Love and Tattoos
Page 9
Yet, it appeared many people took their cupcake selection pretty seriously. The mid-day sun streamed bright and scorching and chef’s jackets weren’t exactly made of the most lightweight, breathable material. She could have taken it off in her office at the culinary school, but she only thought she’d been in line for a few minutes and the few blocks she’d walked were fine, what with a little cloud cover and a slight breeze. Those two things had disappeared the second she’d spotted the line to side of the cupcake truck.
By the time she got to the order window, she’d be too hot to eat a cupcake, though she’d be willing to pony up every dollar she was carrying for every bottle of water the truck might have in stock.
Karma must be laughing at her.
Three more people and she’d be in a little shade under the retractable black and white striped awning.
The truck was painted a slick, shiny black with highly polished chrome bumpers and wheels. An airbrushed pop-up sign in pink, complete with a black cowboy hat and boots, rested atop the roof.
Pink.
Something about that worked even though pink was often considered a feminine color and the man who owned the truck didn’t have a feminine bone in his body.
Another step forward and only two customers in front of her.
Cass looked up at the menu. Simple flavors of chocolate, vanilla bean, red velvet, spice cake, lemon, and coconut were listed on one board. Nothing fancy, nothing earth shattering. On the other side was the list of fillings and frostings. Those were fancy and earth shattering. From a basic buttercream to a triple chocolate ganache to a lemon chiffon cream cheese with blueberry preserve swirl, the frostings filled up two chalkboards. Two other chalkboards listed the fillings. One could choose from peanut butter, Bavarian cream, strawberry jam, pureed cherries jubilee, or homemade marshmallow cream made with local, micro-brewed dark beer. Beer and marshmallows? In a cupcake filling? The fifth and last board had her smiling. Titled Fun Flavors, she licked her lips to the thoughts of Toasted S’mores cupcakes, along with Blue Raspberry Velvet, and Pink Cotton Candy.
She suddenly had an appreciation of the decision making ability required of anyone who was stood in front of the menus of The Cupcake Cowboy’s mobile bakery.
Jackson. The Cupcake Cowboy. Cass took in and unsteady breath then exhaled in a huff, smoothing her hair back. Not that she could see if it looked decent or not. She’d sweat enough that all her make-up was probably collecting in a pool on the sidewalk somewhere ten feet back. She knew she looked a sight and not a pretty one, but then the reason she was standing in line wasn’t pretty either and had nothing at all to do with cupcakes.
“Next up?”
Now or never, girl. Cass stepped forward, straightened her jacket and raised her head, waiting. The longer it took him to notice her, the more her nerves kicked in and nausea settled in her gut.
She cleared her throat but Jackson continued writing on his little order pad. His fingers, stained with icing gels and fresh fruit juices, tightly gripped a green pencil. She’d dreamed about those fingers and what they’d feel like on her skin. . It started, this fascination with him the first day he walked into her pastry dough class. He’d had the most beautiful hands, with long, strong fingers. There were some calluses on the pads and outer edges of his palms, which she guessed were from when he worked his family’s ranch, but that didn’t detract from the reality that he had a gentle and steady, yet forceful and insistent touch with pastry. He’d had such a knack for ingredients, an incredible palate and ability to blend tastes, but he lacked the patience dough making took.
As he progressed through his classes, she and his other instructors realized one thing about his ability. He sucked at all things pastry, except cakes, frostings, and fillings.
“Sorry ‘bout that, ma’am. What can I get ya?” he asked as he tore the page he’d been writing on and handed it off to someone just out of sight.
“Hello Jackson.”
He’d head shot up just as she spoke. A surprised, wide blue gaze whipped over her face before narrowing until she could barely see the irises. He schooled his features quickly and plastered a tolerant smile on his gorgeous mouth. He was all business now. “Ms. Jamieson,” he greeted her tightly.“I didn’t expect to see you. What’ll you have?”
Could she really say it? “To offer an apology and…and to tell you I miss you.”
