Small-Town Cinderella (The Pirelli Brothers)

by Stacy Connelly

  The ground shifted beneath his feet again even though the plates held cupcakes and not slices of wedding cake. Bracing a hand against the stainless-steel counter, he sucked in a deep breath and prayed the world would quickly right itself once more. Fortunately, Debbie seemed completely unaware of the earthshaking, life-altering moments as she reached for the first plate.

  “Now, the batters for all of these are mostly the same, but each one has some slight differences. I already know which one is my favorite, but I want to see what you think. And remember, be completely honest.”

  At first, Drew wasn’t sure he’d be able to swallow a single bite, but that wasn’t giving Debbie nearly enough credit. With the first taste, he knew the tiny dessert would never be enough. Unlike the cupcake he’d tasted the other day, which had been heavy and dense, this one was light and moist with flavors that perfectly captured the rich flavors of an autumn day. The pumpkin-spice cupcake was filled with bits of walnut and dried fruit and topped with butterscotch icing so good that he wanted to lick the last crumb from the plate.

  “That’s it. That has to be your favorite.”

  Debbie shook a teasing finger at him. “No fair choosing until you’ve tasted them all.”

  “I don’t know what you did with the recipe, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s perfect now.”

  “Hard to tell they’re somewhat healthy, too, isn’t it?”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yep. I’ve been experimenting with an entire line of health-conscious desserts for my online menu. Did you know in some of the bigger cities, there are bakeries that sell cakes that are one-hundred-percent gluten-free? They use rice flour for people with allergies that make eating the typical desserts impossible. Some places have gone organic, too, or even vegan, using applesauce in cakes rather than eggs.”

  “So why are you only offering those desserts online?”

  “Oh, come on, Drew. You know what it’s like around here. No one wants to see Bonnie’s Bakery change.”

  Bonnie’s Bakery. It was odd after years of knowing one another to realize there were things about Debbie he didn’t know. Things he’d never thought to ask—like why she’d kept the name of the bakery. “Is it Clearville that doesn’t want the bakery to change,” he asked gently, “or is it you?”

  “What do you mean?” Wariness and a flash of something buried deeper rippled beneath the surface of her expression.

  In anyone else, Drew would have labeled the expression fear, but he’d never known Debbie to be afraid of anything. Wasn’t protecting her from charging off into adventure and excitement what started him down this road?

  “The front of the bakery, the uniform...” Reaching out, he tugged on the collar, and then couldn’t resist brushing his thumb against her jaw. Her cheeks heated until the color almost matched the pink of the shirt. Her soft-as-silk skin made him forget why he’d reached out in the first place. Made him forget everything but the urge to cup her face in his hands and bring her mouth to his. To have a taste test of his own and determine once and for all what was most irresistible—the flavor of her parted lips, the delicate curve behind her jaw, the hidden valley between her breasts...

  “The uniform?”

  Her echoed words dragged him back from his heated thoughts, and a decade-old memory surfaced. How Debbie had complained to Sophia not long after she’d first started working behind the counter.

  I look like a strawberry ice cream cone, she’d said. Pink on top and tan on the bottom.

  Ten years on, and Drew doubted her opinion of the shirt and pants had improved, and yet she still wore them every day at work. “The uniform. Even the name,” he finished. “You haven’t changed any of it.”

  “This was my mother’s dream, and keeping the name is my way of keeping that dream alive. It was her bakery long before I took over, and she loved it.”

  And Debbie didn’t.

  The thought startled Drew, but he realized it was true. Just because she baked like a dream and greeted every customer who walked into her shop with a smile, he’d assumed running the bakery was all she’d ever wanted to do. He’d never asked, never even considered, that she might have wanted something different—something more....

  Could the excitement and adventure she was seeking in her personal life be due in part to feeling so stifled professionally? If Debbie felt free to branch out at the bakery, might she then be more willing to settle down into a relationship? Say, a relationship with him?

  To Drew, it all made sense, though he couldn’t help wondering if he wasn’t twisting logic so Debbie’s vision of the future would dovetail into his own. One thing he knew was that trying to force those pieces to fit wouldn’t work. He’d have to be patient, something that had never been a problem for him in the past. So why did he already feel so restless?

  Maybe because wanting Debbie, wanting that future, was so much bigger, so much more important than anything he’d wanted before....

  For now, he’d settle for seeing that spark back in her eyes, one that had dimmed as they talked about her mother, so he was glad when she responded by teasing, “And when I thought about changing the name, I got stuck on the whole alliteration thing and I just couldn’t get around Debbie’s Donuts.”

  “Debbie’s Donuts...Mattson’s Muffins,” he supplied.

  “So you see my dilemma.”

  “I do,” he agreed. But solving it would have to wait for another day. Once he’d considered how he could encourage Debbie to reach for her own dreams while still holding true to her mother’s. “I hope you understand my dilemma, too.”

  “What’s that?”

  “How I’m supposed to pick just one favorite,” he said as he reached for another plate.

