“Well, no, not that guy.” Cara grinned. “I’m marrying Brennan. You know him—he works with me at the jewelry store.”
“That’s so great. Congratulations! And that reminds me.” Quinn fished in her pocket and pulled out the small cupcake charm she was still carrying around with her. She hadn’t put it on a chain yet—she was still trying to decide what she thought of it. “Is this familiar to you?”
“Sure is. We sell a whole line of those. In fact, Brennan had a friend come in first thing the other morning to get one . . . Wait. Did a totally hot construction worker give this to you?”
Quinn tucked the charm away again. “Well, that’s the thing. Construction worker, yes. Totally hot? I was too aggravated to notice.”
Cara laughed. “You must have been really aggravated. I’m an engaged woman, madly in love with my fiancé, and trust me, I noticed. So how did you meet?”
“He’s taking my cake decorating class, actually.”
“He is? How awesome is that! So, what will you say when he asks you out?”
Quinn picked up the tray again. “Oh, he’s not going to ask me out.” She stepped into the kitchen and slid the tray into a warming oven, then turned to see Cara giving her an “are you kidding me” look.
“What?”
“Oh, he’s definitely going to ask you out. He’s way interested.”
Quinn was not at all sure what she thought about that. “How do you know?”
“The charm, Quinn. Those things are a hundred bucks each. He wouldn’t spring for one unless he meant something by it.”
A hundred dollars . . . Quinn’s cheeks suddenly felt hot. She hadn’t given one second’s thought to how much the charm cost. He’d been carrying it loose in his pocket, like it was a little trinket he’d picked up off the twirly rack at the drugstore, like it was no big deal, so she’d accepted it like it was no big deal. She’d known it came from Marchbanks and Sons, a nice store, so maybe that should have clued her in . . . but a hundred dollars? For an apology?
She took the cookies from the oven and mechanically placed them in a box, then rang Cara up for the purchase. “A hundred dollars?” she said at last.
“Yeah. Hey, are you all right? You look a little freaked out.”
“I think I am a little freaked out. I need to think about this. Have fun breaking up with the art gallery guy.”
Cara waved as she stepped out of the bakery, and Quinn sank onto the stool behind the cash register. Who was this Jonah Owings guy, and why had he given her a hundred-dollar gift?
* * *
Just a dash of cinnamon and a quarter-teaspoon of vanilla . . . and there. It was perfect. Quinn smiled as she tasted the dough for the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies she was making. Fall might still be a little ways off, but there had been a nip in the air that morning that was refreshing and more than welcome after the heat of summer, and she’d gotten the crazy idea to whip up some pumpkin. No one could turn up their nose at pumpkin, no matter what time of the year.
Becky, their part-time afternoon helper, stuck her head into the kitchen. “There’s a super-hot guy here to see you, Quinn,” she whispered.
Dread knotted in Quinn’s throat. Now that it had been established that yes, Jonah was hot, she was more apprehensive than ever to see him again. She’d already have to confront him about the expensive gift, but now she’d be thinking about his hotness the whole time too. It just made things more complicated.
“Can you finish mixing these and putting them on the sheets?” Becky nodded, and Quinn moved over to the sink to wash her hands. They weren’t all that dirty, but she took her time because she needed a minute to calm down and get into her professional zone. Or her “snobby” zone, as Jonah would no doubt call it. Whatever.
When she stepped out into the store area, she was surprised and also a little disappointed not to see Jonah there, but another hot guy. Maybe she had been looking forward to seeing Jonah again, no matter how much she tried to talk herself out of it.
“Hi. Are you Quinn?” the new guy said, turning toward her with a dazzling smile. Wow. How . . . dazzling. She had to blink a few times.
“Yes, I am. How can I help you?”
“I understand you’re the lady behind the amazing chocolate chip cookies Cara keeps bringing me.”
“Oh, you must be the guy from the art gallery.” Quinn’s face immediately went red. What if Cara didn’t want him to know she’d been talking about him? That could get a little awkward.
