Chapter 9

9

Grady

I'm putting the final touches on a carrot cake, ice pack to my ball sack, Apocalyptica blaring in my kitchen while I whisper to the frosting.

"Beautiful, baby. So smooth. So silky. I could stroke you all day long."

Neither the cake nor the cream cheese frosting answer, but they both clearly love the way I'm smoothing the finish with gentle spins of the cake's turntable coupled with the precise caresses of my icing spatula.

The strings on my speakers rock out to "Enter Sandman," and I can almost pretend everything is completely normal.

"So perfect," I whisper. "I could lick you from top to bottom and over again."

Georgia stalks into the kitchen in her Crow's Nest apron, hits a switch, and my music goes silent. "People are complaining about the vibe. You need to talk it out?"

"I'm talking to the cakes. And what's wrong with Metallica? This is fucking awesome ."

"It's orchestral Metallica."

"It's leveled-up badass."

She levels me with a we're done talking about this glare, like she owns the place or something. Which she doesn't—I do, backed by a loan from my brother, the rich baseball player, which is the only reason I haven't had to shut down yet, and yes, that irritates the shit out of me too, plus adds a big dollop of guilt at the idea that I could be letting him down too—but she's the best employee I've ever hired, and I don't want to lose her.

I'd marry Georgia if that's what it took to save the bakery, even though we'd fight like cats and dogs and she's told me numerous times that I'm not tall enough or black enough for her, and she also prefers a man with what she calls a bigger package , though I think she's fooling herself if she thinks that exists.

Can't fix any of those—and honestly, we're too similar for a relationship of convenience to work—so instead, I'll let her pretend she runs my bakery.

Sales are up since she started here.

Just not enough to dig Crow's Nest out of that nebulous place where it's regularly making two dollars in profit after paying Georgia what she deserves and me just barely enough to not default on my mortgage.

She's right.

I can't afford to chase my customers away.

And wouldn't that be the frosting on the shitcake to have Crow's Nest go under right when Annika opened her own bakery?

Because her mama went blind.

Fuck .

"Cake can't love you back like a woman can." She eyeballs my crotch. "But you're not getting any from that front either, are you?"

"Are you here to rob me of my joy and ruin my day, or did you actually need something?"

"Both."

"Fantastic." I straighten. My lower back gives a twinge, and if I could glare at it and threaten to fire it too today, I would.

Especially since I know better than to threaten to fire Georgia.

"You want bad or worse first?" she asks.

"Bad."

"We still have four dozen tres leches donuts left."

" What ? Those were delicious." And expensive, and if they don't sell, today's a red day.

A red day I can't afford.

"Yeah, but they're not banana pudding donuts. Also, there's a teenager and a blind lady sitting down at the end of the row giving away cinnamon roll samples and telling people to go to Sarcasm to support the Maria Williams Foundation for the Blind by buying from Duh-Nuts."

Fuckers.

They really are stealing my customers now, and my daily profit sheet isn't the only thing going red.

"I called the sheriff. She said they got a permit. So I called your Pop instead. Got a feeling he's gonna take Sue and Long Beak Silver for a walk."

I rip off my apron and stalk around my worktable, grabbing my phone while I go. "Fucking sheriff."

"Yeah, but until we can get somebody from Shipwreck to run against her, we're stuck. Plus, there's that whole thing where crime's down forty percent since she took over. And she charmed the pants off all those rich people with houses up on Thorny Rock Mountain."

" Cooper owns a house up on Thorny Rock Mountain."

"And he's never here, and half of the rest of 'em up there aren't really locals either. They just put money toward the election campaign because they like their houses not being broken into during the week while they're doing their regular jobs making oodles of money in the big city."

I toss my bag of ice in the sink, and I head for the back door.

"By the parking field or by the gazebo?" I ask.

She points me toward the mountains, and I march out the back door.

I can't be a total dick, because yeah, it sucks that Annika's mama went blind.

But they're poaching my customers, and Crow's Nest can't afford to lose customers.

Fucking numbers.

If I could just bake and leave the books to someone else, I would, but I can't afford to pay for it. Every little bit of savings I stash away manages to get eaten up by an oven needing repair or a mixer breaking or a leaky roof.

Something.

And here come the Sarcasm assholes, sitting in my town when they could be giving away samples in any one of the little towns dotting our county.

They're baiting me.

And they're stealing my customers.

