Chapter 31

CHAPTER

THIRTY-ONE

J oey tied an apron around her waist and smiled at the other girls working in the back of the bakery.

She’d now quit college twice, and Joey had to work hard most days to hold her head up high and go about her day. She didn’t want her grandparents or her daddy to think she was lazy, so she’d gotten an afternoon position at Cake Bites to complement her early-morning job at Daily Grind.

Harry would be playing one of his live-stream concerts next week, and Joey had made sure she’d been scheduled.

She loved her cousin with her whole heart, as Harry had already started texting all the older cousins about having dinner and dessert and movie night at his house now that he’d returned to Coral Canyon.

His online world tour ran through May, June, and July, with three or four venues each week, most of them in Coral Canyon, though Harry was playing three weeks out of Jackson Hole.

“I need you on pick-up orders today, Joelle,” Miriam said, and Joey nodded and reached back to tighten her ponytail.

“Yes, ma’am,” she said. “Let me put on the skates, and I’ll check the clipboard.”

“We have over a dozen pickups tonight,” she said. “Lots of parties this weekend, apparently.”

Joey actually liked the pickup shift, because she could rollerskate out to the line, get names, and come back to get the orders. Miriam had worked out a system that kept the pick-up line separate from those coming in with new orders or simply for a sweet treat on the way home from work, and Joey had to skate across the parking lot to a designated lane at the back. In the evening, it was shaded, and she’d gotten this job after demonstrating both her skills in the kitchen and on roller skates.

She plucked her pair from the overhead cubbies and sat on the bench to switch out her shoes for the skates.

Then she rollered over to the tiny to-go office in the back corner of the bakery. They had racks and racks stationed there, many of them full of boxes already. Cupcakes ready to be picked up, and Joey grabbed the clipboard that hung by a rope outside the office.

Sure enough, over twenty orders sat there, and Joey had a feeling her four-hour shift was going to be very busy. A trickle of sweat already ran down her back, as the air conditioning didn’t quite reach this remote corner of the shop, and the bell signaling tires had rolled into the cupcake pick-up lane sounded overhead.

Joey unhooked the clipboard, made sure she had a pen over her ear, and pushed out the door to the asphalt beyond. She boogied toward the white sedan there, where a woman rolled down her window. “Can I get your name?” she asked, noting another truck pulling into the pick-up lane.

“Amanda Barber,” she said. “I should have three dozen cupcakes ready.”

Joey found her name and made a check beside it. “You sure do. Give me a minute.”

She moved to the truck behind Amanda and repeated the process. Bethany Farmer had five dozen cupcakes for a band party, and while Joey didn’t need to know the details of what the treats were for, a lot of people said so when they picked up.

Joey could only carry two dozen cupcakes at a time, as per the bakery’s policy, so she had four trips in front of her as she skated back to the door in the corner.

She rehung the clipboard and located Amanda’s first two dozen cupcakes. Back and forth she went, and by the time she’d delivered those eight boxes, three more vehicles had lined up for pick-ups.

Another skater joined her, and together, Belinda and Joey worked on getting the cupcakes to those who’d ordered and paid for them.

She took a moment to get a drink though she had two orders to deliver, and when Joey finally felt hydrated and cool enough to go back outside, two dozen cupcakes in her arms, she found Scott Olds standing next to his driver’s door, his arms folded.

Joey’s heartbeat throbbed as she approached. “Sorry for that wait, Mister Olds,” she said in the brightest voice she could muster after being on skates for two hours.

“That other girl went in and out twice while I waited,” he grumped at her.

She didn’t have to explain to him that even she deserved a water break and the chance to cool off. And it wasn’t even all that hot in town yet. So she said nothing as she slowed to a stop in front of him. “I, uh, have your cupcakes here.”

“I want to speak to your manager about your laziness.”

Joey felt like she’d been struck in the throat, and she opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out. Scott grabbed the cupcakes from her so fast that she got thrown off-balance. She rolled toward him though she tried to stop, and then she did that too abruptly. Her ankle buckled, and Joey started to fall.

She yelped as she flailed her arms, trying to find something to grab onto. Her hands only met air, and pain rippled up her leg. Her daddy had often teased her about her skinny legs, and how he wondered how they held up her body.

And right now, they weren’t.

The man who’d grabbed the cupcakes opened his back door as Joey’s knee hit the ground, and she had a brief moment to worry about her head hitting the door before a pair of strong arms encircled her.

“I got you,” a man said in a rich, rumbling tenor.

Pain smarted through the knee that had hit the asphalt, which happened to be the same side as her aching ankle. Her long, white-blonde hair felt plastered to her face, and she just wanted to go inside, find a corner, and cry for a minute.