  The spark was back as Drew quickly devoured three more minicupcakes—one with chunks of toffee inside and a matching frosting, another with macadamia nuts and a white-chocolate icing and the last with a hint of orange. Though they all were delicious, none could beat the first one, but Debbie was wearing a secret smile as she reached for the final plate.

  “I probably shouldn’t say anything since I don’t want to influence your opinion but...this is my favorite.” She lifted the minicupcake, stepping close enough for him to feel her body heat and to catch a hint of her scent—as delicious and tempting as anything she’d ever made in this kitchen. Did she know, he wondered, that she was doing so much more than influencing his opinion? From that seductive, secret smile, he’d bet she did.

  And what was that old saying? If you can’t take the heat...

  Well, they were already in the kitchen.

  Drew raised a hand, but instead of taking the cake from Debbie, he wrapped his fingers around hers and guided her hand to his mouth. The combination of flavors—a hint of pumpkin and spice mixed with chunks of dark chocolate and a shot of coffee—was to die for. But it was the mix of emotions on her face—awareness, anticipation, desire—that had him coming back for more. He savored the tiny dessert, making it last bite after bite, until there was nothing left to do but lick the last traces of frosting from her fingers....

  The tug and pull of his mouth against her skin send a rush of sweet, rich heat pouring through Debbie’s veins. The sensation pooled in her belly and sapped strength, turning her bones to molten chocolate. Her legs trembled and her head tipped back. All that from his mouth against her fingers. Just the thought of those skilled lips teasing and tormenting more intimate flesh...

  A delicious shiver racked her whole body. Drew’s dark gaze held her captive—watching and knowing just what he was doing to her—and yet she couldn’t look away. “Drew.”

  His name was little more than a gasp for breath and his answer little more than a wicked grin. “Looks like you were right.”

  “I was?” She swallowed hard, trying to gather her scrambled wits. “Oh, good. I always like being
right. What is it I’m right about again?”

  His grin grew even bigger and even more wicked. “This is my favorite.”

  Debbie didn’t know if he was talking about tasting the cupcakes or tasting her, but then he was kissing her and she couldn’t think at all. He framed her face in his hands as he deepened the kiss, his fingers splayed wide, as if he felt the same desperation to touch, to taste, to experience all he could in a stolen moment of time.

  She slid her hands up his back, the material of his shirt denying the skin-against-skin friction she craved. She fisted her hands, but warm cotton was no substitute for hot skin. He pulled her tight, and she no longer cared that her bones were melting because it made it so much easier for him to meld her body to his. Her curves met the hardened planes and angles of his masculine form—softening, conforming, blending with a sense of perfection she’d never experienced before.

  The panicked feeling came out of nowhere, a cold splash of reality. She didn’t want perfect or permanent or lasting. She wanted— Drew’s mouth trailed across her cheek, his breathing as ragged and gasping as her when she moaned his name.

  She wanted Drew.

  No. Well, yes, she wanted him. But she couldn’t—wouldn’t—fall for him. Not because it would be hard, but because it would be all too easy.

  “This is crazy,” she breathed, knowing it wouldn’t take much more for her whole body to break from the sheer pleasure. She was barely aware of speaking the words. She certainly hadn’t meant them as a criticism, but Drew stilled, caught on the razor’s edge that gripped them both.

  Oh, please, let this be happening to both of them.

  His breath was hot, rasping, against her shoulder. The tension held his body tight to hers, but Debbie’s awareness gradually expanded from the circle of Drew’s arms to their surroundings—the batches of cupcakes she still needed to frost, the icing likely hardening in the bowls, the kitchen Bonnie had treated like sacred ground. Her mother would be scandalized.

  Drew slowly straightened away from her, humor banking some of the heat in his gaze. “I’m starting to think crazy is a good thing.”

  The so un-Drewlike statement startled a laugh from her. “Since when?” she asked as the moment of levity eased the pressure on her chest and cooled some of the raging desire.

  At least until he answered, “Since I haven’t been able to get you out of my head. Since I can’t stop thinking about the next time I’ll have you in my arms again.”

  A hint of a question lingered in his words. Asking for a next time? Or was it a subtle proposition that they find someplace to better continue this time? Her tiny apartment, a dozen steps away up the staircase...

  Her heart pounded so loudly, she wondered if Drew could hear it beating its way out of her chest. “We could—”

  The ring of the phone cut off whatever Debbie might have said, and she exhaled a dizzying breath—half relief, half disappointment—as she didn’t even know what her answer might have been. The machine picked up almost immediately, and Sophia’s voice filled the space.

  “Hey, Deb!”

  And just like that, Debbie’s awareness reached even further, far beyond the intimate circle she and Drew still created, beyond the kitchen and bakery, to Clearville and the outside world. A world that included loving and nosy friends and, in Drew’s case, family who would have their own ideas of what her next step with Drew should be. And the step after that and the step after that, all the way to a walk down the aisle.

  “Just wanted to let you know we’re having a get-together this weekend and you have to come,” Sophia’s happy voice continued. “I want to hear all about karaoke night! Did your amazing voice knock some gorgeous guy’s socks off—or maybe some other article of clothing?” Her teasing laughter ended with “Call me!”