I've worked up a good, steaming pile of mad by the time I spot the two of them lounging on a bench beside the Argh, Ye Be in Shipwreck Now sign, not a full block away from my bakery.

Pop's crossing the street from the other side the same time I approach from the back. Sue's tugging on his leash, and I can already hear Long Beak Silver.

"Get the fuck out of my town! Rawk!"

"Your bird is really rude," Bailey calls to Pop.

"So's sitting a block from my bakery and stealing my customers," I tell her.

She doesn't jump at my approach from behind the bench, and I notice the same guy who was at Duh-Nuts the other day coming from the small parking lot at the edge of the park with a box of what I assume are fresh cinnamon roll samples.

"Should've known not to expect manners in a pirate town," she says.

"Bailey. Who is it?" Ms. Williams asks.

"That old man who wears eyeliner all the time with the rude parrot, and that Rock guy who thinks he owns the world or something," the teenager replies.

"He owns the best damn bakery this side of the mountains," Pop says.

"Grady." Ms. Williams turns her head in my direction with a smile. "How are your testicles today? Annika felt terrible for hurting you."

"Not terrible enough to pause before she got on base," Pop points out.

"She forgets bakers don't have the brass cojones of all those Army men she's known the last ten years. And she did stop at first instead of going on to second like she could've."

Bailey snickers.

I really did like her better before she could form full sentences.

"What are you gentlemen doing in Sarcasm today?" Ms. Williams asks.

"We're not in Sarcasm. You're sitting in Shipwreck," Pop tells her.

"What? No. Surely not." She smiles, and in my more forgiving moments, I'd say she was teasing me, but I'm not feeling very forgiving at the moment. "I'd smell the pirates if we were. And if we were in Shipwreck, those mountain lions sitting over there would definitely be gnawing on someone's peg leg."

Pop and I both jump and look around, but there are no mountain lions.

And Maria's blind .

Even if there were, she couldn't see them.

More snickering from Bailey.

"Here you go, Maria. Last box of samples. Told you that you still had it in you to bake the good stuff." The plumber—Roger? Is that his name?—plops the box on the edge of the bench.

Sue lunges for it. He's probably just as interested in the white cardboard as he is the cinnamon rolls inside.

I don't try to stop my goat, but Roger makes a go of saving the cinnamon rolls.

"Yes, Ms. Williams," I tell her. "You're in Shipwreck. Stealing my customers."

"It's karma." Bailey makes one of those irritating teenager faces that Tillie Jean still tosses out when Cooper's in town and we're ganging up on her, though Bailey's is all brown eyes and the same bone structure as Annika's, which means she's probably going to be hit on by everything with a single red blood cell in its body in the next four years, which means shit , somebody's gonna have to watch out for her.

"First of all," she continues, completely unaware that I'm about to have a heart attack at the idea of teenage boys at the high school trying something with her, which is none of my damn business, but apparently I can't stop the feelings, "we wouldn't be stealing your customers if you were giving them anything worthwhile to eat. And second of all, you stole my donut idea. We're just making things even."

Yeah. Maybe I stole her donut idea.

And maybe I've been debating spending my last four hundred dollars on a soft serve machine, because bubble waffles are trending hot, and there's only one restaurant in Copper Valley serving them, which means Crow's Nest could be a trendsetter.

"You're twelve," I say instead of letting more guilt sink in. "You don't make business decisions."

"I'm thirteen, which I know you know, and I could pass economics with a higher grade than you could."

"Are you sure we're in Shipwreck?" Maria asks.

"Fewer pirates," Roger tells her. He's standing on the bench now, which is creaking under his weight while he holds the donut box over his head and Sue tries to eat his pants. "The festival's over, so the fake pirates went home and everyone finally took their annual baths. But this Pop guy has a parrot and a pirate hat."

"I could take those for you," I tell Roger. "Give them away over at my shop."

All three of the Sarcasm intruders snort-snicker.

"You used to be so much smarter," Ms. Williams says with a soft smile.

"You callin' my grandson dumb?" Pop asks.

"Dumb as a box of pins missing their hand grenades," Long Beak Silver offers. "Walk the plank! Rawk!"

"Just thought we could be neighborly," I tell Maria. "You help me, I help you."

Bailey tosses her long hair, which has some curl to it, just like Maria's, though the older woman's hair is streaked with a few strands of silver. "There's no help for you."

"I'm gonna have to ask you to leave my town," Pop growls.