“Unnecessary, but accepted. As you can see,” he said with a sweeping gesture of his arm to encompass both the truck and growing line behind her, “you were wrong in your assessment of me and my plans for a cupcake business.”
Cass didn’t consider herself a proud or boastful person, but this humiliating and humbling experience was not one she wished to prolong or repeat. “Yes. Which is why I’m trying to apologize.”
Jackson waved off her comments. “Appreciated, but again, unnecessary. Now, as we are rather busy, unless you’re ordering something, I’m gonna have to ask you to step aside.”
And just like that, the infuriating, hot as a Texas summer cowboy dismissed her. He motioned the woman standing behind Cass to move forward and for a moment, Cass was unable to move. Should she stand her ground or do as Jackson said, and step to the side. He’d made it clear he didn’t want to talk to her so maybe that was all she was going to get out of him. Maybe he was going to keep up this immature slight forever. Maybe there was nothing more she could or should do. He made the choice to shut her out, to forget the heat that radiated between them, and perhaps it was Cass’s turn to do the same.
Decision made, she turned away only to immediately turn back. She tapped the shoulder of the woman who’d taken her place in front of Jackson. “Excuse me. I wasn’t done.” Cass slipped in and let the woman’s huff roll right off her back. This thing with him was more important than some cupcake order and he was just going to have to deal with it.
He sighed. “Ms. Jamieson, I told you I―”
“Yes, I know what you said. You also told me I needed to order something or move, but you didn’t give me the chance.” Of course, she didn’t want a cupcake. It was too damn hot out for a cupcake. But it wasn’t too damn hot to want Jackson. Naked. Pressed against the back of his truck. Audience or not.
“Uh huh.” He sized her up, assessed her, stared hard into her eyes. “Fine,” he said through gritted teeth some seconds later. “What would you like?”
Cass made a show of perusing the menu, but really hadn’t needed to. She didn’t have fancy taste, wasn’t a sophisticated connoisseur of cupcakes. She just wanted to make him as uncomfortable as he was making her. “A bottle of water and… Hmmm. How about a chocolate fudge cupcake with vanilla bean buttercream?”
He lifted a chestnut brow at her choice, as if to say ‘Are you serious?’ “Simple enough,” he managed. “It’s on the house.”
She opened her mouth to argue but thought better of it. “Thank you.”
Jackson shrugged. “Don’t mention it. Teach.”
His tone was light but she could still make out the veiled sarcasm. He always called her Teach when he wasn’t particularly happy with her, which toward the end of their second term together, was all the time.
She crossed to the pick-up window on her left and waited for her cupcake.
She’d never meant to insult him, never meant to offend him, but when he’d come to her for advice about opening a cake bakery instead of finishing school, Cass had automatically fed him the school and experience mandated rhetoric. In as polite a way as she could, she suggested that he finish school, and then give working in an established bakery a try. She told him to spend some time developing more of his skills rather than jumping into the deep end feet first.
He didn’t take what she had to say too well. Taking criticism was not Jackson’s strong suit. He thought she didn’t believe in him, which couldn’t have been further from the truth. He had talent with a pastry bag and decorating tip, and an innate ability to put things together that shouldn’t taste right, but did.
The moment he walked into her eight-thirty Introduction to Pastry Arts class, the air had crackled as though saying, “He’s here.” That one man who would turn her world upside down. That elusive ‘he’ all the romance novels and chick flicks and fairy tales made millions off of.
She might like cakes and pies and all things fluffy, but she’d never been a believer in love at first sight. Until Jackson.
The powerful reaction she had to him kept her on constant edge when he was around. She’d been teaching nearly ten years and it was the first time she’d ever felt anything more than professional pride in one of her students. She’d had favorites over the years, both male and female, but she’d never dated any of them. It wasn’t against school policy per se, but it was against her personal code of ethics.
He was twenty-five years old, several years younger than her in fact, and though she’d never been attracted to younger men before meeting him, something about Jackson nipped and gnawed at her until she was completely smitten. He had an easy smile, a quick wit and she’d done her best not to let that fact influence either of them. To him, everything was still possible and she didn’t want him to ever lose that ‘I can do anything’ attitude. She was afraid that was what would happen if he failed at being the master of his own pastry kitchen.
