Читать книгу Wedding Willies - Victoria Pade - Страница 9

A fter a night of tossing and turning, Ad was up early Sunday morning. Not only was he up, he was in the kitchen of his apartment rushing to fix a big breakfast, keeping a vigilant eye out the window over the sink that afforded him a view of the alley—and the landing he shared with Kit—and silently berating himself for all of it.

The tossing and turning hadn’t been simply an ordinary restless night. He hadn’t been up since the crack of dawn just because he was an early riser. The breakfast he was making was double what he could eat and he wasn’t in a hurry because he was hungry. And he wasn’t watching the weather change through that window.

Kit MacIntyre—she was the reason for everything.

He’d had a bad night’s sleep because he hadn’t been able to get her out of his head, and dreaming about her had woken him up before his alarm had gone off in the morning.

He was making double the food so he would have an excuse to invite her to breakfast.

He was hurrying to do it and keeping an eye out for her to make sure she didn’t go down to the restaurant before he had the chance to convince her to come to his place instead.

And those were all absolutely the wrong reasons for everything. He just couldn’t seem to help himself.

But then it wasn’t every day that he met someone he hit it off with the way he’d hit it off with Kit. Someone he felt so comfortable with. Someone who—unless he was mistaken—had been pretty relaxed with him, too.

Conversation hadn’t been a struggle. They’d fallen easily into teasing each other. Into joking around. Their whole time together had been… Well, fun. It was as simple as that.

But simple or not, that hadn’t happened for him in a long while.

Oh, sure, it was easy enough to talk to other women he knew. To tease them and joke around with them. But last night, with Kit, there had been an added element to it. A different dynamic.

Attraction.

Okay, he admitted it. He’d felt an attraction to Kit.

Much as he didn’t want to. And he didn’t want to.

What had he sworn to himself after Lynda?

No out-of-towners.

It wasn’t a difficult concept. He didn’t want to get involved with any woman who had a life and ties outside Northbridge. Certainly no one who had a whole business somewhere else.

So what the hell was he doing? he asked himself as he began to scramble eggs.

He took another peek out the window in the direction of the studio apartment. That simple gesture was enough to put the picture of Kit into his head even though there was no sign of her.

It was a phenomena that had been happening since she’d left him in the restaurant the night before. Every detail of the way Kit looked would pop into his head even when he was trying not to think about her or trying to talk himself out of the things she’d roused in him. Out of the blue the image of her would invade in bright, living color. And it certainly wasn’t helping anything.

How could it when he liked the way she looked so damn much?

That was somewhat of a puzzler all on its own.

He usually went for the surfer-girl types—sleek, sun-streaked blond hair; healthy tans that spoke of athletic, outdoorsy interests; long legs that went on forever.

And that wasn’t Kit.

Kit had crazy-wild espresso-colored hair that made her look a little untamed. And it framed pale, flawless, alabaster skin that didn’t seem to have ever seen the unblocked sun. Plus she wasn’t particularly leggy. How could she be when she was barely more than three or four inches over five feet tall?

But still it all worked for her.

He didn’t think he’d ever seen anyone with features that fine and delicate. With cheekbones that high. With a nose that thin and impeccably shaped. With lips that were a perfect mix of full and pink and perfect. With dark, purplish blue eyes.

Violet—that’s what they were. The color of the flowers on that bush his mother loved so much. Blue-violet eyes. Big, round, sparkling blue-violet eyes with the longest, thickest black lashes….

Ad sighed a long sigh.

She also had a terrific little body. Tight and compact with breasts that had drawn his attention and thoughts more than once, and a rear end that would just fit in his hands….

Yeah. He definitely liked the way she looked.

But she lives in Denver, he reminded himself. She has a business in Denver. She’s only here until after the wedding.

That reminder was supposed to be the antidote.

But all it had accomplished was to leave him thinking about how he had the whole week with Kit right next door.

“You’re just asking for misery,” he muttered in warning. The kind of misery he’d suffered before. The kind of misery he was determined not to ever suffer again.

So he knew that what he should do was eat this breakfast by himself, not see Kit any more than necessary while she was here, and squelch the hell out of that mental picture of her that kept raising things he didn’t want raised.

No doubt about it, that’s what he should do.

