Caramel Crush Read online

  “Yes, Mom,” Mel said. She smiled. “Talk to you later.”

  “Bye and be careful,” Joyce said.

  Mel ended the call and put her phone away. She needed to get back to the bakery and do some prep work for the next day before her date with Joe. As if she needed any more reasons to love him more than she did, in comparison to Diane’s sleazy fiancé Joe was the greatest catch ever and that included his moments of overprotective dumbassery.

  When Mel thought about their relationship, she realized that Joe had consistently put her well-being at the top of his priority list, even to the point of breaking up with her to keep her safe, the idiot. She hadn’t always agreed with him, but given the fact that Diane had been about to marry a man who was fornicating with both her mother and her bridesmaid, Mel would take Joe’s constant vigilance for her safety any day.

  Sheesh, if Mel had been with a man like Mike Bordow, she suspected there wouldn’t be enough left of her self-esteem to sop up with a sponge. It wasn’t right. Diane was an intense person, yes, but she was also a good person. She didn’t deserve to be treated so poorly.

  The thought that Diane might have sought to inflict harm on Mike for his cheating crept up on Mel like a dark shadow. She didn’t want to think it. She didn’t want to acknowledge the possibility, but she couldn’t help it. Could Diane have been angry enough to kill Mike or to have him killed? And what about Elliott? He was clearly besotted with Diane. How far would he go to prove his devotion to her?

  Mel drove back to the bakery, feeling as if she’d aged a year since this morning when she’d found Mike’s body. Parking in the lot across the alley behind the bakery, she glanced up at her apartment. The lure of climbing into her futon and pulling the covers up over her head was almost more than she could resist.

  Unfortunately, she had a business to run and there was product to be made for tomorrow. Plus, if she curled up at home alone then she might fall asleep and would miss her date with Joe. That was unacceptable, mostly because she had a feeling the only thing that was going to make her feel better about the day was packing up Captain Jack and heading over to Joe’s house.

  Joe used to live in a townhouse in Phoenix, but last month he had purchased a house, a real house with a yard and everything, in the Arcadia neighborhood where they had both grown up. His parents lived three streets away while Mel’s mother lived two. Three of his brothers had houses in the area as well.

  They hadn’t talked about it before he bought it. In fact, he didn’t even mention it until he drove her there to show it to her. When Mel asked him why he bought it, he said it was because he knew she loved this type of house and he’d been watching the real estate in the area for a while and this one, a fixer-upper, had come onto the market at a greatly reduced price so he made an offer and literally owned it within hours. It helped that the sellers were friends with his parents.

  The house was a mid-century modern marvel that needed to be stripped to the bones and restored. Mel was giddy by the prospect, as she loved all things retro and fifties, which was why her bakery was done in black-and-white tile and pink vinyl, but she was also nervous. After their aborted elopement a few months ago, they hadn’t talked about marriage since and Mel wondered if Joe was rethinking the idea. Maybe now that things had calmed down, he didn’t really want to tie the knot and was happy just to be dating. She knew they needed to talk but she wasn’t really sure how to go about starting the conversation.

  After so many false starts in their relationship, she was afraid that if she made one wrong move she might wreck the happy place they were in right now. With Tate and Angie’s wedding taking center stage, she and Joe had been able to spend their time dating and just being together. Mel had loved every second of it.

  She took a deep breath in, held it, and then let it out through her nose. She wasn’t going to blow things with Joe. She wasn’t. She was determined to live in the moment and be present. No pushing for outcomes, no overanalyzing his every move; she refused to do any of that. The future would be what it would be and she was 100 percent okay with that. Really, she was.

  After several hours spent in her happy place, the bakery kitchen, Mel and Captain Jack arrived at Joe’s house. She parked in the driveway and hefted her purse in one arm and Jack in the other as she strode up the walkway to the front door.

