Tart (The Fluffy Cupcake Book 2)

by Katie Mettner

  “I’m better than okay. I’m thrilled! She took a plea deal! There won’t be a trial.” Her hand went to her heart, and she flopped back against the couch, her face ruddy with exertion from her run over here.

  “What? They offered her a plea deal? When did that happen?” I asked with suspicion.

  “Just recently. The DA knew he could win in court since they had the knife with my blood and her fingerprints. It was going to be almost impossible for her lawyer to find a defense. When the courts refused to move her trial to a different county, that put another nail in the coffin. Her lawyers were going to struggle to find any sympathetic jurors no matter how hard they tried.”

  “Who went to them with a plea deal? Did you okay that?”

  She held up both hands and waved them. “I don’t get a say in that, Amber. The DA gets to decide those things. I just got a call saying she’d accepted, and I wouldn’t have to go to court.”

  “She better not get just a slap on the wrist.”

  “She pleaded guilty to assault with a deadly weapon. She’ll be in prison for five years with ten years of extended parole after that.”

  “But she tried to kill you! She should have gotten more than five years!”

  “The DA was going to have a harder time proving the attempted murder part. They couldn’t prove that she intended to kill me.”

  “She had a knife!”

  “Which isn’t illegal to carry by law. I guess what I’m saying is, I’ll take it. It gets the whole looming trial off our backs this summer and puts her away for long enough that she just might wise up while in prison. Maybe she will be a nicer person once she gets out.”

  “I’m just afraid of what will happen when she gets out,” I said, grabbing her hands.

  “When she agreed to the plea deal, she agreed that she wouldn’t live within fifty miles of Lake Pendle after her release. If she ever makes contact with me, Brady, or anyone affiliated with The Fluffy Cupcake, her probation will immediately revert to prison time.”

  I leaned back and eyed her. “And you’re okay with trusting her?”

  She gave me the palms up. “I don’t have a lot of say in it. I’m just hoping that she finds some kind of passion or path while in prison. Even if she doesn’t, I’ll never have to see her again. Her father put their house up for sale, and rumor has it he’s retired and moving to Florida. Without her family here, she won’t have a reason to return. I wouldn’t doubt that she won’t try to get placed in a facility in Florida for her sentence. The DA said she was being taken into custody today.”

  “It’s really over?”

  She nodded once. “It’s finally over. I hugged Brady for a solid twenty minutes and cried. I’m so relieved that I don’t have to deal with the trial or the debacle she would turn this town into again. I want her to go away quietly, which, if you ask me, is what she deserves. She thrives on undue attention. She’s about to find out what it’s like to be no one special in a room full of people far more violent than she is. I wish her well.”

  I snorted while trying to hold back my laughter. I reached up and fixed her hair over her shoulder until I could speak. “You are so diplomatic. I hope she’s somebody’s little bitch every day she’s in that prison.”

  Hay-Hay bent over laughing, the sound filling my happy meter another few notches. I was learning how to feel joy for the first time in years. I glanced down at the band on my finger and smiled. The guy who put it there wasn’t doing a half-bad job of teaching me.

  “BISHOP, ARE YOU HOME?” her sweet voice called out.

  I pulled the shirt over my head and jogged to the door, my feet still bare, and my hair wet. “I sure am,” I said, holding the door so she could swing through on her crutches. I closed the door behind her, and she let her crutches fall, grabbing me around the shoulders in a death grip.

  “It’s over,” she sighed, her arms wrapped around me and her face buried in my neck. “It’s finally over.”

  I swung her up into my arms and stepped over her crutches, carrying her to the living room while she nestled into me. When I sat, I kept her on my lap, cradling her in my arms. “Tell me what’s over. I don’t understand.”

  “The trial and the nightmare of Darla McFinkle,” she explained, resting on my chest.

  “I thought the trial hadn’t started yet?”