Of course, he also took every bit of warning as a challenge.
His last words that day in her office had been his promise to prove her and his father wrong. He could make it work.
And he had, in fact, made it work. His truck was the hot new food business in San Antonio. There was an ulterior motive too. She wanted to protect him from the harshness and incredible failure rate of the food business. The industry was hard and challenging and competitive. The professionals made it look easy but that was because they’d been at it for so long. He couldn’t seem to understand that just because he had a knack with cakes and frostings that he could make it with a bakery of his own.
“Chocolate fudge with vanilla bean buttercream?”
“Mine,” she answered absently, so lost in thoughts she’d nearly forgotten about the cupcake. She held out her hand and a large Latino man with black tattoos up and down his arms, grinned down at her and leaned out the window with the delicate cupcake in his hand.
The cupcake sat inside a clear plastic cup with a lid. She was also handed a brightly colored plastic spoon. She popped the top and took a whiff of the contents. She wanted to melt into the sidewalk.
Cass whisked off a bit of frosting with the spoon and licked at it. She moaned in pleasure. The man was a flippin’ magician. He couldn’t get anything right with pies or tarts or breads and he burnt the hell out of or under baked cookies, but cakes and frostings and fillings? Dear God, he was a genius.
Whatever he might think of her, she’d followed his progress from the first day he opened his business. He’d been ingenious with it, adding cocktail cupcakes complete with alcohol after dark when clubs opened and people were out having fun. During daytime hours, Jackson sold non-alcoholic cupcakes. It worked he had a rock solid business during business hours and during happy hour.
She —
“What are you really doing here?”
The low drawl sent shivers down Cass’s spine. She turned slowly to find Jackson leaning against the back of his truck. Arms crossed over his chest, one lean muscled leg bent and his boot resting against the metal bumper. He looked casual, like he had all day to deal with her, but his eyes gave him away. He was spoiling for a fight and she just happened to be his target. That was fine by her. She could handle the chip on his shoulder for a while. Arguing with him was worth it if it broke the silence and gave them common ground to start over on.
And it was worth it if she got to look at him. It had been a while since she’d seen him, up close and personal. His choice of clothing was always the same: jeans, snake skin boots, t-shirts that stretched just right across his chest and biceps, a little silver hoop in one ear, wavy hair just a little longer than shaggy, and the barb wire tattoo on his right wrist. She always wondered, wanted to know if there were other tattoos, but she’d never been brave enough to ask.
Then she remembered that she was still tonguing the spoon.
“I uh…” She lowered the utensil and swallowed against embarrassment. “I wanted to see you, talk to you.” She kept her eyes focused on his face, made sure she didn’t drop her gaze below his belt. She didn’t know if he wore boxers or briefs, but his jeans always gave an outline away of what he was packing and it drove her a little mad. Right now wasn’t the time to be tipping her hand and letting him know she was still just as attracted to him, still just as in lust with him as she had been the last time they saw each other.
Though the lascivious display with the spoon might have tilted her hand a teensy bit.
“This is my business, Cass and it’s a busy one. I don’t have time to chit chat with you.”
Cass smiled. She could play that game too. “And yet, here you are, outside the truck, chit chatting with me when you could have just let me walk away.”
Also by Lissa Matthews:
Single Titles:
Simple Need
Carnal Ecstasy
Ink Spots
The Swing
The Demon is an Angel
Stick Shift
Arrested Holiday
Pink Buttercream Frosting
Twisted Up
Melting Jane
Keep It Together
Trouble In The Making
Series:
Blue Jeans and Hard Hats:
Sweet Caroline
Cracklin’ Rosie
Forever In Blue Jeans
Denali Heat:
Arctic Shift
Masked:
Masked
UnMasked
Revealed
The Bar Next Door:
Malachi’s Word
Coming Soon:
Slide Down On Me
The Cupcake Cowboy
Eli’s Promise