Too Sweet to Be Good

by K. M. Jackson

  “Coming right up,” she said, moving with a self-assured, knowing efficiency to get his order together.

  It was that self-assurance that made Kellen want to rattle her just a bit, the same way she’d rattled him. “Oh,” he said, “if you can spare the time I’d like you to meet me this afternoon at the theater at one. I think we need to talk in depth about these plans you’ve cooked up with my grandmother and what us working in collaboration on them really will look like.”

  The slight hesitation before she went back into her smooth character was enough satisfaction to put him back at ease and more in line with his true self.

  * * *

  Drea didn’t like being caught off guard, but it would seem the Suit aka Kellen Kilborn aka Mrs. Betty’s grandson had a particular talent for it. She didn’t know what it was, but the man definitely had a knack. It was not easy keeping her expression normal and her emotions in check when he seemed to stir up so much in her.

  The man was infuriating. Or at least he infuriated her! Why did she go and open her mouth talking about “the usual”? It implied that she remembered what he’d had yesterday, as if he’d made that much of an impact on her. And that she wanted him to make this some sort of usual thing. Ugh!

  She took a breath. It was fine. She was in the service business. Service with a smile. Saying little phrases like that was surely her job. Right? Right!

  With her mental admonishment, Drea let out a breath as she went to pour Kellen’s coffee and add biscuits onto his plate. She wanted to kick herself as she reached for an extra biscuit, and even considered adding one of the sausages her aunt brought from home as a side extra. What in the world is my problem? She gave a quick glance to where he went to sit.

  Once again, he’d chosen the furthest back table that was still by the front window. It was her favorite table too. It gave a full view of the shop as well as Main Street. It was also the table that spoke to her the most as a New Yorker, fitting her rule of “always keep your eye on the door, know your surroundings and exits.” “Humph, how very Godfather-like of him,” she mumbled to herself.

  “What’s that?”

  Drea looked up quickly, sloshing a bit of coffee over the edge of the cup and onto the saucer. Crap!

  “What’s got you in a tizzy this morning?” It was her cousin Rena. Never one to slip in quietly, as quiet nor understated were not part of Rena’s brand. Drea wondered where her mind had run off to in order to have missed Rena’s entrance.

  “Nothing.” Drea knew as soon as she said it that it came out unconvincing.

  Her cousin raised one of her perfectly groomed brows, her large round eyes squinting a bit to show every bit of Goode woman sharpness in a look that said, “Yeah sure, and I’ll find you out soon enough.” But just as quickly, she blinked and smiled. Her purple glossed lips spreading wide and her eyes turning back to their normal disarming, warm, and open brown softness. “Well, good morning to you too, dear cousin. Woke up on the wrong side of dawn, I see?” Rena half yawned and said, “Not that I don’t blame you. I’m tired myself. These kids are trying to run my butt into the ground and Troy is being, well, Troy, so you know how much help he is. I swear if he doesn’t get them children out and to school on time like he’s supposed to, then it’s curtains for him. I’m tired of doing it all.”

  Drea just nodded. According to her calculations Rena and Troy had been more on the out than they were on the in since she’d been in Sugar Lake. He was her cousin’s kryptonite, and for the life of her she didn’t understand why a woman who was together in all other aspects of her life let a man like Troy keep her in the position he did. A part of her could understand sticking it out for the kids, but when your baby’s daddy was no more help than one of your kids and worse, more of a strain, well, Drea just couldn’t understand that. But she wasn’t about to ride on the Rena-over-Troy runaway train this morning. “I hear you,” Drea said with a quick nod. “Let me get this order over.”

  Drea made to righting the spilled coffee and finishing up Suit’s order, but her cousin’s voice pulled her up short again. “Ahh, so Kellen is back. I’d heard he was back in town. So, the word on the street is true, huh? You two are gonna be working together? Girl! You lucked out! Could it be that’s what’s got you so distracted this morning?”

  Drea turned to her again. And once again the coffee sloshed. “Luck? Maybe you need to rethink your idea of luck, and of course it’s not what has me distracted this morning,” Drea hissed.