“You owe this young woman an apology,” the man said as he righted Joey. She just wanted to disappear, but the man kept his arm around her. “You knocked her down.”

“Oh, please,” Scott-the-customer said. “She took ten minutes to bring out my cupcakes, and I still don’t even have them all yet.”

Humiliation filled Joey, and she just wanted to skate away. Down the row of cars, Belinda delivered a couple of boxes of cupcakes and glanced her way.

And then she looked at the man who’d come to her rescue.

Buttermilk pancakes , she swore in her head. “Adam?” she asked.

The man looked at her, and sure enough, it was Adam Harmon. Harry’s assistant. He wasn’t wearing his usual slacks, white shirt and tie, and crisp suit jacket, but a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt with a huge wolf head on it.

It was at least two sizes too big, and Joey blinked, trying to get the images she’d seen of Adam online to mesh with this dressed-down casual, almost sloppy version of him.

“I’m sorry,” he said smoothly. He threw Scott a death glare. “See how easy that was?”

“I’m not apologizing to her. She should be fired.”

“You’re ridiculous.” Adam turned and marched away from the line, from Scott, from Joey. “What’s the name? I’ll get your cupcakes myself.”

“Scott Olds,” he called after Adam, and Joey wasn’t sure if she should stay there or not. Of course she shouldn’t, and she turned expertly and skated away slowly, testing out the strength of her ankle as she moved gingerly.

“Adam,” she called after him. “I can get the cupcakes.” She caught him fairly easily and slowed to skate at his walking pace. “You don’t know who I am, do you?”

Adam looked at her fully. “I’m guessing you know Harry.”

“He’s my cousin.” Joey smiled at Adam, her pulse doing more than it should if she wanted Adam as a friend. She immediately rebelled against the idea of trying to get him to ask for her number.

One, he had to be at least a decade older than her. Two, he worked with Harry. Both of those were strikes, and yet, Joey couldn’t help smiling at him with every ounce of flirt she possessed.

“I can get the cupcakes,” she said. “Did you have some?”

“Yes,” Adam said. “For Harry to take to Belle to celebrate her move to town.”

“Oh, of course,” Joey said, though no one had brought her a dozen cupcakes when she’d moved back. Not true , she reminded herself. Grams and Gramps had welcomed her with open arms; some of the aunts had set up her room in her grandparent’s condo, and Joey had no right to have her heart pinching through the narrow space between two ribs .

And yet, it still did. She didn’t know how to stop it, and she wished her shift was over.

“Are you coming over to Belle’s after you get off?” Adam asked as Joey approached the door.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“I believe both Harry and Trace invited the whole family on the group text,” he said.

“Oh, I hardly ever check that thing,” Joey said. Then she didn’t have to get her feelings hurt, and it sure seemed like everything lately made her throat tighten. She let him pull open the door, and she handed him the last two boxes for Scott, and then she selected the two she saw with Adam’s name on them.

“How many do you have?” she asked. He hadn’t immediately turned to go back to Scott, and the man yelled from across the parking lot.

“Six,” Adam said. “I’ll come get the last two.”

Belinda skated up as Joey pushed out of the doorway. “You okay, Joey?” she asked.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Your knee is bleeding.”

Joey didn’t look down at it, though her knee now stung more than before. “I’ll come back and clean it up.”

“I’ll ask Miriam to give us someone else,” Belinda said. “You need to get that bandaged.”

Joey let Adam handle Scott, feeling shakier and shakier by the moment. She took the pink boxes of cupcakes to Adam’s SUV and put them in the backseat before her vision started to swim .

She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, one hand on the headrest of the driver’s seat, while she breathed in and out in long strokes of air, trying to get her body to cooperate with her. She accidentally looked down at her leg and saw the blood, and oh, that so wasn’t okay.

She wasn’t okay, and she pressed her eyes closed to get the sight of her bloody knee and shin out of her sight. But the damage had been done, and her stomach swooped and knotted, and she was for-sure going to pass out now.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Adam said, plenty of concern in his voice as he came up beside her. He practically threw the four dozen cupcakes into the backseat, and then his warm, delicious hands landed on her body again. “Are you okay?”

Embarrassment only heated Joey’s face and head further. “No,” she managed to say. “I think I’m going to pass out.”

“Sit down,” Adam commanded, but Joey couldn’t move her legs.

He turned her so she faced him, and she sagged against Adam’s chest, whose solid, strong body held her up easily. She opened her eyes and met his, and Joey tried to smile at him. Surely she looked like a deranged clown, and she had no idea what she was thinking when she said, “You smell really good.”

Adam frowned at her.

The world around her swayed, and she said, “I’d go out with you if you asked,” just before she blacked out.