  Judging by Drew’s frown, he wasn’t amused. “I think I need to have a talk with Jake about my little sister. Married life is supposed to be settling her down.”

  “It has. Now she’s trying to live vicariously through me. She’s the one who sent me the info on the singles’ group.”

  The frown darkened to a scowl. “Definitely going to have a talk.”

  “I doubt it will do much good. I keep telling her I’m not interested in a serious relationship, but your sister is on a mission. Ever since she got married, she’s been pushing me to find someone of my own. It’s that whole happy-couple-in-love thing where they want everyone else to be part of a happy couple in love, too.”

  “You think I haven’t had my share of that? We’re going to have three weddings in my family within a year. My mother would like nothing more than to see me matched up. The odd number is playing hell with her seating chart at family dinners.”

  Debbie could easily picture Vanessa Pirelli’s exasperation. “Well, there’s always Maddie.”

  “Ah, you’re forgetting about Timmy. My niece and nephew are the cute couple at the kiddie table. I’m surprised my mom hasn’t kicked me out onto the back porch.”

  His words brought Sophia’s invitation to mind, along with memories of dozens of other Pirelli gatherings Debbie had attended over the years. They were as close to family as she had and Sophia was her best friend. If things didn’t work out with Drew and if it ended up costing her that connection, that friendship...

  “All of which makes this thing between us that much more complicated. If your family finds out about us—”

  “I don’t kiss and tell, Debbie.”

  “Still, it’s not too late, you know.”

  His brow furrowed as his eyebrows pulled together. “For what?”

  “To forget all of this and pretend none of it ever happened.”

  “Oh, yes it is. I’m going to remember your kiss for the rest of my life.”

  Her breath caught at his roughly murmured words. Words that said exactly what she was thinking, how she was feeling. Years from now, when she did look back, did she really only want to have kisses to remember?

  Not a chance!

  Drew was right. It was too late to go back. Too late to do anything but go forward.

  “We’re really going to do this? Have a fling?” Her face heated as she blurted out the word. It sounded so silly, but affair had too much of a negative ring to it, and Debbie just couldn’t bring herself to ask if he wanted to have sex with her. “So...how are we going to do this?”

  A sexy glint entered his gaze. “Oh, I figure the usual way.”

  Judging by the way he could jump-start her heart with something as simple as a smile, Debbie doubted there’d be anything usual about it. Still... “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know.” That killer grin was back. “I’ll take care of everything.”

  Not exactly an answer. At least not one she could blindly accept after taking care of herself for so long. “But—”

  He silenced her with another quick kiss. “No questions or you’ll ruin the surprise. Where’s your sense of adventure?”

  Adventure, excitement, mystery... Wasn’t that exactly what she’d wished for at Darcy’s bachelorette party? Drew was offering all that and more. She’d never imagined he would be the man to sweep her off her feet, but now that he had, all she could do was hold on tight and enjoy the ride...for as long as it lasted.

  Chapter Eight

  Drew had never claimed to be an over-the-top romantic. If he had, he was sure his former girlfriends would have quickly disabused him of that notion. In all honesty, he’d never put himself totally on the line when it came to women. Oh, sure, he’d asked out plenty, but he’d always been relatively assured of a positive response. Pursuing an uninterested woman had always struck him as a waste of time and, well, somewhat unnecessary when far more receptive members of the opposite sex could be found.

  Not that Debbie was uninterested. He had no doubts about the chemistry between them. But
he wanted more than a physical relationship. He wanted Debbie to want more than a physical relationship. More than the secret “fling” she’d proposed. Sure, he’d agreed. What red-blooded man in his right mind wouldn’t? And he’d admit he wasn’t ready to put his feelings on display for all of Clearville to see, especially when he knew Debbie didn’t feel the same way. At least, not yet.

  He’d always been one to keep his emotions close to the vest, to play things safe. But safe wouldn’t do in the relationship he wanted with Debbie. He wanted the scary, reckless, no-holds-barred kind of love he used to think was out of his grasp. She’d pushed him out of his comfort zone, made him question everything he thought he knew when it came to the line between friendship and love.

  After his breakup with Angie, he’d realized their relationship lacked that intrinsic connection he sensed bound his parents together. A connection Nick had found with Darcy, Jake with Sophia and Sam with Kara. He’d been ready to believe his ex was right, and he simply didn’t have the necessary depth of emotion inside. But Angie had been wrong. His feelings for Debbie were beyond anything he’d felt for another woman, and going there was a giant leap for Drew, one he was ready to take.

  He’d made reservations at an upscale restaurant located inside a newly built five-star hotel in Redfield. He thought he might hear from Debbie after sending her his “invitation” but she hadn’t called, leaving him to wonder if she would show.

  Taking a seat at the bar, he ordered a beer but barely raised the bottle for than a few swallows. His attention and his cravings were all focused on the door to the restaurant as he waited.

  He hadn’t realized exactly how nervous he was that Debbie might not show until the moment she walked into the restaurant. His breath escaped in a rush and he sank back against the padded back of the leather bar stool. From his vantage point in the bar, he had a perfect chance to study her unnoticed. She looked...breathtaking.