Except that just then he heard the door on the studio apartment open and close.

And did he do what he should do? Did he ignore it and count himself lucky not to have to see her first thing this morning?

No, he didn’t.

He dropped everything to charge to his own door and fling it open before any better judgment had a chance to take hold.

“Oh, you scared me,” Kit said, pressing a hand to her chest.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized.

She had on a pair of white short-shorts that made him think twice about the notion that she didn’t have long legs, and a red cap-sleeved T-shirt that fit tight enough to give him pause. And her hair was a loose cascade of curls and waves, and she looked all fresh-scrubbed and…

And wow!

It took him a moment to remember what he was doing and get back on track.

“I wanted to catch you before you hit the restaurant for breakfast,” he explained. “I thought maybe you’d like to share mine.”

“That’s nice,” she said, making him realize just then that he even liked the sound of her voice—a soft, sexy voice that went on to say, “Kira called a little while ago and said she’d be here to pick me up earlier than we planned last night. I’m going down to meet her now. Thanks, though.”

“Sure. Anytime,” Ad answered as if it didn’t matter to him one way or another. Which was how it was supposed to be. But wasn’t.

“Does the restaurant close early tonight since it’s Sunday?” she asked then.

“Yeah, at eight.”

“I was thinking that if that was the case maybe tonight would be a good night for me to bake the cakes. I always do them ahead anyway and freeze them, and if the kitchen will be free—”

“Tonight would be good,” Ad assured her. “I hadn’t thought about it, but you’re right, with the place closed you can have free rein.”

She seemed to hesitate slightly before she said, “I was also thinking that—if it wouldn’t be a huge hassle for you and you don’t have other plans—it might help if you’re there.”

“You want me to play assistant pastry chef?”

“No, but you could point out where the bowls and utensils are, how to work your mixer, how long your oven takes to preheat, if there are any hot spots—things like that. I just don’t know the workings of your kitchen.”

“Sure. No problem,” he said as if he wasn’t already looking forward to being alone with her.

“You don’t have other plans?” she asked.

“Tallying up weekend receipts—but I think they can wait.”

“You don’t mind?”

“Nope.”

“Great. I’ll see you tonight, after eight, then.”

“I’ll be here.”

Horn dog. You’re just a damn horn dog, Walker, he chastised himself.

Kit headed down the stairs then and Ad’s eyes went with her, riding the small swell of the pockets of her shorts and sliding along the backs of smooth thighs and trim calves all the way to thin ankles and bare feet cushioned by a pair of sandals that exposed painted toenails.

“Have a nice day in the meantime,” she called to him.

“You, too,” he responded in a voice that was huskier than it should have been.

Denver. She lives in Denver. Remember Lynda and that year and after that year…

But nothing did the trick.

Ad was still looking forward to tonight. After eight…

Standing in front of Ad’s restaurant waiting for Kira to pick her up, Kit felt more self-conscious than she had since she was a gawky teenager in high school.

What had she been thinking to wear these shorts? she demanded of herself.

She’d bought them on a whim, without trying them on, and then brought them home to realize when she did slip into them that there was no way she was ever going to wear them. They were just too short.

But she hadn’t paid a lot for them and she also hadn’t had the time to return them, so she’d packed them to bring to Northbridge with her, thinking that maybe the teenage baby-sitter Kira referred to frequently would like them.

Yet there Kit was, wearing those shorts herself.

And feeling really stupid in them.

And even more stupid for why she was in them.

She’d brought perfectly nice clothes with her. Perfectly sensible, tasteful clothes. Clothes that she looked good in and felt comfortable wearing.

But when she’d surveyed them this morning to choose an outfit for today they’d all seemed so lifeless, so dull, so ordinary.

Not that the clothes had changed. It was just that she’d been under the influence.

No, she hadn’t been drinking mimosas for breakfast or anything. She’d been under the influence of Ad Walker.

Of course he had no idea he was having any effect on her. But still he’d influenced her choice because it had been with him in mind that she’d opted for these dumb shorts. With him in mind and with the overwhelming desire to have his eyes pop right out of their sockets when he saw her.

And she just wanted to kick herself for it.

Yes, she’d enjoyed the reaction she’d gotten when he’d seen her a few minutes earlier. She’d even liked that his voice had suddenly gotten huskier.