  “It didn’t, and it won’t. Darla took a plea deal. We don’t have to go to court. She’s going away. She won’t be able to bother Hay-Hay ever again.” Her words were solid, but they were rough. They told of the unbelievable fear that sudden trauma often brought out. They told me how much she hated what Darla did to her sister and how glad she was that Haylee didn’t have to go through a trial.

  I rubbed her back to soothe her and planted a kiss on the top of her head. “How long is she going away for?”

  She glanced up at me, almost as though she just realized she was in my arms. “Hay-Hay said five years and then she’ll have ten years of probation. Darla won’t be allowed to live within fifty miles of Lake Pendle, and she can’t contact any of us, or she’ll go back to prison.”

  I held her to me and rocked her a few times. “That’s great, sweetart. She’s out of your lives. I’m relieved for all three of you. You get to move on now without the looming trial or threat of Darla being acquitted and staying in town.”

  “I’m so relieved,” she said, her voice telling me just how much while her hand rubbed against my soft t-shirt. “You’re still wet.”

  I laughed and kissed the top of her head again. “I was just finishing in the shower when you called out. I’m officially done with curriculum work for the summer. I still have work to do, but for the most part, I can do it here.”

  She looked up at me with her gorgeous hazel eyes shining. She was stunning, even on a Friday afternoon wearing nothing but a simple sundress and her hair thrown into a messy braid. I wanted every part of her from her beautiful eyes to her tortured and twisted leg. My hand ran along the length of her left thigh, watching her face for a reaction. I got none, which meant the skin wasn’t bothering her much anymore.

  “I finished most of my work today, too,” she said, still watching my face. “I was wondering if maybe I could start working over here now? I know we said I’d use the apartment as my office, but now that I’m done with all the paperwork, all I need is my laptop. It’s kind of silly to walk over the—”

  My lips took hers to show her how she didn’t need to explain to me why she wanted to work here. I wanted her here with me all the time. She mewled low in her throat and wrapped her arms around my neck, digging in for the deeper connection we always seemed to crave whenever our lips touched. My fingers found their way to her hair and pulled the hair tie from the braid, patiently unwinding her hair until it slid through my fingers like butter.

  Her tongue was exploring mine, and I had to stop myself from rubbing my brutally hard dick against her leg. I didn’t want to hurt that leg. I was already in enough pain from the desire coursing through me, and I didn’t want her to be in pain, too. She was everything to me. That was a lightning-fast reaction to promising to love and cherish her until death does us part. Maybe to her, our vows were for show, but in my heart, they were real. I would stay married to this woman forever if she asked me to. I had so many plans to show her that. Starting this weekend, I was going to show her that a guy like me wanted everything to do with a girl like her.

  I broke the kiss off, both of us panting with desire and unfulfilled need. “God, you’re incredible, Amber,” I whispered, her hair wound up in my hands.

  “Is that your way of saying it’s okay if I work over here during the day?” she asked on a sigh of contentment.

  “I’ll bring everything over here first thing Monday morning,” I promised, kissing her again. When we broke apart, she was gripping my shirt tightly in her fist.

  “There isn’t a lot, but I’ll need it to work on this weekend. I don’t have anything else to do, so I might as well keep going on it.”
/>   “Wrong,” I said, tapping her nose. “We have plans for the weekend.”

  “We do? Are we finishing the deck?”

  “The deck is being finished this weekend, but not by us. Chris is going to work on it while we’re gone.”

  “While we’re gone. Where are we going?”

  I untangled my fingers from her hair and sat her on the couch so I could turn to her. “On our honeymoon.”

  She sat silently for a heartbeat before answering. “Our honeymoon?”

  “Yes, that thing you do where you go off as a newly married couple to cement your marriage.”

  She waved her hand in the air. “Bishop, we don’t need a honeymoon. The marriage isn’t real. You’re going to divorce me as soon as that brace is paid for.”

  I didn’t justify that with a response. I wound my hands back in Amber’s hair and grasped her cheeks, caressing them with my thumbs. “Think of it as a short summer getaway if that makes you feel better, but we’re going. I already cleared it with your bestie, so she knows you won’t be available for the bakery until Monday.”

