Sugarcoated

by Erin Nicholas

  She made great cupcakes and pie. But that didn’t exactly equal a 401(k) and dental. In fact, cake and pie kind of worked against a dental plan in some ways. Or maybe they made a dental plan even more important.

  Aiden was watching her closely. “I want the people who work for me to be glad they’re working for me.”

  “Well, the best way to know how to make them glad is to ask them,” she said. “That’s a great first step. Do you think the plan you have now isn’t good enough?”

  “I have reason to think it can be improved,” he said. “And after listening to Jane last night, I’d like to know more about things like childcare needs and other benefits that could make a real difference in their lives.” He was looking at her with a strange expression. But he kept talking. “There are long-term things that matter. Things like retirement and life insurance and covering time off for jury duty, things off in the future or that don’t come up very often. But I’m aware there are day-to-day needs that impact people’s lives that can really make them feel taken care of on a more direct level.”

  She thought about that. Childcare definitely seemed to fit that description. “Like what?” she asked.

  “Transportation,” he said. “Some people are limited to where they can work, or what hours they can work, because of sharing cars or needing public transportation.”

  Zoe nodded. She’d never thought about that. “What else?”

  “The chance to go to school and advance in the company for additional training or certifications or degrees,” he said. “Pay advances or reasonable loans or even grants for emergencies like the furnace going out in January or a kid wanting to go to summer camp.”

  Zoe’s eyes widened. “Really? You do that? You give an employee money to send their kid to summer camp?”

  “Why not? Summer camp is awesome. Every kid who wants to go should get to.”

  Wow. It turned out Aiden and Cam were not only grown-ups with employees who needed things like reasonable pay and medical coverage and a way to take Christmas off at least every couple of years, but they—at least Aiden—were realizing there was more to those people working for them than just product makers.

  “So you’re the one who’s in charge? With your company? With the other guys?” she asked.

  He’d definitely sounded bossy on the phone. And hot. She hadn’t seen that side of Aiden before either. He was generally easygoing. He would get a little worked up on the basketball court or football field. He and Cam had definitely had a few fights—that got physical at times—over the years. Her brother was a stubborn, opinionated, cocky, not-really-easygoing guy, so he and Aiden had clashed at times. Usually when Aiden was trying to tell Cam to stop being a jerk or to pull his head out of his ass about something. But for the most part, Aiden wasn’t bossy exactly. He didn’t need to be. Things worked out for him without all that much effort.

  “I’m… the organizer,” he said, finally settling on a word.

  “What does that mean exactly?” she asked, intrigued suddenly by how his company ran.

  He and Cam had owned their company—she couldn’t even think of the name of it at the moment—for nine years. She’d never been all that curious about how it all ran, what they each did day to day, or even how they really felt about it.

  “The guys are each really good at specific things. They’re very talented and they’re very passionate,” Aiden said. “When you get four strong-willed, talented, and passionate people together, it’s a good idea to have someone else who can… steer the ship.”

  “You’re not talented or passionate?” she asked. She gave him a teasing smile. He was definitely both of those things. There was no question about that.

  He grinned. “Brat. I like to think I’m both. But I’m a good… offensive coordinator.” His smile grew. “Like on a football team. You need a great quarterback. You need talented running backs. You need a solid offensive line, and you need gifted receivers. But you also need a coordinator who can put them all together. Who can come up with a game plan and put everyone where they’re going to be the biggest asset and then make changes as needed as the game goes on. Someone needs to call the plays.”

  “You call the plays,” Zoe said. “You’re the one putting the plan in place.”

  He nodded. “Dax is definitely a receiver. He goes out, runs the route we need him to, always makes the catch. The flashy stuff. The big yard gains.”

  Zoe grinned, enjoying Aiden’s analogy. It worked for her. She’d grown up watching Cam and Aiden play as well as following the Iowa Hawkeyes. She knew football.

  “Is Cam the quarterback?” she asked.

  He laughed. “No. Cam is the offensive lineman. He’s the one knocking people down who get in our way, breaking open holes to help us get ahead.”

  She nodded. “I can see that. Who else?” God, she couldn’t even come up with the other guys’ names. That was terrible. These were her brother’s best friends.

  “Grant. He’s our money guy. He’s like the running back. He makes smaller gains, safer plays, not the flashy, go-for-it stuff like Dax. But he’s tough, and he’ll fight for every yard for us. And he’ll protect that football. Nobody will get it away from him.”

  “Who’s the quarterback?” Zoe asked. “There has to be a quarterback, right?”

  Aiden nodded. “That’s Ollie. Oliver. He’s the visionary. The one who sees the whole field, who is up for whatever it takes to make the biggest play. He looks at every play as a chance to make a touchdown. He’s also the one who will generally follow the game plan—my plan—but you never know when he’s suddenly going to tuck it and run himself or throw a Hail Mary pass. He’s smart and cocky, and you wish like hell you could bench him for his stunts, but without him, the whole thing falls apart.”

  She smiled. Aiden wasn’t looking at her now. He was studying the cookies in front of her. Though she didn’t think he really saw them. He was thinking of his friends. Affectionately, clearly. But also with some exasperation.