But honestly, what was the point? It wasn’t as if she wanted to start anything with Ad. It wasn’t as if she should care whether or not he noticed her at all.

He was just a guy. The best friend of her best friend’s fiancé. They were going to be in a wedding together. They would see each other off and on this week in connection with that, and then they would go their separate ways.

So why did having him notice her, having him like what he was seeing, feel like such a big deal to her?

And that wasn’t the only question she asked herself. There were more to go with that one.

Like, why had he been on her mind almost since the minute she’d set eyes on him? And why had she gone to bed last night wondering where on the other side of their shared wall he might be sleeping himself? And in what? And why had he been the first thing she’d thought about when she’d woken up this morning?

Okay, she reasoned, she’d met an attractive man—a man so powerfully attractive that he’d canceled out her better judgment and the lessons she had learned, and caused her to backslide.

But that didn’t mean that it had to go any farther than giving in to the impulse to wear these shorts.

She just wouldn’t let anything else like this happen from here on. As soon as she got to Kira’s house she would borrow something from her friend, take off the shorts and get rid of them forever. And she would make sure that she kept everything—including Ad Walker—in perspective.

She was only in Northbridge for this week. And Ad Walker was nothing more than one of several members of the wedding party. Someone she needed to be polite and cordial to, and nothing more.

So what if he had incredible aquamarine eyes, and a chiseled chin, and a body that was big and muscular and irresistible enough to weaken women’s knees from coast to coast?

So what if her knees felt a little weak just picturing him in her mind? So what if her pulse picked up a little speed at the thought that she was going to get to spend some time alone with him tonight?

Where she could sneak peeks at that fabulous derriere of his. And hear his voice. And his laugh. And make him smile so she could see those deep dimples that creased his cheeks when he did….

Maybe she should keep the shorts on…

No! No! No! she silently shrieked at herself when she realized where her thoughts had wandered. Again.

She had to stop doing that. She had to stop drifting off into those mini-daydreams and fantasies of Ad Walker. She had to keep her focus on the wedding, on Kira. She had to remember that when it came to men—no matter how handsome or personable or sexy or interesting or funny or fun—she had to pass. She had to. She’d made the decision to suspend her men-privileges for good reason and she intended to stick to it.

No matter how difficult sticking to her guns might be with a man like Ad Walker right under her nose.

Just then a station wagon pulled up to the curb in front of her. Kira was behind the wheel, and Kit nearly leaped into the passenger seat when the car stopped.

“I need to borrow some more conservative shorts or some jeans or something,” she announced without even saying hello.

“Okay,” Kira said, sounding confused.

“This is the first time I’ve had these on and I don’t like them.”

“They are pretty short,” Kira agreed. “But I can wait while you go up and change if you want. There’s no hurry.”

There might not be any hurry but if Kit went back upstairs to change that would mean she might run into Ad. And if she ran into Ad she might have to explain what she was doing. And he might realize she’d temporarily lost her mind. Over him.

But rather than saying any of that to Kira, Kit said, “I hate to go all the way through the restaurant. I’ll just wear something of yours and you can see if your baby-sitter wants these. I’ll need a rubber band to put my hair up, too. I shouldn’t have left it down today. It’ll drive me crazy.”

“Okay,” Kira repeated. “Are you all right?”

Apparently either what Kit had said or the fact that she sounded desperate spurred her friend’s concern or curiosity.

“Just uncomfortable in these shorts,” Kit lied.

Uncomfortable in the shorts and in her skin and with just being in the same town Ad Walker was in.

“Okay,” Kira said a third time, still with a query in her voice.

But at least she put the car into motion and drove Kit away from the general proximity of Ad Walker.

Unfortunately for Kit, though, even distance from the man didn’t dilute her response to him or the fact that she was going to be seeing him again that evening.

Which brought a tiny tingle of excitement at the prospect.

Excitement she knew she should absolutely not be feeling.

Under ordinary circumstances she would have confided in Kira everything she was thinking—and doing—in regard to Ad Walker. They would have talked about it all, laughed about it, aired it out, and she would likely have felt better. Kira would also likely have put it into perspective, which would have helped Kit understand what was going on and that might have allowed her to beat into submission the fledgling, unwanted attraction to him.