  “My bestie?”

  I nodded, and I noticed her long, slender, smooth neck bob as she swallowed.

  “Where are we going?”

  “To the lake. We’re going to have campfires, watch the waves, dip our toes in the wa—”

  “No! I won’t go camping!” she shouted, jumping up off the couch. She forgot she didn’t have her crutches, and I caught her as she went down to the carpet, her right knee hitting the floor, which was better than her face.

  “Amber!” I pulled her back to a standing position and held her there. “You gave me a heart attack,” I said, my heart pounding. “The brace doesn’t even hold you up anymore, does it?” She shook her head, a tear dripping down her cheek when I pulled her into me. “You’re scared. This is the first time you’ve been this scared that the leg is never going to work again.” Her head nodded on my shoulder, and I held her, rocking her gently. “I’m not going to stop taking care of you, Amber. We’ll find a way through this. I know it won’t be easy. I know that I’m not the one dealing with the pain and uncertainty every day, but I am going to be here to support you.”

  She grasped me desperately, her fear palpable against my skin. “Thank you, Bishop. I know you want to go camping, but I can’t. I’m staying here. I’m sorry.”

  She lowered herself back to the couch, and I ran my finger over the spot on her knee that was red from falling. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I wasn’t taking you camping, my little tart. I’m not cruel. I understand your feelings about that, even if you think I don’t. I would never do anything to make what you deal with even harder. Do you believe me?”

  Her head nodded, but she shrugged. “Maybe not intentionally. I know that my reaction to the mere idea of camping is ridiculous, but I can’t help that. I’ve tried, you don’t know how many times I’ve tried. I decided if I was going to live a relatively normal life, I was going to have to stop trying. I was going to have to stop trying to please everyone else to the point that it crippled me. Summer is hard. I struggle with not obsessively checking the weather to make sure nothing is going to take me by surprise. I will always struggle with that. When it storms, even when I’m in the basement, I’m curled up in a ball sobbing while it rages overhead. If I’m at work, I hide in the cooler until it’s over because I can’t hear it in there. Hay-Hay never says a word, bless her heart.”

  I stroked my thumb down her cheek and leaned in for a soft kiss. “You weren’t curled up in a ball sobbing in my basement that night.”

  “I was on the inside,” she said, finally laughing a little bit. “You were good at distracting me from the fear. I guess when I’m alone, the thoughts that no one will know I was down there, or that I was hurt, just take over my mind. It’s stupid when it’s just a little summer storm, I get that, but I can’t change it, either.”

  “It’s not stupid. I don’t know if anyone has told you this before, but I feel like I should. What you experience during storms is normal after the experience you lived through. It’s normal, Amber. Has anyone ever said you’re completely normal to be out of your mind afraid of something that once tried to kill you?”

  She swung her head back and forth. “Never. I was told I needed to be stronger against the emotions taking over my mind. They gave me biofeedback techniques and ways to focus on other things, but that’s hard to do when you’re too scared to remember any of it. I need to be stronger, but I’m not. I’m too weak right now.”

  I took her shoulders and turned her to look at me. “You’re wrong. You don’t need to be stronger. Good God, what you’ve lived with and dealt with since the injury proves your strength. Fair warning, if I ever hear anyone tell you to be stronger, I will bitch slap them.”

  Her laughter filled the room, and she laughed for a good long time. “I’ll remember that because I’d like to see it.”

  I caressed her cheek tenderly and smiled. “I would, but the point is, I know you feel weak right now. You’re not. You’re stronger than I am. You’re beautiful to boot, and this weekend, you’re mine.”

  “I don’t want to go anywhere, Bishop. My leg isn’t good. It’s hard to travel, and the crutches make beaches nearly impossible to navigate.”

  I placed my finger on her lips. “I know. I have this all worked out. Do you trust me?” Her head nodded against my finger again. “Good. I’m going to get your crutches so you can clean up while I finish the plans I have, okay? Trust me? I’ve got you.”