  “Sounds like a great team.”

  “When we’re on the same page, we’re amazing,” Aiden said without any conceit. It seemed he was just stating a fact. “But we have our disagreements, of course. And…” He was thinking hard about something.

  “And what?”

  “I don’t know that we’ve ever really been challenged.” He looked up at her. “We’re talented, and we balance each other out, but the truth is, we’re all also pretty charmed.”

  She nodded. “You always have been.”

  He didn’t disagree. “We still have a lot to learn about running a business and being bosses. At least, being good bosses. Our company started out with just the five of us. We didn’t need childcare, and healthcare for young, single guys is different than for other employees. When I had to get my appendix out, our plan didn’t cover much of it, but I could afford the huge deductible and co-pay.”

  “Wait a second,” Zoe interrupted with a frown. “You had your appendix out?”

  “Yeah. Three years ago. Almost burst. The guys actually rushed me to the hospital from a basketball game.”

  “You were playing basketball while you had appendicitis?” Zoe asked. She hadn’t known any of that and that bothered her. A lot. “That was stupid.”

  “I didn’t know it was my appendix,” he protested.

  “Did your stomach hurt? Did you feel like crap?”

  “Yes. But…”

  She lifted her brows. “But what?”

  “We were in the finals in the tournament.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Do you have a life insurance policy that would have covered you if you would have died?”

  “Yes.”

  She stopped and met his eyes. She let out a breath. Of course he had a life insurance policy. He knew better than most that sometimes you needed that long before you planned on it. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” he said. “It’s fine. Yes, I have a life insurance policy. Also a will and lots of paperwork covering what h
appens with the business if one of us dies or quits.”

  It was a big-time business. A true corporation. They needed that kind of paperwork. Zoe… didn’t. The bakery would probably go back to her mom, who might run it for a while and keep Josie employed. Maybe they’d sell to Josie eventually. Though she had no idea if her friend had that kind of money, and it would be very weird for Buttered Up to not belong to a McCaffery.

  But if Zoe keeled over from a ruptured appendix, that whole thing would be up in the air.

  Damn. She’d never really thought of that.

  “If you’re just going to stand there, distracting me, you could at least come back here and help me frost cookies,” she finally said.

  He straightened, and his hands went to his tie.

  She watched, almost mesmerized, as he unknotted it, pulled it loose from his collar, then tossed it to the table he’d been using.

  That was hardly real undressing. He’d been a hell of a lot more naked in the kitchen at home that morning. But there was something about how he took that stupid tie off that made her stomach feel warm and twisty.

  Wow, she really did need to get laid. It was stupid to get worked up about Aiden taking his tie off.

  He came around the counter and stopped next to her at the worktable.

  “You really want me to help with this?” he asked, looking over the cookies she’d already done.

  He smelled so good. She took a deep breath then said, “Sure, why not?”

  “Because I haven’t frosted cookies in years.”

  She smiled. “It’s like riding a bike. And I’ll let you do the easy stuff.”

  This was all pretty easy. Josie did the hard stuff. Zoe was amazed by her friend’s talents and knew she and Buttered Up were totally screwed if Josie ever left her. Zoe could do round cakes and square cakes. Period. She’d once tried an octagon for a stop sign cake. She’d ended up cutting the corners off to make it a round cake and had drawn a stop sign in the middle of it.

  The largest area of the cookies were covered in blue icing, and then she added embellishments with other colors over the blue. Aiden could swipe blue icing on, surely. She showed him what she wanted him to do with one then picked up a tube of pink frosting.

  She started adding pink piping around a few of the petals as she cleared her throat. “I have to admit I was surprised to hear you talking about childcare and having Dax go meet with people. I’ve always pictured you guys sitting around in beanbag chairs, playing games, and talking about your new t-shirt design as your biggest item of business.”

  “Well, we talk about the new diamond colors and monsters too. The princesses have to cut the heads off of something,” Aiden said as he spread blue frosting over the cookies. He did so carefully, swiping the edges to make them even and smooth. Just the way Maggie had taught them all when they’d been helping in the kitchen as kids.

  “Right,” Zoe said. She watched him, a little distracted. “And childcare.”

  “That’s actually a new thing,” he said. “I hadn’t thought of that until Jane said it last night.”

  He was clearly concentrating on the cookies, but he kept talking. This felt very natural. They’d helped with cookies and cupcakes and other things over the years, but Zoe didn’t remember a time it had ever been just her and Aiden. This was nice.

  It also occurred to her he’d always taken this seriously. He didn’t take seriously her dislike of the Lancasters or the idea of Hot Cakes being a true competitor for Buttered Up, but he did take the bakery and their business and what they did seriously—even down to making sure the blue icing on the cookies was smooth and even. She appreciated that.

  He didn’t have to. A lot of men in his position probably wouldn’t. He was a millionaire, running an internationally known, highly successful business. That was all still very hard for her to remember. Which she supposed was a good thing. He didn’t act like a guy with a lot of money. He didn’t try to buy his way into or out of things. He didn’t flaunt it, or take things for granted, or act like he was better than anyone else. He was the same guy she’d always known. More confident. More commanding. More experienced and smarter. But still the same guy deep down.