But despite spending all day and through dinner that evening with Kira, Kit didn’t get the opportunity to talk to her best friend privately.

During the ten-minute drive to Kira and Cutty’s new house, Kira laid out a hectic schedule for that day and for the rest of this last week before the wedding. And when they reached the two-story colonial that Kira and Cutty and the twins had moved into, it was a beehive of activity and commotion.

Cutty was there trying to look after the busy nineteen-month-old babies who were into everything. There were plumbers who were remodeling one of the bathrooms, and there was also an elderly woman named Betty to help Kit and Kira make little bundles of nuts and candy for each place setting at the reception tables.

Betty had been Cutty’s housekeeper and nanny before Kira’s appearance in his life, and had initially been a source of trouble for Kira. But now that Kira and Cutty were marrying, Betty only helped out with the twins and the house on a part-time basis, and she and Kira had become friends.

With so many people around and so much to do, Kit never found a minute to tell her friend that she was having problems keeping Ad Walker off her mind.

And then the day was over and on the drive back to the restaurant Kira outlined what needed to be done the next day, not giving Kit the chance to tell her anything before dropping her off in the alley at the foot of the steps that led up to the apartments.

So Kit was on her own.

And facing an evening of baking cakes in Ad’s restaurant kitchen…with the delectable Ad.

She went upstairs to the studio apartment, slipping inside without seeing the man who, even throughout the well-occupied day, had haunted her.

But maybe, she began to think as she closed the door behind her, she’d just built this out of proportion in her mind. She hadn’t spent a whole lot of time with him, she reasoned. And she’d been traveling and was tired. Really tired. Everything might have combined to skew her image of Ad Walker. To make him seem better than he really was.

And then maybe her imagination had just kept it going. Expanded on it. And maybe the end result was that Ad Walker had seemed more fantastic than he actually was.

Although he had looked good when she’d seen him for those few minutes this morning….

But now that she was rested, she expected to see that he honestly was just a guy like any other guy. That he wasn’t anything special. And then she would be cured of whatever she’d been infected by.

She was convinced of it.

Feeling more equipped to see him again, Kit set about getting ready.

She’d borrowed a pair of shorts from Kira but decided that her legs should be covered completely before she encountered Ad again. The less skin that showed, the better. So she slipped out of them and into a pair of jeans.

The chef’s coat she’d brought with her provided coverage of the red T-shirt, and she put it on over both jeans and shirt, telling herself that it was good that she looked boxy and sexless in it.

She left her hair trussed up on the crown of her head in the rubber band she’d taken from Kira, but she did give in to the inclination to refresh her blush and mascara—telling herself it was harmless.

Once she’d done that, she took the shopping bag containing her bakeware, utensils and some ingredients, and went back down the steps.

He’s just a guy like any other guy, she repeated to herself along the way. He’s not anything special. He’s just a regular guy.

A regular guy who would probably run screaming into the night if he knew her track record.

With her hand on the alley door to the kitchen, Kit braced herself, determined that she would take being with Ad in stride.

And that was exactly what she intended.

But intentions aside, the minute she opened that door and went in, she couldn’t help eagerly scanning the place for him.

Anymore than she could help the wave of instant disappointment when she discovered that the kitchen was empty.

Or the utter elation when, a moment later, he came through the swinging doors that connected the dining room to the kitchen.

“There you are,” he greeted when he spotted her. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d forgotten about me.”

I wish I could…. “I wanted to make sure your customers were all gone and your staff had finished up for the night before I barged in,” she lied, rather than let him know eight o’clock had come and gone while she’d been trying to get herself in the right frame of mind to see him again.

One look at him shot a hole through the theory that he was just a regular guy, though. The man was staggeringly handsome and that fact struck Kit all over again.

He had on a simple pair of jeans and a hunter-green polo shirt with the restaurant’s name embroidered above the breast pocket. But both the jeans and the shirt fit him to perfection, accentuating broad shoulders and chest, narrow waist and hips and thick thighs.

Plus he appeared to have taken the time to shave very recently and he smelled terrific, too—a clean, sea-breeze scent that was tantalizing and seductive and…

And she needed to get her head out of the clouds!

“How about a glass of iced tea or lemonade while we work?” Ad offered.

