CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Good-bye, Paris.
Gazing out the window of his 767, Jake watched the city getting smaller and smaller until it disappeared. Turbulence made the coffee cup next to him rattle in its saucer. He heard the flight crew talking in the galley and the sound of a bin door slamming. Maggie was already asleep on the couch.
It was tempting to just stretch out beside her. But they’d spent plenty of time together and he had a lot of business to catch up on.
After settling into one of the club chairs, he listened to his messages. Just more of the same—shareholder meetings, business lunches, some stupid faux-charity event. But there were a few preliminary applications for the techpark, which he was glad to see. He made phone calls and returned emails. While Maggie slept, he ate lunch and read the papers.
Hours passed, and she was still out. It made him lonely and restless. The closer they got to Cuervo, the harder it was to banish old worries. The monsters in his closet were coming back. He could feel them. They kept spit-balling thoughts at him. They kept asking: how fair is it to date a woman who wants kids? Are you looking for another family to ruin? What makes you think you have one damn thing to give a kid?
Jake spent the entire flight wrangling those monsters in his head until the plane finally landed at Victoria Regional. The road to Cuervo was pitch black beyond the reach of his headlights. Not even the moon was up.
It was late by the time they got back, so Jake took Maggie to the ranch. They ended up in bed, making love with that same mixture of urgency and tenderness that characterized so many of their encounters now. Touching her made it easier not to think—and Christ, he didn’t want to.
But the weight of those nameless, faceless thoughts pressed down on him.
Hard.
After dropping Maggie off at Sweet Dreams the next morning, Jake walked the block to the Regal. It sure wasn’t Paris. Still, he felt more like himself finally. Maybe being back in Texas would cure him of this sudden restlessness. He used to like this walk from the bakery to the Regal, how the canopy of trees made dappled patterns on the sidewalk. Now all he could think about was the empty lot next to the theater that was full of weeds and broken glass. It reminded him of every trash-strewn, motor-oiled patch of dirt he played in as a boy in east Texas.
Or maybe he was just tired. All that sex was probably killing him.
It was cooler inside the Regal. He could tell at once that Pete had made progress while he was gone. Jake swiped a hard hat off the bench and did a thorough inspection of the lobby. Then he went inside the auditorium itself. Workmen were pushing industrial sanders across the stage, which made the air smell like hot metal and wood shavings. Up near the ninety foot ceiling, three men on scaffolds were doing the painstaking work of restoring the Art Deco mural. It was Jake’s favorite part of the theater, so he watched with interest.
While Jake stood there, Todd came ambling down the aisle. He didn’t seem to be in any hurry, hat in hand, boots all pointy, eyes roaming around the place.
Oh, for Chrissake, Jake thought irritably. Why now?
“Boy, it’s really comin’ along,” Todd said. “You might actually be able to do something with this old shit pile.”
Jake went back to watching the men on the scaffold. If he lost his temper now, there’d be hell to pay. But it was hard to keep your cool when your hands had an edgy, twitchy feel to them and all you could think about was seeing the other guy with his nose broken.
With a big helping of that hokey cowboy charm Jake hated, Todd said, “Where you been? I came lookin’ for you. Maggie, too. Then I asked myself, where did those love birds fly off to?”
Jake’s blood pressure inched up, but he did his best to ignore the heat. “Since when is what we do any of your business?”
Todd grinned. Nothing could wipe that stupid grin off Todd’s face. But there was a glint to his eye like a horse that figured out it had just gotten the spurs. “Maggie’s always my business,” he said. “Divorce don’t change that.”
“Don’t kid yourself.”
“See, me and Maggie got ourselves a whole lot of something you don’t have and never will.”
“What’s that?” Jake said. “A stack of divorce papers?” Cheating?
Todd wasn’t smiling now. In fact, those pale eyes of his were the same ones Jake might have seen on a rattler. “Me and Maggie got ourselves damn near ten years of history that even a rich fucker like you can’t buy.”
Jake planted his legs wide and crossed his arms. Do. Not. Hit. Him. Christ, how he wanted to. “What are you doing here, Todd? Did you come all the way here just to be a dick? Because I pretty much knew that already.”
Nerve: struck. Todd’s lips were pulled back, baring his teeth. “You can’t give Maggie one goddamn thing that’s good for her—and plenty that ain’t. I want you to stay away from her and I want you to get the hell out of Cuervo.”
“Hate to break it to you, but nobody gives a fuck what you want,” Jake said coolly. “And that includes Maggie.”
The rodeo clown didn’t like that. Jake could tell because two veins pulsed against the skin of his forehead. The world was full of pricks like Todd: reckless, territorial, leaving a trail of destruction wherever they went. Growing up in Palestine, Jake must have fought a dozen Todds. All he had to do now was lay low and wait for the asshole to take a swing at him.
But Todd didn’t take a swing. “You can’t win this,” he said.
