“No, not ‘Aw.’ Sheesh, it’s like he doesn’t even get that three hundred–plus of our nearest and dearest are expecting a well-catered, over-the-top, romantic day with the perfect food, music, setting, decorations, not to mention a gorgeous bride and groom. Ugh, I think I’m going to throw up.”
“Whoa,” Mel said. “Not on the couch. Joe just bought it.”
Angie turned a sickly shade of green and Mel grew serious. Angie wasn’t kidding. She was having a bridal meltdown of epic proportions. Mel frowned. This was Angie, the person who never cared what anyone thought of her, ever. What the heck was going on in her head that she suddenly cared now?
“Ange, what’s up?” Mel asked. “What is making you so self-conscious about this wedding?”
“Nothing,” Angie said. She glanced away, which was how Mel knew she was lying.
“Oh, please, I know you better than you know yourself and this is not how Angie Maria Lucia DeLaura handles things. Now spill it or I’m calling Tate and telling him that you’re having a freak-out over bacon and deviled eggs.”
“No!” Angie cried. She looked genuinely alarmed and Mel frowned even more deeply.
“Then tell me what’s going on, right now,” Mel said.
Tears poured out of Angie’s eyes and she hugged herself as she rocked back and forth on her seat. Mel wanted to hug her friend close, just like she did her nephews when they were hurt or scared, but she didn’t. Instead, she forced herself to wait out Angie’s crying jag. It almost killed her but she waited.
“I’m not good enough for him,” Angie said. Her voice was raspy and gritty as if it hurt her throat to utter the words.
“Shut the fucupcake!” Mel cried.
Oz had come up with this particular expression when things in the bakery were particularly stressful or when someone was just plain talking crazy, like Angie right now. This was the first time Mel had cause to use it and, boy howdy, did it fit.
“That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard,” Mel said.
A ghost of a smile flitted across Angie’s lips but her eyes remained shadowed with sadness and self-doubt.
“But it’s true,” she said. “Tate is so far out of my league, it’s not even funny. I thought love would be enough to make it equal, but it’s not. I’m never going to fit into his world of wealth and privilege, of Ivy League educations and country club memberships. I’m just Angie; nothing special, a former teacher turned cupcake baker, and I’m not even that good at that.”
“We’ve been friends since we were twelve, right?” Mel asked.
Angie nodded. “Seventh grade in middle school.”
“So almost twenty-two years now,” Mel said.
Again, Angie nodded.
“Huh, and in those twenty-two years, I have to say I have never wanted to slap you like I do right now.”
Angie’s eyebrows lifted and she leaned away from Mel. “That’s kind of harsh, don’t you think?”
“Not really, no,” she said. “Tate is crazy in love with you.”
“It’ll fade when he realizes I’m not going to fit into his world,” Angie said. “Oh, it’ll start out all right but slowly as his family and friends get to know me, he’ll start to see me through their eyes and he’ll see that I’m not up to scratch.”
Mel closed her eyes. A moment’s meditation was the only thing that was going to keep her from banging her head on the coffee table.
“I think you’re right,” Mel said.
“What?” Angie asked.
“This”—Mel paused to gesture at the pitiful heap that was presently Angie on the couch—“is not the woman Tate fell in love with, not even close.”
Angie’s chin dropped to her chest. She looked so defeated, it absolutely killed Mel to continue, but she knew her friend and she knew that compliments would do nothing for Angie. However, if she went the other way, Angie’s ingrained obstinacy would kick into gear, or so she hoped.
“Tate fell in love with Angie DeLaura, a fiery, feisty, beautiful woman who would kick the butt of anyone who even thought to harm the people she cared about. That Angie is the one who spun Tate’s head around and knocked him on his keister when he least expected it. And why?”
“I don’t know, why?” Angie asked.