“Lemonade sounds good,” Kit accepted, wondering if she should just pour the cold liquid over her head.

While Ad filled two glasses she forced herself to get busy so she wasn’t just standing there gawking at him.

She went to the stainless steel work table in the center of the room and began to unload her things from the giant-sized shopping bag.

“I brought my own sugar, flour, vanilla and liqueur because they aren’t the everyday varieties. I also had Kira get the grocery store here to order in the European butter I use, but she said you’d told her I could steal the eggs from you,” Kit chattered to conceal her reaction to him.

“Yeah, I think I can spare a few eggs,” he confirmed. “And anything else you might need.”

“I shouldn’t need anything else. Except raspberries and cream later. But I can pick up those when the time comes. Oh, and chocolate,” Kit added when she reached it at the bottom of the bag. “I also brought my own chocolate—white and bittersweet. They have to be a certain kind, too.”

Ad brought the glasses of lemonade to the worktable and handed one of them to Kit. “Raspberries and chocolate? I take it you aren’t doing a run-of-the-mill cake.”

Kit sipped her drink, peering over the rim of the glass at the oh-so-yummy man with the aquamarine eyes. “I’m making a dark chocolate cake that I’ll brush with a raspberry liqueur called framboise,” she explained. “Then, on each cake, there will be a layer of chocolate ganache, then a layer of thickened fresh raspberry puree. I’ll cover all that in a thin frosting of the chocolate ganache, then do a second frosting and the decorations in white-chocolate butter cream.”

“Holy cow. Better make a big cake, people around Northbridge don’t see anything as fancy as that. I can guarantee they’ll go back for seconds.”

“I’m making four graduated tiers with five satellite cakes around the bottom tier. Kira wants to be sure there’s plenty.”

Ad counted the variously sized round cake pans Kit had stacked on the table.

“Yep, nine pans. Looks like we have our work cut out for us.” He held his arms wide. “Use me as you will.”

Kit laughed and tried not to think of better uses for him than buttering and flouring pans.

But that was the task she gave him—along with cutting rounds of parchment paper for the bottoms of each one.

While Ad did that Kit began beating egg whites and putting the cake batter together.

With the electric mixer running the noise level was too high for them to talk much. Mostly Kit gave instructions and Ad did as he was told. It might have been better if they had been able to keep up a conversation because maybe then it wouldn’t have been so difficult for Kit to keep from sneaking peeks at him, from noticing how adept his hands were, how agile his long, thick fingers could be. It might not have been so difficult to keep from studying the furrows his brow creased into as he concentrated on what he was doing. It might not have been so difficult to keep from glancing in the direction of his derriere when he dropped the scissors and bent over to retrieve them.

When the cakes were in the ovens, Kit and Ad worked together on the cleanup. Once that was accomplished they were left with nothing to do but wait.

“Let’s sit out where it’s cooler,” Ad suggested, nodding toward the front half of the restaurant.

They left the swinging doors open so Kit could hear the timer on the ovens, taking refills of lemonade with them.

Chairs were up on the tables in the seating area but Ad took two down for them to sit. Without thinking about it, Kit did what she would have done at any other time after finishing her baking—she took off her chef’s coat.

Only after she had did she recall that she’d been using it not only as protection from splatters, but also as camouflage for the tight red T-shirt she’d put on that morning with Ad in mind.

But it was too late to cover up again and she just pretended not to notice how his eyes dropped momentarily to her breasts in an appreciative glance that she found much too gratifying.

“So, you seem to know your way around a restaurant kitchen,” he said after they’d each taken a seat at the table.

“I should. My first job was making pizzas in my Uncle Mackie’s bar. Uncle Mackie was my mother’s brother. He had a little neighborhood place around the corner from the house where I grew up.”

Ad seemed to find pleasure in that information because he smiled. “You were a pizza-maker?” he said as if he didn’t believe it.

“I could throw the dough in the air and catch it and everything,” she bragged with a laugh.

“I’d like to see that sometime,” he said, quirking up his left eyebrow to make the comment seem lascivious.

“I’ll bet you would,” she countered.

“Is pizza-making what got you interested in baking?” he asked then.