“Yes, that’s me.” He didn’t seem bothered by her slip of the tongue, so she decided not to be either. “My name’s Alex Croshaw, and I’d like to hire you to provide the refreshments for the art gallery’s grand opening.”
“Why don’t you have a seat, and I’ll be right with you. Can I get you some coffee?”
“I’d love some.”
“Coming right up.” Quinn grabbed their catering menu, poured two cups of coffee, and went to join Alex before he could change his mind and wander down to Bob’s Bagels. An event like this would be great for the bakery, and she had no intention of messing it up.
“Tell me what you have in mind,” she said after she set the coffee on the table and took a seat.
“It’s a two-night event. The first night is reserved for VIPs—people who have donated to the gallery, the artists, their families, the mayor. I’d like the food for this event to be a little unexpected, special. My contractor tells me you studied in Europe.”
Quinn’s mouth dropped open. “Um, yes, I did. Excuse me—Jonah’s your contractor?”
Alex nodded. “He is, and I can’t tell you how lucky we were to get him. Several other guys wanted the job and tried to outbid him, but we didn’t even look at their offers until we’d heard back from him.”
“Uh, isn’t that a little backwards? I thought the contractors were supposed to fight over you.”
“Well, that’s how it normally goes, but we wanted the best. Our grandmother was an artist and we’re building this gallery in her memory, and she’d take us over her knee if we cut corners.”
“I see.” So, Jonah wasn’t just a construction worker—he was a very in-demand contractor. And then Quinn felt guilty for even having the thought. What difference did his actual job title make? Sheesh—maybe she really was a snob.
“So maybe some of your fancier pastries that I saw on the far end of your display case?”
“Hm? Oh, sorry. Yes, those would be excellent.” Quinn handed him the catering menu. “And we’d be delighted to take an additional ten percent off our price.”
“Thank you.” Alex perused the menu, making little humming noises. Quinn couldn’t tell if they were sounds of dismay or approval.
Becky came out from the kitchen, and Quinn noticed that she’d put on a clean apron and rebraided her hair. “I’m done with the cookies,” she announced, walking up to the table with her hands folded in front of her like a choir girl. Her eyes flicked over to Alex, and she grinned. “Hot,” she mouthed.
Thankfully, Alex was still focused on the menu. “Hush,” Quinn mouthed back.
“Can I get you anything?” Becky asked aloud.
“Yes. How about some samples for our new customer? Alex, what would you like to try? On the house. It will help you decide what to serve for your event.”
“That’s a hard choice. Maybe I’d better look at them close up.” Alex let Becky lead him over to the display case, and Quinn shook her head. That girl. Seventeen and into older men. Thank goodness Alex didn’t seem the type to take advantage of it.
Alex returned to the table, a grin on his face. “Becky’s getting me a sample plate. She’s quite the little salesgirl.”
“She’s been one of our best helpers.” Quinn flipped open her notebook. “So let me get a little more information while you’re choosing your items. How many are you expecting to serve?”
“Around a hundred the first night. As to the second . . .” He sighed, and his former enthusiasm seemed to falter a bit. “We’
re taking a huge risk. This isn’t the tourist season for Aspen Ridge, so we’re told, and yet here we are, opening our doors and hoping people will pour in. Bryce—my brother—tells me we’ll be lucky if we don’t lose our shirts. He’s the practical one—I’m the dreamer.”
Quinn nodded. He wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t know and hadn’t been struggling with herself.
“But that doesn’t answer your question,” Alex said. “Sorry. I tend to get distracted. We’re opening our doors to the public the second night, so we could be looking at anywhere from fifteen to three hundred, give or take a few dozen.”
Quinn laughed. “Nothing like a rough estimate, eh?”
Alex chuckled too. “I wish I could be more specific.”
She thought for a minute. “Well, here’s my suggestion. Do an assortment of cookies that will freeze well. If you don’t use them all up for the gala, you can pull them out a few at a time for special occasions, taking to friends’ houses for dinner, stuff like that. We’ll package them up nicely for you so they won’t get broken in transit.”