  That was… important. It hit her squarely. The idea that Aiden was truly the same person, after all this time and after everything that had happened to him, really mattered. She was, after all, the woman who really liked things that stayed the same.

  She took a deep breath and tried to focus on pink piping. It was difficult. Because suddenly she was distracted by how small the cookies were in his big hands, how delicate they were but how careful he was being, and how cute he was when he was earnest about a task. His brow was furrowed with concentration as he turned the cookie this way and that, making sure the icing was perfect. He wanted to get it right, and that made her… want to cover his naked body in blue icing.

  She swallowed. “Really?” she finally said in response to his comment about daycare for his employees. “I think that’s great you took that all so seriously,” she said sincerely. “I mean, I’ve never given that stuff a lot of thought either. Jane talks about work at Hot Cakes some, but she doesn’t need childcare, and the most we’ve talked about benefits is when she tells me I can no way match what she gets there so, no, she won’t work for me.” Zoe bent over a cookie, swiping a thin pink swirl on the tip of each petal of the flower. “I’ve only got the one employee, and I just…” She shouldn’t say the rest of that sentence.

  She knew a lot of people—okay, her brother and Aiden and Jane and Josie—thought she was a little stuck. They understood and supported her in wanting to keep her family’s legacy alive and to keep Buttered Up the Appleby staple it had always been. But they also thought her strict adherence to keeping everything the same always was a little crazy. But it wasn’t their shoulders where the family legacy rested. If she did something new and it didn’t work, it wasn’t just an embarrassment to her. It was the whole Buttered Up reputation at stake.

  Why would she not stick to the recipes and routines that had been proven to work? She really had it pretty easy here. She literally had the recipe to success. More than one recipe, even.

  Aiden stopped his knife and looked at her. “You just?” he prompted.

  “I just keep doing what’s always been done,” she said, staring at the cookie. “I just keep doing what works.”

  “But needs change over time no matter what stays the same inside this bakery—the paint colors and the recipes and the menu—the people change. Your customers change. And your employee will change.” He paused then apparently decided to go on. “I know Buttered Up has been run by a McCaffery woman and her best friend from the very start. But… if you think about it… Didi changed. Or something changed. That’s what started the whole feud between Letty and Didi.”

  “Didi got greedy,” Zoe said with a frown. That was always the way Letty had told it. Didi saw a way to make more money, and instead of adhering to quality and tradition, she’d sold out.

  “Or she was willing to take a chance Letty wasn’t,” Aiden said.

  “She gambled her lifelong friendship on that,” Zoe said. “And lost it. She has snack cakes—had,” she corrected. “She had snack cakes. But now look at her. That business is being sold off to someone else. The Lancasters will no longer have it, while Letty’s bakery is still going strong. Just as it always has.”

  Aiden turned toward her and leaned a hip into the worktable. He waited until she looked up at him. Why? So he could see her eyes? Read her expression?

  “Didi has made more money in one year with Hot Cakes than Buttered Up has ever made,” he said.

  He didn’t say it cruelly. He said it matter-of-factly. Then seemed to watch her closely.

  Zoe straightened too and faced him. “Yes, I know. But Letty had something Didi doesn’t. Something worth even more.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Her integrity.”

  Aiden nodded slowly.

  “And loyalty,�
� Zoe went on. “Sure, Didi has people on her side, but Letty has true customers. People who come back over and over, for every occasion that matters to them, to this bakery. People send people they love our cakes and cookies and pies. People want our products to be a part of special days like weddings and birthdays. When people come in here they know exactly what they’re going to get. With Hot Cakes… people stuff those in their lunch boxes and glove compartments—” She gave him a little frown. “No one sends those to their moms for Mother’s Day or with engagement rings baked inside or with It’s a Girl frosted on top. We have people’s hearts. They just have their wallets.”

  Zoe felt her heart racing. Dammit. Why did he set her off? He knew all those things and how she felt about them. Why was he pushing these buttons?

  “Remember what I said about defending Hot Cakes and getting into my pants?” she asked him crossly.

  “I do,” he said. He leaned in slightly. “So panties don’t count as pants? Because I remember, distinctly, getting into your panties this morning.”

  11

  Zoe felt as if she’d just opened the industrial oven and had been hit by a wave of hot air. She swallowed. “I’m glad you remember it distinctly,” she said somehow. “Because if you keep talking about how great Hot Cakes is, you’re not going to have anything but a memory.”

  The corner of his mouth curled. “Well, you’re right,” he finally said. “No one would compare Hot Cakes to Buttered Up.”

  She narrowed her eyes. That wasn’t exactly admitting Buttered Up was better.

  “And I might only have one employee,” Zoe went on. “But she knows I want to take care of her. She knows I’ll cut into our profits to make sure she has what she needs. She knows I’ll work extra if she needs time off. I really doubt the Lancasters have taken a cut in their own pay to increase the amounts in their employees’ checks or ever rolled up their sleeves and done any of the work themselves. I’d be shocked if Whitney can even turn one of their machines on.”