  Her head nodded, and I grabbed her crutches from the floor of the foyer and carried them to her.

  “Thanks,” she said, propping them under her arms. “What should I put on?”

  “Remember that sundress you wore the first night we were supposed to go to The Modern Goat?” She nodded, and I winked before I headed to my room for a change of clothes.

  Twelve

  “You were right, this is the way to do a honeymoon,” I said, floating on the water with the sun beating down on me. My brace and crutches lay forgotten on the dock, and I was enjoying the freedom to just relax without being uncomfortable. Last night we had finally made it to The Modern Goat for dinner. We shared their surf and turf and talked about everything from our childhoods to our college days. I had never been more comfortable with another person in my life.

  Bishop laughed from where he was sitting in an innertube and trailing his hands through the water. He wore nothing but a pair of swim trunks, and I couldn’t take my eyes off his chiseled chest and glistening skin. “I’m glad you’re enjoying our staycation.”

  “So much,” I agreed. “Also, I’d just like to point out that you might be a dad, but you most certainly do not have a dad bod. I’m a little jealous of that innertube right now.”

  His laughter filled the air again, and he bowed at the waist without falling out of the tube. “I’ll take that as a compliment. I believe that it’s hard to teach kids to be physically fit if you aren’t setting the same example.”

  “That’s true,” I agreed, “but there’s physically fit, and then there’s—” I motioned around his body, “you.”

  “Good genes. That’s all—a little time in the weight room and some high-quality protein. I’m not constantly working out or anything. It’s just how I’m built.”

  I glanced down at myself in the blow-up chair I was floating on. “And this is just how I’m built. No curves. No boobs. Scars everywhere.”

  He paddled the innertube closer to me and grasped my right ankle. “You have curves. They’re just less pronounced than other women. I’m not a sucker for big boobs. I’m a sucker for the ones that fit in my palms and my mouth perfectly. The scars are just skin in a different configuration than the skin around it. Those scars tell the story of how strong you had to be. They aren’t everywhere, either.”

  There he was using that word strong again. He managed to work it into almost every conversation we’d had since last night on the couch. I kind of loved him for
it, to be honest. He was helping me see the strength in what I’d gone through rather than the weakness.

  “They are everywhere. I have scars in places you haven’t seen. When I said the entire left side of my body was mangled, that wasn’t an exaggeration. I’m not wearing a tank top as a suit for no reason, Bishop.”

  “Regardless, Amber, I’m not going to let you use your lack of curves, boobs, or scarred skin to push me away. I won’t allow it. I will bend over backward to protect you from storms and anything else that wants to hurt you, but I won’t let your hurts ruin what could be the best thing that has ever happened to you.”

  “Wow,” I said, laughing sarcastically. “Now you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Someone thinks highly of himself.”

  “Never used to,” he admitted, staring up at the sky as the sun dropped lower until it was nothing but red streaks across the clouds. “I used to think no woman would be interested in dating a single dad, so I didn’t put myself out there.”

  “That’s kind of silly, Bishop. Athena didn’t even live with you.”

  He grasped my chair to hold it next to his. “That’s true, but I was still heavily involved in her life. I had a few relationships, but in the end, they refused to bend when it came to the time I spent with Athena. That told me they weren’t the right woman for me.”

  “I can’t wrap my mind around that. Maybe it’s because I grew up with Hay-Hay, but if I dated a single dad, their kids would be my kids. I would never ask them to spend less time with their children. I would do whatever I could to make sure he had the support he needed not only to see them but to make a difference in their lives. I wouldn’t have felt any different if those kids lived with the guy I was dating. Asking someone else to be a shitty person just because you are isn’t right.”

  He chuckled as he leaned over and kissed me in the gathering dusk, his lips warm against mine. “That’s because you don’t look at life the way most women do, my little tart. I think that’s what attracted you to me in the beginning. You were so,” he paused as if searching for the right word, “different, I guess.”