“That’s probably the best idea. Thanks.” Alex rubbed his hands together when Becky set the sample plate on the table in front of him. “This looks amazing. Thanks, Becky.” She grinned as though she’d made it all herself.
“Did you want me to put those trays in the oven, Quinn?” she asked.
“Yes, please. And don’t forget to set the timer.”
She gave Quinn an “as if” look, but they both knew that she’d burned two batches of cookies in the last month. Quinn would rather keep her out front making sales, which really was where she shone, but sometimes they needed extra hands in the kitchen.
Alex picked up his fork and began to taste, his face exhibiting pure bliss. “Yes, yes, and yes. Can we do an assortment of all three of these for the first night?”
“Of course. Shall we say thirty-three of each? That brings us to ninety-nine.”
“Do the hundredth of the tiramisu.”
“You’ve got it.” Quinn wrote that down, along with the dates of the event and Alex’s contact information. Then they discussed cookies and settled on a quantity that hopefully wouldn’t sit in a freezer for six months. As Alex left the bakery, promising to be back often, she smiled. This could be just the boost D’Angelo’s needed to get them over this rough patch.
Chapter Three
Quinn might have blended up a little too much buttercream frosting for that night’s class, but it was better to be over-prepared than to run out, right? It was possible that maybe, just maybe, she’d been thinking about Jonah and wasn’t paying attention to how much she made, but it’s not like it was going to go bad or anything. It was almost pure sugar, which lasted forever.
She couldn’t help but smile when she thought back on the phone conversation she’d had with her mother that afternoon. “Your father and I want you to bring home a nice young man for Thanksgiving.” Not likely. Thanksgiving was three months away, more than enough time to settle on pies, but she couldn’t imagine meeting someone and liking him well enough to bring him home in such a short amount of time.
A glance down told her that her apron was dirty, so she took it off, replaced it with a fresh one from the new batch of laundry, and prepared to greet her class with a smile. Well, a smile and a certain amount of trepidation. She’d have to talk to Jonah and tell him she couldn’t accept his gift. She didn’t want to give it back—it was one of the cutest pieces of jewelry she’d ever seen—but it was just too extravagant. She couldn’t help but imagine strings attached to it every time she looked at it, and she wondered what he wanted.
Her opportunity came when Jonah showed up a few minutes early for class. But before she could launch into this potentially embarrassing conversation, he spoke first.
“Hey, Quinn, can I talk to you for a second?” he asked, his voice soft.
“Sure.”
Jonah leaned up against the side of the counter, his expression worried. Quinn had no idea what had him so uptight. “Um, you know Helen, right? In the class?”
“Of course.” How would she not know Helen? The class wasn’t that big.
“I wonder . . .” He shifted a little bit from one foot to the other. “She seems to like me,” he said at last, “and she’s really not shy about showing it.”
“Is that a problem?” Quinn asked. She hadn’t seen Helen do anything inappropriate during Monday night’s lesson. Annoying, yes, but not inappropriate.
“She’s just not my type, and I don’t want to give her the wrong idea.”
“Oh? What is your type?” Quinn didn’t know why she asked. It just slipped out of her mouth, totally without her permission.
“I’d say about fifteen years younger, for starters.”
Quinn smiled. “Not into older women?”
“Not so much.”
“Okay. But how do I come into this? It’s really none of my business.”
“I know that. I just . . . I wanted to see if you had any ideas.”
Quinn blinked. “Ideas for what?”
Jonah was looking more uncomfortable by the minute. “For how I could handle this. I mean, she’s your friend, and I thought maybe if I knew how to talk to her—”
“She’s not my friend,” Quinn interrupted him. “She came in to the shop one day last week, bought a cake, and signed up for the class. That was the first time I met her.”
“Oh. So I wouldn’t be offending you if I told her I wasn’t interested?”
Quinn looked at him in exasperation. “Even if she was my friend, why would it offend me?”