“Because that Angie loves Tate with her whole heart; that Angie is fiercely loyal, confident in who she is as a woman, and knows whose opinion matters: her own. She’s beautiful and funny and smart, and she would never, ever let anyone make her feel unworthy, because she knows she is worthy, more than worthy, of marrying the love of her life and having the fairy-tale wedding of her dreams, no one else’s, and living happily ever after. That is Tate’s Angie, and I’d be willing to bet he’s been missing her mightily these past few weeks.”
The last of Mel’s words were drowned out over Angie’s big gulping sobs. Mel wrapped her arm around Angie and let her friend cry it all out on her shoulder.
“Promise me you won’t tell him how stupid I’ve been,” Angie said.
“Of course I won’t,” Mel said.
A movement in the doorway caught her attention and she saw Joe, standing there watching them. The look in his eyes was full of affection and pride. While her gaze held his, he mouthed the words, I love you, and Mel knew exactly what her answer to his question was going to be.
Fifteen
By the time Angie left, looking more like her old self than she had in weeks, Mel went to find Joe so they could finish their conversation. When she did find him, after locking up the house, she didn’t have the heart to wake him up.
He was lying on the bed in the master bedroom with his feet crossed, one arm behind his head, and one hand holding Captain Jack, who was snoring where he slept on Joe’s chest. Mel felt her chest get tight at the sight of the two of them. A man snuggling his cat. She couldn’t think of a more heartwarming sight.
She went into the bathroom and got ready for bed. She crawled in beside Joe and Captain Jack. Neither of them stirred but that was okay. She put her hand on Joe’s arm, just wanting to feel his warmth beneath her fingers.
When she closed her eyes, she was afraid that images of Mike Bordow and his mashed melon would be all that she would see, but it wasn’t. Instead, she saw herself here in this house, cooking in the kitchen, lounging by the pool in the backyard, decorating one of the spare bedrooms as a nursery.
Instead of jolting her upright as the thought might have in the past, Mel felt a soul-deep contentment that she had never imagined existed before. She was going to move in with Joe; they were going to get married, she hoped; and they were going to have the life of which she’d always dreamed.
A cup of coffee appeared on the nightstand on Mel’s side of the bed. Its aroma beckoned and she opened her eyes to find Joe, freshly showered and dressed for work, crouched beside the bed, watching her while she slept.
“Morning, cupcake,” he said.
“Mrnuh,” she replied. It was clear her verbal skills were not quite where they needed to be as yet.
“I have to go to work,” he said. “Promise me you’ll talk to Uncle Stan and let him know what you’ve discovered and then let him do his job. He’s really a good detective, you know.”
Mel sat up, dislodging Captain Jack from her side, who gave her a sharp “Meow” before curling back up into a round white fur ball. She reached for her coffee, stalling for time, and took a sip. It was perfect; just the way she liked it.
“Mel?” Joe asked.
“I promise,” she said. Before she could take a second sip, Joe took the cup away from her and yanked the sheet back. The hand she had kept under the covers was now clearly visible, showing her index and middle finger were crossed.
“Mel.” Joe glowered.
“Dear Joe,” Mel said. “If you don’t want me to fib, then you shouldn’t ask me to make promises that you know I am incapable
of keeping.”
He shoved his hands into his hair as if debating ripping it out in chunks. Thankfully, he let go and dropped his hands, as patchy bald spots would have been a terrible look on him.
“You’re right,” he said. “What was I thinking?”
“Are you mad?” Mel asked. “You look mad.”
“I’m not mad, I’m worried,” he said. “Which is infinitely worse.”
“For who?” she asked. She took her coffee cup back and took a big gulp, fortifying herself for what she had to say next.
“For me, clearly,” he said. He stood and put his hands on his hips. “I suppose since you’re consumed with Angie’s wedding and Diane’s murdered fiancé, you haven’t had time to think about what I asked you last night.”
Mel put the coffee back on the nightstand. She clasped her hands in front of her and feigned a somber expression that was quite at odds with the butterflies doing the tango in her belly.