  Joe opened the door before she had to knock, for which she was grateful. Captain Jack was a little over a year old but he had certainly packed on the pounds since she and Angie had found him abandoned in the Dumpster behind the bakery when he was just a wee kitty.

  “Hey, buddy,” Joe said as he took Jack from her arms and held him up so they could do their ritual head butt. Once Jack had greeted Joe, he yowled to be let loose. Joe put him down and he took off running across the hardwood floor.

  “My men,” Mel said. She put her hand over her heart as if overcome by the sight of Jack and his kitty daddy. She was only partially teasing. One of the many things she loved about Joe was his way with animals, particularly Captain Jack.

  Joe pulled her into a hug and rested his cheek on the top of her head. “How did the rest of your day go? I was worried about you.”

  “It went well,” Mel said. She didn’t really feel the need to talk about her field trips to Nicole’s and Cheryl’s houses. “You know, cupcakes to bake, counters to clean, employees to pester.”

  “People to question about the murder of Mike Bordow,” he added.

  Uh-oh.

  Fourteen

  Mel pulled back to study his face. How much did he know? His warm chocolate-brown eyes were steady, as if he knew exactly how she had spent her day and he was waiting patiently for her to tell all.

  “Would that be wild speculation on your part or do you have intel that I don’t know about?” Mel asked.

  Joe wiggled his eyebrows at her. It was ridiculously sexy and distracting so she kissed him, and much to her relief he kissed her back. Good. So, it had been wild speculation.

  Joe broke off the kiss and stepped back. Then he shook his head as if trying to get his brain to function again. So charming.

  “Stan called me about an hour ago right after a visit with Diane’s mother,” he said.

  “Oh.” Not wild speculation then.

  Mel stepped away and then turned and walked away. She could feel Joe following her in that relentlessly patient way he had. The house only had the barest of furniture since it was three times bigger than Joe’s old townhouse and he’d lived pretty sparsely even in the smaller space.

  Captain Jack had bolted for the kitchen, where Joe kept a food and water dish for him. Sure enough, he had his face in his food bowl. Mel knew that once he had decimated his kitty kibble he was going to saunter out to the large screened-in porch and stalk the birds he could see in the large backyard. Joe had invested in one of those multi-level carpeted cat playhouses and it allowed Captain Jack a nice view where he could chatter his teeth and twitch his tail to his heart’s content.

  “Cupcake, you can’t escape me,” Joe said.

  “Not trying,” Mel said. She went right to the refrigerator and took out a bottle of wine. “I just feel the need for fortification.”

  Joe nodded in understanding. He took the bottle from her and began to open it while Mel foraged for glasses. They were going to have to discuss layout. The chef in her didn’t understand why he didn’t have the glasses to the right of the sink. Everyone knows glasses go to the right.

  “The police department is inept, I tell you, totally useless! They don’t care who murdered my son. They botched the case and now they’re trying to cover their asses!”

  Mel turned, following the sound of the voice. Joe had the TV on the local news, which, given the house’s open floor plan, meant the large-screen TV in the family room was visible from the kitchen. According to the caption on the bottom of the big screen, the voice coming from the television belonged to
Butch Bordow. He looked like he was just warming up to his topic about how lame the local police were.

  Mel glanced at Joe to see if he was catching this. He gave her a tired look and nodded. “Yeah, that guy has been blowing hard all day about how the police have already messed up the investigation. Note that he’s standing in front of the Triple Fork Saloon, his favorite watering hole in Old Town.”

  “He certainly has the red nose of a drunk,” Mel said.

  “And the bloodshot eyes, slurred speech, and occasional belch,” Joe said. “But that’s the media for you. Don’t vet the source, just toss him on the television, because ratings!”

  Joe had a love-hate—no, more of a hate-hate—relationship with the media. Mostly because in today’s divisive world there really was no one who just reported the facts; every reporter was pandering to a bias of some sort and it had skewed far too many of Joe’s cases for him to be forgiving.