  Rena looked down at the messy saucer as Drea followed suit, then looked back up at her. Once again, up went Rena’s eyebrow. “If you say so then, but luck or not, that messy coffee cup and the fact that your normally poised behind can’t keep your hands straight tells me that something has you riled.” Rena shrugged and looked Kellen’s way. Against her better judgment Drea followed suit. He sure looked good this morning as he intently scrolled through his cell phone. His intense expression highlighted his strong profile made even more striking by the accent of his dark eyeglass frames against his tan skin. His broad shoulders filled out his button-front shirt in the most perfect way. He’d rolled up his sleeves to reveal deliciously sinewy forearms, one of her hidden weaknesses. She heard Rena sigh from behind her and say, “Yeah, you’re probably right. Why would a country boy turn the head of a city girl like you anyway?”

  Drea narrowed her eyes and looked around quickly over Rena’s barely whispered tone. “Could you not?” she hissed as she went to get another cup and started to fill it. “We’re just working together,” she whispered. “Not even working together if he has anything to do with it. There is no head turning. Just work.”

  Just then her sister, Olivia, came out from the kitchen, fresh pie in hand, and peered over her shoulder. “Oh, he looks like a lot of work all right. Hopefully for you there will be overtime involved too.”

  Rena reached up to give Liv a high five, and Drea hissed, “If you two don’t cut it out . . . ! Like I said, it’s just work.”

  “Sure, Drea,” Rena replied with a chuckle from behind Drea’s back. “If you say so, but you’re washing all these extra cups. I just got a new mani yesterday.”

  Liv giggled from behind her back.

  Drea stopped midstep again and took a breath. It took all she had to keep the biscuits balanced in one hand and the full cup and saucer in the other without spilling as she headed toward Kellen in that back corner table.

  Chapter 7

  The Way We Were

  He was definitely not sneaking up on her this time, Drea said to herself as she paced outside the front of the theater at 12:50 waiting for Kellen ‘the Suit’ Kilborn to arrive.

  She purposely left the bakeshop early, changed, and had gotten to the theater in plenty of time to keep her eyes peeled for the not only punctual but perpetually early Mr. Kilborn.

  She knew changing was probably going a bit far, but after a busy morning in the shop where an influx of tourists and some sticky-fingered children had her ending up with whipped cream all over her shorts, she’d decided it was worth it to change after all. It was probably for the best, as she didn’t think her ultra-casual shorts/tee combo would quite make it for the afternoon meeting.

  Drea had rushed back home to Aunt Joyce’s where she was staying out on the lake and changed into a casually styled shirtwaist dress that was loose and nonconstricting and she paired it with bike shorts underneath in case things got a little physical that afternoon. She suddenly stopped pacing and blushed at her mental wording. Not that she would get physical with the Suit, mind you. It was just that she knew the job would take some amount of manual labor on her part. Wait. Who was she trying to convince here? Drea felt her cheeks grow hot and forced her mind on the theater and what she knew needed to be tackled. There would be plenty, that was for sure, but she guessed it all depended on how things worked out this afternoon with the Suit.

  It was a shame, but it seemed like he and his grandmother were on totally different tracks when it came to the renovati
on of the theater. He was staunchly against the top to bottom renovation all together and Mrs. Betty was going completely in the other way. Not that Drea was all that confident in it or at least in her abilities to tackle the job. Sure, she’d done well with Aunt Joyce’s shop and yes, she had plenty of confidence in her decorator’s eye coupled with the architect’s plans, but this was a lot that Mrs. Betty was expecting of her. Drea had a certain amount of experience with set design from college and stage help from her years working off-off, well, so far off Broadway it was beyond outer borough in Westchester, New York. Still she hoped she didn’t disappoint the older woman. It felt like so much of her heart was invested in the completion of this project, and then there was the Suit, who wanted her to give it up. Drea bit at her lip and worried for a moment about being caught in the middle of the family feud.