“Actually, yes, I have,” she said. She looked away from him as if she was about to deliver the news that a loved one had passed and she couldn’t bear to look at him.
Joe took her chin in his hand and forced her gaze up to meet his. He looked nervous and hopeful and she just didn’t have it in her to torture him anymore. Well, too much more anyway.
“I think it’s best if, well, if I move in with you as soon as possible,” she said.
Joe had clearly expected a different answer. He stared at her for a second and then he snatched her close and hugged her until her ribs protested.
“You, me, and Captain Jack living here together?” he asked as if to be sure that he wasn’t hearing her wrong.
“Yes,” she said. She leaned back and smiled at him. “Let’s make this a home.”
Joe let her go for a moment and stepped back to give a huge fist pump. Seeing his joy made Mel laugh, which brought his attention back to her. The look in his gaze was wicked, and he used one finger to push her shoulder and Mel found herself falling backwards onto the bed.
“Hey!” she cried.
She gave him a “what was that for” look, and Joe wiggled his eyebrows at her and then started to yank off his tie.
“What are you . . . Oh,” Mel said as it all came into focus. She smiled at him. “You’re going to be late for work.”
“Yeah, don’t care,” he said. Then he kissed her.
Captain Jack lifted his head and gave them a look of scorn that only a cat being forced to vacate his nap spot can manage. Then he shook himself, hopped off the bed, and strode out of the room with his tail in the air.
“Get used to it, buddy,” Joe called after him.
Mel laughed and held her arms open to him. And yeah, Joe was late for work, and it was totally worth it.
Mel left Captain Jack at Joe’s since they had agreed to meet there after work and discuss the plan for moving Mel and Captain Jack into the house. Joe wanted to call his brothers and have the move done that weekend, but Mel knew she needed to run the new living arrangements by her mom, who would be ecstatic, and her uncle Stan, who would be less so.
It wasn’t that Uncle Stan didn’t love Joe. He did. But he had stepped into the father role in Mel’s life when her father had passed away, which meant he tended to be a bit more reserved about her relationships than her mother. The living-together thing was not going to make him happy.
She knew she could argue that she and Joe had almost made it official a few months ago, and that they had been engaged before, but she had a feeling that neither of those arguments were going to help her police detective uncle embrace the new normal.
Maybe she would just check on his investigation of the Bordow homicide and leave the intel about her and Joe for another day. She was still pretty drained from yesterday and she wasn’t sure she was up for a long lecture, especially since she had to get to the bakery and oversee the cupcakes for a fiftieth wedding anniversary party. She knew Oz was up to the challenge, but she wanted to make sure he wasn’t overwhelmed by the details.
Mel strode into the station. Lisa Kelley, a uniform officer, smiled when she saw her.
“Hey, Mel,” she said. “Long time, no see.”
“Yeah, and no cupcakes, either,” Juan Muñoz, another uniform, added.
“My bad,” Mel said. She raised her hands in surrender. “Next week, I promise.”
“So long as they’re carrot cake, you’re forgiven,” Juan said.
She walked into the back where Uncle Stan’s desk was shoved up against a wall. Luckily, Uncle Stan was there, leaning back in his swivel chair while he frowned at a sheaf of papers in his hand. He glanced up when she was just a few feet from his desk. His frown deepened. Okay, maybe not so lucky.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“No conversation that starts with we need to talk is ever a good one,” she said.
Mel moved in and hugged him, hoping it would soften him up. He hugged her back, so she took that as a hopeful sign. When she stepped back his frown was still ravine-deep. Okay, so much for the hug.
“Where’s your partner?” she asked. She figured she might as well jump in with both feet first.
“Out doing her job,” Stan said. “Questioning people about yesterday’s murder.”
Mel cringed a bit at the word but there really was no other way to describe what had happened to Mike Bordow. It was most definitely not an accident.
“How’s she working out?” Mel asked. “Tara, I mean.”
“Fine, why?”
“She seems, I don’t know.” Mel paused and then said, “Annoyingly fixated on my boyfriend.”