"Do you know what I've never understood?" Maria says. "I've never understood why Shipwreck hates Sarcasm so much."

"It's because we got the better name, Mama."

" Down , you mangy goat!" the plumber barks.

"It's unfortunate that we did get the better name," Ms. Williams agrees, "but we've all been named for over a hundred years. Maybe it's time we bury the hatchet."

"Maybe if you all didn't cheat in softball, we could," Pop says.

"Cheater, cheater, pussy-eater," Long Beak Silver squawks.

"Your bird is truly filthy."

Leave it to the teenager to put it so eloquently.

"Pop. Nobody cheated in softball."

"She tried to take your manhood off!"

"It was an accident," Bailey insists. "If she'd been trying, we'd still be out there scavenging for his little swimmers."

" Bailey Sophia Williams ."

"Just saying, Annika always does what she says she's going to do. Also, I checked her calendar, and she didn't have it penciled in to take anybody's nuts off. If she didn't schedule it, she didn't do it on purpose."

That makes so much fucking sense, and it soothes a few of my feathers to know she's still as organized as she once was.

"And you think my bird's rude," Pop grumbles.

"Speaking of rude," Maria says, "Bailey's right. It was rude of Grady to steal her idea for tres leches donuts. So maybe we shouldn't be sitting here handing out samples. But maybe we can all call a truce since we're even. Unless there's something else bothering you, Grady?"

That's definitely guilt gnawing at my gut, because I shouldn't have stolen their idea.

And I don't know why I'm being such a shithead.

But I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be a shithead to anyone else.

And she's asking if I want to talk about my feelings for Annika.

Which I definitely do not .

I grunt, because I don't like where my thoughts are going. "I'm going back to work. And Pop, you should too."

"I don't like riffraff in my town."

"You live here," Bailey points out.

" Bailey ," Ms. Williams says again. "Hush your mouth, or I'll feed you to that dog."

"It's a goat, Mama."

"Oh. That's not a Rottweiler-poodle mix trying to eat that dinosaur bone?"

"Unfortunately not, but these hallucinations are awesome. It's a mostly-white goat, with one horn missing and a big brown patch over his eye, and he's trying to eat Roger's tennis shoes."

"Likes garbage," Pop says.

" Pop . Don't you have a mini golf course to run?"

"Left your grandmother in charge so I could come walk your goat."

"Fucking goat," Long Beak Silver squawks.

The sun's beating down on all of us. Roger's sweating while he bats Sue away and dribbles cinnamon roll samples onto Ms. Williams's hair. She's swatting the crumbs away like they're bugs.

And a sudden memory of Annika running from a swarm of honeybees down by the lake hits me so hard and fast that I nearly grunt in pain.

I was carrying two paddleboards from the parking lot to the lake in the middle of the Blue Lagoon nature preserve when she came shrieking up the short path, yelling for me to run, run , her black hair streaming behind her, eyes wide, legs pumping furiously, arms just as hard.

We were heading into junior year, and I'd been dating someone, but I'd seen the sheer terror in her eyes and I'd known in that minute I'd do anything to protect her, and that I needed to quit dating anyone else so long as Annika Williams had a pulse and still walked this earth.

Couldn't protect her from the bees, though, and we both got stung several times over.

She cried.

Said she didn't want to kill the bees. It was her fault for going where she wasn't supposed to.

That was the Annika I knew.

Soft-hearted. Strong, yeah, and fucking determined to prove she and her mama were both worthy and someone despite the ways society looked down on them—I've never met anyone more determined once she set her mind to a task—but compassionate to her core.

Which is part of why I never understood why she wanted to go into the Army.

She wasn't built for battle.

Built for standing up for herself, yeah. For defending her mom and her sister, of course.

But built for war?

No.

Not my Annika.

She couldn't even kill a bee without crying.

And now she's trying to kill my bakery.

Which means I have a choice.

Fight back against the one woman who's still under my skin ten years later, or let her win and watch my bakery go down the drain.

"Sue. Get down," I order. "Pop, go back to work. And you three—good luck. You're gonna need it."

I take my goat's leash and yank him down the street, back to my bakery. He's not happy with me, and he stops to try to eat flowers, a flagpole, and a stack of cannonballs piled outside the Shipwreck Gift Shop next to my bakery.

I give half a thought to taking Sue home, but he'd probably eat through the fence to go sniff out more cinnamon rolls.

Which means he's just going to have to come with me today.

While I fight fire with fire.