“I don’t know. Girls are weird with their friendships sometimes. I have three sisters—I ought to know.” Jonah smiled, a shy smile that had Quinn wondering what else was going on in his head. “And you’re teaching this class, and I don’t want to make things awkward.”
“It’s fine. Do whatever you need to do.” Which was what Quinn needed to do as well. She pulled the charm out of her pocket and took a steeling breath. “Listen, Jonah. We need to talk about this before the others get here.”
“You don’t like it?”
“No, I like it a lot. It’s just . . . Well, I found out how much it cost, and I can’t accept it. It’s far too expensive.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “You found out how much it cost? What, did you conduct an investigation or something?”
Quinn felt her cheeks get warm. “No, nothing like that. It’s just that my friend Cara works at Marchbanks, and she told me. She volunteered the information—I didn’t ask.”
“Small world, isn’t it? You’re friends with Cara, I’m friends with Brennan . . . Funny how we never met up before now.”
Quinn wasn’t quite sure how to take the tone of his voice. He was clearly irritated, but she couldn’t tell if he was trying to diffuse the situation with humor or add lemon juice to the cut.
“Anyway, I just felt like I should give it back. It really was a lot of money.”
Jonah nodded. “And what if I won’t take it back? What will you do then? You can’t throw it away—what a waste. And putting it in a drawer would be just as bad. Why not keep it and, I don’t know, actually enjoy it. You don’t need to analyze this to death.”
“I wasn’t analyzing it to death,” Quinn protested even as she realized that was exactly what she was doing. “I just feel awkward keeping it.”
“And I feel awkward taking it back. I bought it for you because I wanted to, because I thought you’d like it. It was never meant to be a thing, Quinn. It’s just a little gift.”
Quinn nodded and studied the charm she held. It really was adorable. She supposed she could be a little more gracious and accept it. She was about to open her mouth and thank him when he continued. “I just don’t see why everything has to be a fight with you. You’re so stubborn.”
What? “So, first I’m a snob, and now I’m stubborn? I’m not sure why you think you can just waltz in here and start flinging insults around like b
aseballs, but I’m not amused. Not at all. Maybe . . .” She took a deep breath. “Maybe it would be best if you didn’t attend class anymore.”
Jonah looked at her and blinked several times. “Are you kicking me out?”
Was she? Quinn hadn’t realized what she was saying until the words were out of her mouth, and she couldn’t believe her own audacity. But she had to carry this through to the end. If she took it back, he’d have no reason to respect her at all, and that really mattered to her. “I think that would be best.”
Jonah’s mouth opened and closed a few times, and then he nodded once. “All right. Have a good night.”
“I’ll refund your class tuition,” Quinn added. “I’ll send you a check.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said as he strode out of the shop. When the door closed behind him, everything went very, very quiet, and Quinn was left in the middle of it wondering what had just happened.
She stepped into the kitchen and got a cold drink of water to calm herself down. She couldn’t just go flying off the handle like that—she was a professional, but she was also a decent human being. Why had she let herself get so worked up? Was it really that big of a deal?
A chime of the bell over the door, and excited voices in the store told her that some of her students had arrived. She smoothed down her hair and went out front to greet them.
“I’m so excited for tonight,” Melba told her. “My son can’t believe I’m actually taking this class, and I can’t wait to show him what I’m learning to do.”
“Where’s Jonah?” Helen asked, looking around with disappointment on her face.
“Is Jonah the only reason you’re here?” Kathy asked, lightly teasing.
“Well, I didn’t know there would be a man in the class when I signed up. It was just an added bonus.”
“You mean, it was the icing on the cake?” Melba asked, and the others laughed. Quinn shook her head again—she should have expected that from Melba. That woman loved a good pun like no other.
“Jonah probably won’t be able to make it tonight,” Quinn said, deciding not to go into the whole story. There would be time for that later when her pride was done smarting from the blow.
Just Desserts (Main Street Merchants Book 4) Page 3