“Win what?”
“Maggie. I ain’t worried. She’ll come around.”
A wave of fear swept over Jake. His relationship with Maggie was too new for him not to worry about Todd. He remembered seeing them in the park together and watching Maggie play with the baby. Todd had something she wanted. Something that he himself could never give her.
“Get out of my theater,” he said through clenched teeth. “If I see you here again, I’ll finish you.”
Todd gave him a cold, tight smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Don’t go sayin’ shit you can’t back up.”
Pete had spotted them and was hurrying over. Todd must have seen him, too, because he turned and strolled up the aisle. “I’d tell you to give my best to Maggie,” he said. “But I know you won’t. So hell, I’ll just have to do it myself.”
“Stay away from Maggie,” Jake warned him. “She doesn’t want a goddamn thing to do with you.”
Todd drawled over his shoulder, “We’ll just see about that.”
* * * *
Maggie walked into the bakery and clapped one hand over her mouth.
It looked like a soccer riot.
UFO cakes were everywhere. Some were capsized. Others lay in pieces. Dirty dishes sat at least ten high in the sink. Two crates of drinking glasses she’d never ordered were stacked on top of the workstation.
Are you even kidding me?
Coralee was out front waiting on a bunch of customers. The two pencils sticking out of her ponytail made her look like she had Martian antennae. She was scribbling furiously in an order pad and everyone was talking at once.
The bottom fell out of Maggie’s stomach. Here she was returning from the most magical week of her entire life and Coralee had gone on some kind of UFO cake baking bender.
“Oh, thank the good Lord you’re back!” Coralee squawked when she saw her. She rushed over, gave her a big hug and then stage whispered, “They’re coming in from two towns over. I can’t keep up with the orders. One of ’em knocked on the door at five in the morning!”
Maggie blinked. “Coralee, what were you doing here at five in the morning?”
“Baking. I done ten cakes so far, but not as good as yours. I can’t get the shape right. And now them boys down at the lodge want five more. Since the minute you left, I been dragged through a hedge backward.”
Maggie stared at the people out front. Half of them she’d never seen before. “What on earth is going on?”
“It’s your cake. I took a bunch of pictures and put ’em up on the UFO page for my club. The calls started coming in right away.”
Maggie took a deep breath. She reached behind the pantry door, lifted down a fresh apron and then tied it around her waist. “Okay, let’s take care of these customers and then you can fill me in on the rest later.”
For the next three hours, Maggie made coffee and wrote down cake orders. Every time she and Coralee thought they had things under control, more people came in for UFO cakes—they all wanted something new and quirky for their birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, even a few baptisms. “Could you maybe make the aliens look like babies?” one customer asked. “Like little green alien babies in diapers?”
They’d all seen the photos on Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram. There was even a new “Cake Fails” page dedicated to UFO cake disasters like the ones that were waiting for Maggie in the kitchen.
UFO cakes. Who would have thought?
Todd came by but she didn’t have time to talk to him, which was a blessing. Jake came by and all she could give him was a kiss. “What the hell’s going on here?” he asked. “Are you giving the cakes away?”
By five, she finally had to turn the sign from Open to Closed and lock the door.
“Wait till I tell you the good news.” Coralee flipped through pages on the order pad while tapping numbers into a calculator. “We have almost five thousand dollars in cake orders.”
“Five thousand? What are you charging for those things?”
“Seventy-five dollars,” Coralee told her. “I could’ve asked for more.”
Maggie was stunned. She’d never have had the nerve to ask for that amount. Of course, she never thought a whimsical attempt to cheer herself up and make Ed and Coralee happy would have resulted in a mini UFO cake-baking bonanza.
They spent the next thirty minutes scouring the kitchen. Coralee got out the record player and they sang along to Patsy Cline and Frank Sinatra in the warm, steamy kitchen. While Maggie made coffee, she showed Coralee how to shave down the sides of each cake to create the desired saucer shape.
They worked through dinner. Then Priscilla brought Gus over to see her. He was so excited, he charged around the café like his tail was on fire. Jake arrived and he and Priscilla got to talking while Maggie and Coralee finished smoothing fondant over the freshly baked saucers.
It was all so wonderful and cozy. Every time Maggie heard Jake laugh, her foolish heart throbbed with love for him. She’d adored Paris—and would treasure those memories for the rest of her life. But this was where she belonged, right here, with her friends, her family and with Jake. Her grandmother’s old record player spinning vintage records. The smell of cake and coffee making everything so homey and delicious.
Jake never had anything like this, growing up. No loving family, no safe home. Maybe now he would find it as wonderful as she did. Maybe…but that was stupid. Once his theater and techpark were finished, Jake wasn’t going to stay.
The thought of losing him sank her. She had to prepare herself.
You’re in love and you can’t help that, she thought. But don’t be surprised when you wake up one morning and he’s gone.