  She knew about family squabbles; heck, the Goode family had their fair share of them. She and Liv were pretty much just getting on nice steady ground after years living on their own sisterly San Andreas Fault. Did she really need to be caught smack dab in the middle of someone else’s family struggles? Most definitely not. But, she had to admit, she was excited about this job. She stepped back a few feet and looked up at the beautiful old marquee of the Redheart Theater, right now stuck on the last showing from before Mr. Kilborn passed away: WEDNESDAY NIGHT 7 PM: THE WAY WE WERE. Boy did she love that movie. She’d gone to the screening that night and the Kilborns looked so happy. Mr. Henry was dashing in his white naval uniform and Mrs. Betty was adorable in a lovely, black-and-white, wide collar, A-line dress. The pair went full out as they always did, sticking to the theme of the night.

  “Just lovely,” Drea mumbled to herself, thinking of Barbra Streisand’s beautifully whispered line from the story of an improbable love and loss of two clear opposites. It never failed to make even her jaded New York heart flutter.

  Just then there was a tap on her shoulder and Drea jumped, turning around quickly, meeting the incredulous gaze of Kellen Kilborn. “Seems I’m always catching you daydreaming, Boots.”

  Drea frowned. “Seems to me it’s more like you’re always sneaking up on me. Don’t you know how to call out or something and make your presence known? Something a little more polite than a hard shoulder tap?” She rubbed at her shoulder.

  He pulled a face. “Bit much, don’t you think? Besides, I did give you more than a shoulder tap. I waved and walked right in front of you, but you didn’t even see me you were so lost in your own thoughts. What else was I supposed to do? Sorry I didn’t have a blow horn. Maybe next time I’ll call you. Speaking of, I don’t have your cell number, so I couldn’t do that.”

  He paused. “Do you mind sharing?”

  Drea felt a blush start to creep up. There he went, catching her off guard again. She tried to play it off as best she could. She pulled her phone out of her cross-body bag. “Sure. What’s your number? I’ll call you, then you’ll have mine.”

  He slid her a brief look, then rambled off his number quickly. She put it in and dialed him up, quickly clicking off when his cell started to ring.

  “Wow, that was fast. You didn’t give me time to save it.”

  Drea shrugged. “It will be in your log.”

  “What were you so deep in thought about when I got here?”

  She looked up and his eyes followed where hers went. “I was just checking out the marquee. It looks pretty good other than some light restoration. There are clearly some bulbs out and it’ll need new lettering. The red heart sign that goes on the side of the building, that’ll probably be the thing that needs the most work, but it truly is magnificent. I’m sure we’ll have to find a company to take care of that, and properly get all the lights back in working order. But it shouldn’t be too complicated.” Drea felt more comfortable. Good they were finally off their she-didn’t-know-what banter for a moment and talking about the job at hand.

  “Is anything ever uncomplicated?”

  His words, coupled with the sudden straight on earnest look, gave her all sorts of Robert Redford vibes. Drea almost swooned right there on the sidewalk. Darn him! What in the ever-loving crap mongers was he doing hinting at quotes from The Way We Were?

  She let out an audible breath, wanting to kick herself for making her surprise so obvious but she couldn’t help but wonder if he did it on purpose or if there was a romantic hidden underneath the protective armor of his sport coats.

  The romantic she’d glimpsed disappeared as Kellen looked at her with a hint of annoyance. Would he ever flash that smile her way, the one he bestowed so freely on his grandmother and her Aunt Joyce? Not that she needed it or any extra bits of his charms, swooning over a movie quote as she was. He shrugged. “It’s my grandmother’s favorite movie. She made me and my granddad watch it more times than I can count.”

  He looked up at the marquee again and she saw his expression change. In an instant, his previous smugness was gone, replaced by a distinct sense of what she could only describe as regret.

  He really was lovely, completely not her type in his button-down and khakis, but there was something about his disarming gaze and strong jaw, broad shoulders and restrained muscles that seemed to defy his conventional attire. All of that bottled together made Drea feel instinctively drawn to Kellen.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “What? I’m fine.” He turned her way. The steel back in his eyes.