  He picked up the remote that was sitting on the counter and switched off the television. Mel held the glasses out to Joe and he gave them each a generous pour before putting the bottle down onto the counter.

  “So, what did Diane’s mother have to say?” he asked.

  Mel picked up her glass, made a “just a second” gesture, and took a long sip. Then she closed her eyes as if the power of the grape could block out finding Mike Bordow’s body, Nicole’s meanness, and Cheryl’s hideousness as a mother.

  It helped, but Mel had a feeling nothing would ever truly erase this day from her mind. Ever.

  “Let’s discuss it all while we eat,” she said.

  “Good call. What do you want for dinner?” he asked. “I can fix anything you want so long as it’s made from bacon, eggs, and bread.”

  Mel hadn’t assessed the fridge when she took out the wine. She opened the door again. Sure enough there was a carton of eggs, a package of bacon, and a pink box from her bakery. She opened the freezer and found it empty. She moved to the pantry. There was a loaf of bread. She went back to the fridge and took out the pink box from her bakery. She had brought Joe some of her latest experiments in cupcake baking yesterday. Half of them were history but she figured the others would do nicely with wine.

  “How about dessert for dinner?” she asked.

  “You’re a terrible influence on me,” he said. Then he took the cupcake box and his wine and led the way into the living room.

  Mel followed with her wine, a handful of napkins, and two plates. Her mother would never approve of this clear violation of the food pyramid, but Joe’s weakness was his sweet tooth, which was how Mel had gotten him to notice her in the first place.

  Oh, sure, he had told her he’d noticed her years before that, but he hadn’t made a move until after she opened her bakery, so she considered her culinary abilities responsible for sealing the deal between them and she wasn’t above using her skill set to soften the lecture that she knew was coming.

  The cupcakes would need to soften a bit as refrigeration sometimes made the cake dry and the frosting hard, but these were baked fresh yesterday so Mel wasn’t worried. Plus, June in Arizona meant the cupcakes would be room temperature in about twenty minutes. Just enough time for her to duck and weave conversationally before stuffing a cupcake into her cake hole to avoid the conversation.

  “Okay, so let her rip,” Mel said. She sat beside Joe on the couch, dropping the napkins on the table beside the box.

  “Let what rip?” he asked. He lifted his arm and she took her spot, tucked into his side, while they sipped their wine and stared at the pink box as if willing the cupcakes to soften up faster.

  “The lecture that I know you are dying to unleash upon me,” she said.

  “Me?” Joe blinked his dark lashes in feigned innocence. “When do I ever lecture?”

  Mel turned and their faces were just inches apart. The man was ridiculously handsome and for a moment she forgot what they were talking about. As his gaze moved over her face, he seemed to lose track of his thoughts as well and Mel took that as a compliment.

  “This is nice,” she said. She put her head on his shoulder.

  He rested his cheek on the top of her head and Mel knew that this was what she’d longed for all day. To be here with her honey, where she felt safe and protected and loved.

  “Mel, I want you to move in,” he said.

  Mel snapped her head up. She clocked his nose with the top of her head, and he let out a yelp and spilled his wine.

  “I’m sorry,” Mel cried. She took his glass out of his hand and put both of their glasses down on the table. “Oh, nuts, you just caught me by surprise.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m all right.”

  “Yeah, more believable if you didn’t have blood streaming out your nose,” she said. She snatched a napkin off of the table and held it to his face.

  “I’m fine,” he said. He put his hand on hers and looked at her over the napkin, which was beginning to bloom with a dark crimson stain. “Really.”

  Mel sighed. “And just when I thought this day was getting better, I clobber my boyfriend.”

  “Boyfriend?” He frowned.

  “What?”

  “I thought I was your fiancé.”

  “Oh, yeah, sorry. I forgot.”

  “Forgot?” he asked.

  “It’s been a rough day,” she said.