“I’d always liked making cookies as a kid, but—as a matter of fact—it was the pizza-making that started the wheels turning for me as a baker. I loved the feel of the dough. The smell of the yeast. Being able to turn a few simple ingredients into something mouthwatering.”

Now she was giving a sensual tone to it all.

She consciously curbed it.

“Anyway,” she continued, “I started to experiment with adding more sugar to the pizza dough so I could make cinnamon rolls. I went from those to quick breads, then cakes and more complicated cookies than I’d made as a kid. Pies and tarts and tortes came next, and by the time I graduated from high school I knew I wanted to go to culinary school rather than college and be a pastry chef.”

“Did you stay at your uncle’s bar all the way through that?”

“I did. And for a while even after I graduated. He gave me part of his kitchen to work in and featured any kind of dessert I wanted to make. Where else could I go and do exactly as I pleased fresh out of school?”

“When did you leave your uncle’s place then?”

“When I wanted to start my own bakery. I spent two years after school saving every penny until I had enough to rent the storefront next to the bar and buy the ovens and equipment I needed.”

“Do you still work out of that storefront?”

“No,” Kit said after a drink of lemonade. “I stayed there for a few years but the business grew and I needed more space. By then I also realized I was making most of my money from the cakes, so I changed from a bakery that offered breads, rolls and other pastries to Kit’s Cakes.”

“Which, according to what I’ve heard, took off. It’s hard to believe you can make a living just doing wedding cakes.”

Kit laughed at his skepticism. “I do other cakes, too. For parties, retirement send-offs, graduations, wedding and baby showers, birthdays. But, yes, most of my living comes from the wedding cakes. I’m doing Kira and Cutty’s cake as part of their present, but you’d be surprised what I can charge for it. Let’s hope getting married never goes out of style,” Kit finished with a joke that made him smile again and dimple up for her.

The timer rang, and without saying anything, Kit hurried into the kitchen. She didn’t expect Ad to follow her but he did, expressing an interest in how she knew when the cakes were done.

She demonstrated the method of using a cake tester and then pressed a gentle finger to the center of one cake to show him what he should be looking for that way, too. In case he actually did ever bake the recipe she’d promised him.

The cakes were sufficiently baked but she explained that they couldn’t be removed from the pans for ten minutes. Then they had to be completely cooled in order to wrap them and store them in the freezer.

When the ten minutes had passed she flipped the cakes and removed the circles of parchment paper that had come out with the rich chocolate confection. Then she and Ad washed the pans before returning to the dining room to sit again.

“If you’re bored or have something else to do I can take it from here,” Kit told him, realizing belatedly that there wasn’t much reason for him to stay at that point.

“I’m not bored and there’s nothing I’d rather be doing,” he assured, pleasing her more than she wanted to show.

“Okay. Then what about you?” she asked after more lemonade. “How did you get into the bar and restaurant business?”

“I started busing tables here,” he said with an affectionate glance around. “When I was ten.”

“Ten?” Kit parroted. “Wasn’t that a little on the young side? Like by about six years?”

“My dad was a mechanic and when I was ten a car he was working under fell on him. He was killed—”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Kit said, flinching at the image.

“It was a long time ago. But my mom hadn’t held a job before that and was left with five small kids to support on only a pittance for an insurance policy. She went to work at the dry cleaners but we were still struggling and—in my ten-year-old brain—I thought I could help.”

Kit pictured Ad as a boy who felt that kind of responsibility, and she was torn between her heart breaking for him and admiring how at even that young age he’d taken action to help his family.

“How did you get hired when you were hardly more than a baby?” she asked.

“Bing—Bingham Murphy—owned the place then and he sponsored and coached our little league baseball team. He was always saying he needed help sweeping the floors or taking out the trash if somebody wanted to earn a little money for a new bike or something. It wasn’t really like being hired, it was more like getting an allowance for doing chores. But when I talked to Bing and told him what was going on at home, he let it be my job exclusively from then on.”

“Did you work every day? After school? Weekends?”

“After school or after baseball practice and on weekends. I’d sweep floors and the sidewalk out front. Wash windows. Take out the trash. Bus the tables. Pour water for customers. Small stuff.”

“And this Bing-person would pay you?”

“Right. Plus, folks around here knew us and knew what had happened to my Dad and wanted to help without it seeming like charity, so they’d tip me. It added up. I didn’t do too bad.”