  There was her Suit. Drea frowned as she looked at him, confused by the juxtaposition, but on firmer ground when he said, “I guess I’d better get the sign changed to say closed for renovations. It wouldn’t do to have passing tourists thinking we’ve got a showing Wednesday night.”

  “Good idea, but with plenty to do I’m sure there’s no rush. We need to prioritize our list.”

  He looked up at the sign again, his jaw tightening while his eyes grew soft. He cleared his throat, then turned to her, and for a moment she wondered if he had wandered off somewhere in his thoughts. “Nope, better to get on that right away. I’m sure seeing the sign there from the last showing must be hard for my grandmother.”

  Drea felt an unexpected chill then, while her heart seemed to turn in on itself. “You’re right. It probably is.” She sighed. “I’ll take care of it.”

  “It’s fine. I can take care of it myself. It’s not that big a deal.”

  Drea shook her head and took in the old movie title and thought of the last time she’d been to the theater and saw Mr. and Mrs. Kilborn there, together and happy. She blinked away threatening tears as she looked at Kellen. “It’s just I’m now wondering what feelings the closed for reno sign will bring to Mrs. Betty too.”

  Kellen let out a groan, then rubbed his hand over his jaw in frustration. He sighed. “I don’t know. That’s what I’m afraid of. Just all of this. That’s why it would be better if she didn’t take on the project at all.”

  Drea frowned. “Wait. How did we get from the sign to no project at all? Look, I’m sorry I even brought it up, but you’re making quite a leap. This means the world to Mrs. Betty.”

  He gave Drea a most annoyed look before turning toward the door, pulling keys out of his pocket. “Believe me, Boots, I’ve heard. I’m up to my ears in how much this means to my grandmother, the community. Heck, you’d think civilization as we know it was resting on the reno of this little theater.”

  Drea crossed her arms and looked at him. He really was an ignitable one. She looked around as she thought. “Wait, isn’t your grandmother joining us for this prioritizing meeting? I wouldn’t feel comfortable making any major decisions without her.”

  He looked up from where he had knelt to unlock the door. Shaking his head, he looked down toward the locks again, flipped them, stood, then opened the door, moving out of the way to let her in. “Trust me, the fact that I’m even giving the time of day to this project will have my grandmother thrilled. I’m sure she’ll have no problems with any decisions I make.”

  Drea stopped short. “Wait a minute, deci
sions you make?” she challenged. “You seem to have shifted from we to you pretty quickly, Suit. When I took this job, I was hired for my expertise, not to be anybody’s yes girl, cosigner, or any such thing. That’s not how I roll. And it’s not what your grandmother expects from me and ultimately, she’s my boss, not you.”

  It was then that, as if on cue, Drea’s cell rang. She pulled it out of her bag and smiled when she saw the caller ID. “Speaking of your grandmother, now look who it is,” she said with a smile as she clicked her phone over. “Mrs. Betty, it’s so good to hear from you,” Drea said, putting the phone on speaker because she knew it would annoy the mess out of Kellen Kilborn and she wanted to show him that she had nothing to hide when it came to his grandmother. Time to wipe the suspicion right off his face.

  “Alex sweetheart, I’m sorry I’m not with you right now. I just had a little something to attend to this afternoon, but I know you will get Kellen straight today on all we’ve discussed so far. I know we talked about a lot yesterday, but he seems to need just a little bit more clarification.”

  Clarification, Drea thought, is that what they’re calling it? Though she found it best to keep those words behind her tongue as she raised a brow toward Kellen. Instead, she smiled at him and spoke to Mrs. Betty. “Don’t you worry, he’s here with me now, listening to you on speakerphone. I’m sure we’ll get along just fine. I’ll explain everything you and I discussed and we can do a thorough walk-through of the theater this afternoon. I’ll be sure to report back to you on how it goes,” Drea added, and was rewarded with a grimace from the Suit on the “report back” line. Served him right.

  “That sounds wonderful, dear,” Mrs. Betty said, sounding quite chipper. But then her voice took a stern turn. “Kellen?”

  “Grandma.” Kellen’s tone was both frosty and reverent at the same time, and once again, Drea was reminded of being smack in the middle of a family standoff.