality show
Celebrities in Peril!
And as it happens, we're putting together a super-special child star edition.”

“I hope you mean former child star.” Presumably putting actual children in peril wasn't considered entertainment. Yet.

“Correct. And would you believe, Rebecca, that during our round-table session, yours was one of the first names that came up? So many of us here grew up with
Me Minus You
and are such big fans of your work!”

“Thank you. But my work now is making cakes.”

“I know—that's so adorable and small towny. It could almost be a TV show! And what great publicity it would be for your little bakery to have you back in the limelight.”

Becca was gripping the phone so hard, for a moment she wondered which would crack first—the phone's plastic shell or the bones in her hand. “I'm sorry. It's hard to describe how much I'm not interested in doing a reality show. Especially not one with the word
peril
in the title.”

The woman chuckled. “It's actually not dangerous. It's managed risk.”

“Uh-huh.”

“That business with the shark last season was just extremely bad luck. And Mackenzie totally survived it.”

“I don't—”

“The doctors were even able to save her leg—all but one little chunk.”

Oh Lord. “I'm sorry, I have a business to run here. And it's not show business.”

The woman's skeptical grunt conveyed her firm belief that only fools turned down opportunities to be on television. “Here's the deal, Rebecca. We pay a flat fee for each week that you stay on the show, and it's not really a huge time commitment, because each edition of the show is limited to a six-week run.”

“I'm still not interested,” Becca said. “In fact, the only thing I'm curious about is how you found the number for my store.”

A few too many coincidences had cropped up in the past day. She glanced over at Walt, sweeping between tables at the front of the shop. First, he had been camped outside her store. He was from California. Last night, she'd offered him a job, and now this woman from California was pestering her. Walt certainly didn't look like a television production company spy. . . .

Renee demolished the conspiracy theory. “We Googled you.”

An article about her had appeared in the local paper back when she'd opened the bakery, but it hadn't been picked up nationally. Becca was pretty sure the Strawberry Cake Shop wasn't among the top listings on a search of her name.