“For a ten-year-old.”

“Hey, I ended up owning the place,” he joked as if his childhood earnings had accomplished that.

“How did you end up owning the place?” Kit asked.

“Stick-to-ittiveness. I stayed put, moved up from busboy to doing just about everything else there was to do—wait tables, tend bar, cook. By the time I was working my way through the local college for my business degree, Bing had retired and I was running things. Then he offered to sell out to me and I made payments to him until it was all mine—the business and the building. Two years ago I renovated and remodeled until it really felt like my own place.”

“So you found your niche at ten years old?” Kit summarized.

“That’s really the truth. I always liked being here. I liked the work, the socializing. I just felt right at home from the start.”

“I understand that. I felt that way at my uncle’s place. It was hard work but it was nice.”

And so was sitting there like that, with Ad, having an excuse to look at him, to get to know the intricacies of his features, the way his eyes could actually go from aquamarine to dark turquoise with the changes in his emotions….

But letting herself be mesmerized by it all was not wise, and Kit knew it.

It just wasn’t a breeze to tear herself away.

She did it, though, standing up and taking her glass with her.

“Those cakes should be cool enough by now.”

Ad stood, too, following her back to the kitchen.

He played assistant again as she wrapped the cooled cakes in plastic and then sealed them in bags and stored them in the walk-in freezer where they would be left undisturbed by his staff.

Then Kit gathered her equipment, Ad turned off the lights, and they went out the alley door, locking it behind them.

The whole way up the stairs Kit had to fight feeling sad that her time with Ad was ending but she did that, too, reminding herself that this was a temporary, superficial relationship and not the beginning of something. Even if it did feel like the beginning of something.

“Did Kira tell you that we have fittings on the wedding clothes tomorrow afternoon?” Ad asked when they reached the landing of the side-by-side doors to the two apartments.

“She did,” Kit confirmed, trying not to breathe too deeply of the scent of his cologne because either that or just being so near to him was making her head go a tiny bit woozy.

“The tailor is just up the street, how about if we walk over together?” he suggested.

That pleased her way, way, too much.

“Okay,” she said as if it didn’t make any difference.

“I thought maybe afterward we could have dinner back here—Kira and Cutty and you and me. Since they’ll already have Betty staying with the twins and I know they’re both tired and stressed out dealing with the wedding and the construction on the house, dinner out might be a little break for them.”

“I think it might,” Kit agreed.

He nodded toward his door. “I’ll go in and call Cutty right now to make the arrangements.”

“Good idea.”

But he didn’t do that. Instead he glanced over her head at her door and said, “Did you do all right in the apartment last night? You had everything you needed? The bed wasn’t too hard or too soft?”

“I did great, had everything I needed and the bed was perfect.” Except that she’d had trouble not thinking about him in his bed next door.

“So you’re okay over there?”

“Fine,” she said, wondering if she was imagining it or whether he was purposely dragging this out.

Not that she was rushing inside herself. In fact she wasn’t even altogether invested in what they were talking about because even though she was making all the right responses to what he was saying, Kit was suddenly finding her thoughts split between that and a scenario that was forming in her head.

A scenario in which they were at the end of a date.

A date she’d enjoyed.

And they were about to kiss good-night.

But they weren’t about to kiss good-night.

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” she forced herself to say, attempting to escape her daydream.

Ad nodded, but he continued to look at her as if he were trying to read something in her eyes.

A moment of panic ran through Kit at the notion that he could somehow tell what she’d been thinking.

But then Ad finally took the last step to his own door and said, “Good night.”

“Thanks for the use of your kitchen and all your help tonight,” she added as she unlocked and opened her door, doing a little prolonging of her own.

“Don’t mention it. I’d be your assistant anytime,” he joked with another lascivious note in his voice, tossing her a sexy half-smile to go with it.

“Careful, I might take you up on that,” she warned as she stepped into the studio apartment and closed the door behind her.

And that was when it struck her again that Ad Walker absolutely was not like any other guy.

And that spending the last couple of hours with him hadn’t cured whatever it was she’d been infected by the moment she’d met him.

No, if anything she thought that she really had been bitten by the Ad bug. Bitten but good.

And she wasn’t sure what to do about it….