“You think she has a crush on Joe?”
“Seems like it, judging by the way she went all weak in the knees and fluttery at him at the crime scene yesterday,” Mel said.
A tiny smile lifted the corner of Stan’s mouth. “You jealous?”
“No,” Mel snapped. “Joe and I are fine, better than ever, in fact.”
“Then it really doesn’t matter if Tara is crushing on him or not, does it?”
“No, it’s just annoying,” she said. Mel didn’t like the sulky tone of her voice, but she was darned if she could stop it.
“Speaking of annoying,” Stan said, pausing to frown at her before he continued. “What were you doing talking to Nicole Butterfield and Cheryl Kelly yesterday?”
Mel studied the toes of her running shoes as if looking for a hole or a rock wedged into the treads. More accurately, she was stalling. What could she say? She had been asking questions for Diane, and Uncle Stan knew it. Was there even a point in lying?
“Diane asked me to break the news to them about Mike,” Mel said, which was sort of the truth; okay, not really. “Apparently, they were both inordinately fond of him.”
“Mel.” Stan said her name on a puff of infuriated breath. It was quite plain that he just couldn’t believe they had to have this conversation. “That was a job for the police. What if one of them knew something? Your telling them about Bordow’s death ruined them for questioning.”
“How do you figure?” Mel asked. “Bordow’s father was already on the news spewing about how the police department screwed the pooch on the investigation. I’d bet dollars to donuts they would have known about his murder before you showed up anyway.”
“Mel,” he said. Just her name. Just the one word.
She knew the point he was trying to make, but she didn’t feel like being lectured right now and she didn’t feel like conceding the argument, either.
Uncle Stan looked at her. His eyes, so much like her father’s, were steady as they met hers. He wasn’t allowing her any wiggle room here. Mel crossed her arms over her chest in what she knew was a defensive stance. Uncle Stan knew it, too.
“All right, I’m sorry,” she said. She sat on the edge of his desk. “But when I was with Angie yesterday at the bridal
salon, and I heard that Nicole Butterfield had tried to bust up Diane and Mike’s wedding by sleeping with Mike, I felt the need to pay her a visit, especially since she and I went to college together.”
“And you didn’t call me when you heard this little tidbit?” Uncle Stan said.
“No, because Nicole and I have a history, plus she was the one who told me that she wasn’t the only little bit on the side Mike was maintaining. There was another woman,” Mel said.
Uncle Stan threw the papers he’d been holding onto the desk and rubbed his face with his hands. “Again, that might have been an excellent time to call me.”
“Perhaps,” Mel said.
“Who was the other woman?” he asked.
It was Mel’s turn to look at him, as if to say the answer was obvious.
“No,” he said.
“Yes,” she said.
Mel was pleased that even Stan, who had been on the force forever and had heard every sort of low-life human-behavior story going, looked shocked by the news that Cheryl had been fornicating with her future son-in-law.
“Man, what did that guy eat for breakfast?” Stan asked. “Juggling three women, I’d be in traction for a month.”
“And those are just the ones we know about,” Mel said. “I’m guessing there were more.”
“Small wonder he’s dead,” Stan said.
Mel nodded. If Mike treated Diane this badly, he had to have been treating the other women in his life equally so. It stood to reason that one of them got fed up and let him have it.
“Hey, Cooper, I’ve got something,” Detective Tara shouted from across the room.
She power walked toward them and Mel felt her irritation rise. She never power walked anywhere and it irked her that this woman walked across a room like that. Of course, it could also be the other woman’s clear interest in Joe that bugged her, but for the moment it was the walk.
“Let’s hear it,” Stan said.
Tara cast Mel a look that said she didn’t think she could be trusted, but Stan waved his hand for her to spit it out. Tara cast one more dark look at Mel and then said, “I have it from a reliable source that Mike Bordow was sleeping with one of the bridesmaids, a Nicole Butterfield.” She looked quite pleased with herself.
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