  His expression softened. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m not trying to add to it. I just, I really love having you and Captain Jack here, and I meant what I said. I’d really like for you to—”

  Mel’s heart was hammering in her chest. Was he asking her to move in, like permanently? To live with him, day in and day out? Share a home? It was everything she had ever hoped for and more. She opened her mouth to answer him when a voice interrupted.

  “What did my idiot brother do that you felt the need to punch him in the nose?” Angie asked as she strode into the living room.

  Both Mel and Joe glanced at her and then back at each other, each knowing that the moment between them was gone.

  “Angie, I love you like a sister,” he said.

  “That’s because I am your sister,” she said.

  “Which is the only reason I can forgive your spectacularly bad timing,” he said. “Now, why are you walking into my house without knocking?”

  “The door was unlocked,” she said. “Besides, I need Mel. It’s an emergency.”

  Mel let go of Joe’s nose and hopped to her feet. “What happened? Is it the bakery? Is Tate okay? What about Marty and Oz?”

  “Everyone is fine,” Angie said. She held up both hands in a gesture that was supposed to calm Mel down or stop traffic; it was unclear.

  “Then what’s the emergency?” Mel asked.

  “I’m trying to plan the menu for my reception,” Angie said. Then she huffed out a breath and looked completely overwhelmed. Mel had known her long enough to know that tears were incoming. As if to confirm her suspicion, Angie let out a wail and cried, “And I can’t do it!”

  There was a moment of silence as Mel and Joe both looked at Angie and then at each other. Mel shrugged and Joe gave her a slight nod. Their discussion was going to have to wait.

  “I’m going to go order a pizza,” Joe said. He left the room, still holding his nose, while moving at a clip as if he could outrun female tears. Silly man.

  “Sit,” Mel said to Angie. “I’ll get you a glass so you can have some wine and then we can talk about your wedding menu, and by the time we’re finished everything will be okay.”

  Angie made a hiccup noise as she sucked in a deep breath and sank onto the couch like a fifties movie siren. All she needed was a peignoir and some feathered mules.

  Mel went into the kitchen, grabbed a glass, and hurried back to Angie. She poured her pal a generous amount and handed it to her. By unspoken agreement, they waited until Angie had take
n a long sip and let it mellow her for a moment before they addressed the situation at hand.

  “Okay, now, what is freaking you out about the menu?” Mel asked. “Your cousin Judi knows the wedding industry, have you talked to her?”

  “I think I’ve unloaded enough on her with wedding decorations and the favors she’s making,” Angie said. “I thought the menu would be a no-brainer. I met with the chef and she said she could do anything I wanted, so I got one of Martha Stewart’s wedding books from the library and figured I’d just do what good ol’ Martha said.”

  “And . . .” Mel encouraged her.

  “And now I don’t know whether to go with a whole locally sourced, go-green dinner or a family-style one, where each table passes around their own bowls of mashed potatoes and green beans or whatever, or is it all about color and I have to have food dyed to match our wedding colors, or do we want to go exotic and have it be stuff no one has ever heard of?” Angie said. “I mean who thinks up this stuff anyway?

  “Should we have a buffet or a sit-down meal? Should we have several courses or just two or three? And what about food stations? We could have a bacon station, a deviled egg station, and what if there are people who can’t have nuts or only eat organic, vegetarian, or have to be gluten-free?”

  “Stop!” Mel said. “Breathe.”

  “But—”

  “Breathe,” Mel ordered. When Angie looked calmer, she said, “A deviled egg station, really?”

  “It’s a thing,” Angie said.

  “Do you like deviled eggs that much?”

  “Tate does.”

  “Yeah, his vote doesn’t count right now,” Mel said. “Since he’s not the one having a nervous breakdown on the couch.”

  “Fair enough,” Angie said. “Plus, he said he’d be okay if we grilled burgers in the backyard. He doesn’t care so long as at the end of the day I’m his wife.”

  “Aw,” Mel said. Good old Tate. He always knew exactly what to say. Angie made a slashing motion with her hand. Or not.