Bet Me (40 page)

"What's in it for me?" Cal said.

"My eternal gratitude," Min said and leaned over the table and kissed him on the mouth, loving the way his mouth fit hers.

"How much gratitude?" Cal said, leaning to follow her as she pulled away.

"More than I can express in a single night," Min said. "Slice some of those, will you? We need some for the salad." She held the first chicken piece over the hot oil and stopped.

"Problem?" Cal said.

"No," Min said and put down the chicken. She rummaged in one of the bags and pulled out a pound of butter. "You know," she said as she opened the box, "you really can't cook without a
little
butter."

"Yep," Cal said and grinned at her.

Min dropped a healthy pat into each of the four pans and inhaled the sweet smell. Then she smiled and dropped the chicken breasts in.

"They'll never know anyway," Cal said.

"My mother can smell butter on me three days after I've eaten it," Min said. "She'll know. I just don't care. Tear up the romaine next, will you? I've got to steam beans."

Half an hour later, Tony and Roger showed up in white shirts and black bow ties with Bonnie behind them.

"What?" Min said, trying not to laugh at the ties.

"Yeah, you snicker now, but you're going to be impressed later," Tony said, and did water goblets faster than she could have imagined, as Roger slung fourteen plates in a row and squirted raspberry sauce on them in a pattern and then plated salads that looked like they'd come from the Ritz.

"I'm impressed," Min said.

"So am I," Bonnie said from her stool at the end of the table where she was cutting scallions into strips, and Roger beamed at her as Tony carried the glasses out.

When Tony came back, he said, "They're all out in the parlor, being polite. Di looks bored. Well, she did until she saw me in this tie."

"Must be hell," Min said over the steaming pan of beans. "I'd much rather be in here with you guys. From now on, I'm catering all my mother's dinners."

"Not once she tastes the butter," Cal said, and helped Tony lay out another fourteen plates for the entree.

Ten minutes later, the plates were ready for the chicken, the chicken looked like heaven simmering in its dark wine sauce, the green beans were tossed with the almonds and tied into bundles with the scallion strips, and Min was talking to herself.

"Salad, done," she said to herself. "Meat, beans, done. Emilio's corn relish, ready to plate. Rolls out of oven and in baskets. What have I missed? Oh, damn. Dessert."

"I got dessert." Cal picked up the last bag and pulled out two boxes that said krispy kreme.

"
Doughnuts
," Min said, appalled.

"Get me a cake plate," Cal said, and Bonnie rummaged in the cupboard and found one. Then while they watched, he made a ring of seven chocolate-iced cake doughnuts with one in the middle topped by a ring of five chocolate cake doughnuts, topped by a ring of three vanilla-iced glazed, topped by one beautiful chocolate-iced Kreme on top, all stuck together with the white glaze icing that Bonnie had dribbled between the layers.

Min's mouth began to water.

"I read about this," Bonnie said, standing back. "It was in
People
magazine. People do this all the time."

Cal picked up a box he'd set to one side, ripped it open, and dumped out a very small bride and groom under a plastic arch. It looked like hell until he shoved it into the top doughnut, and then it looked funky.

"This is the cake I want at my wedding," Min said. "Of course, my mother is going to go into cardiac arrest."

Cal grinned at her, and she laughed as she took off her apron. "You're a genius, Calvin. I need one moment in the closet to put on my dress, and then it's showtime."

She changed as fast as she could, and when she came back she heard Tony say to Cal, "Okay, we got it. You can go—" He stopped when he saw her, and then Roger turned to follow his eyes and stopped, too, and Bonnie peered out from behind Roger.

"Oh, Min," she said. "You look
wonderful
."

“
Very
hot," Tony said, staring at her, and Cal clipped him on the back of the head. "I'm just
saying"
Tony said.

Cal handed the cake to Roger. "You guys can handle everything now?"

"Piece of cake," Tony said, and Min stopped, startled. "What?" he said.

"Nothing." Min shook her head and then checked her face in the mirror by the door to make sure she wasn't wearing flour as foundation. The heat from the kitchen had flushed her skin and kinked her hair and she looked . . .

"You look beautiful," Cal said, and Min turned and saw Roger and Tony with him, and realized that a month before, she hadn't known any of these guys, and now they'd all come together to bail her sister out of trouble.

"This is so
great
of you," she said to them. "This is so above and beyond the call of friendship."

"Anything for you, babe," Tony said. He bent down and kissed her cheek, and Min blushed, and Cal said, "Enough with the flirting with other men, Minerva," and took her hand, and Roger patted her shoulder as Cal pulled her out the back door.

"Those are the best people," she said to him, as they hit the gravel path around to the front of the house.

"Yes," Cal said. "And now we get to have dinner with your family."

"Oh, hell," Min said.

Looking back on the rehearsal dinner later, Min was hard put to choose the low point of the evening.

There was the moment when Nanette spotted them coming through the door and was so caught off guard by Min's purple dress that she stopped after "You're late . . ." and just glared while Min braced herself.

But then Cal patted her on the back and Greg's best man said, "Whoa," and nodded at her.

"T
hank
you," Min said.

"I told you so," Cal said in her ear. "Stay away from him."

Or there was the moment when Min saw Greg, who had decided to have his hair cut in a Caesar cut the day before his wedding, and looked, if possible, dumber than ever.

"Don't ever do that," Min whispered to Cal and Cal said, "No, I don't think so."

Or the moment when Roger and Tony were serving the salads, and Di grinned and said, "Gee, such
cute
waiters," and Roger almost dropped Greg's salad in his lap.

"Watch it," Greg said sharply, and Di lost her smile.

'
'''Very
cute," Min said, and frowned at Greg, who blinked back at her.

Or the moment when Greg's mother said, "This chicken is delicious. Who did you say catered this?" and all eyes turned to Greg. Min let him flounder for a couple of seconds and then said, "Emilio's, wasn't it?", throwing him a rope that he grabbed onto so gratefully she almost felt sorry for him.

That was followed by the moment when Nanette said, "There's
butter
in this."

"Yep," Min said and kept eating while Cal patted her back.

But the low point probably came toward the end of the meal when Min's cell phone rang. She looked over at Diana, startled, since Diana was the only one who would be calling her, and then remembered the trio in the kitchen. "I'll be right back," she said, and slipped outside to answer it. "Hello?"

"Min," David said. "I've been trying to get you all day."

"Why?" Min said. "Never mind, I don't care. This is my sister's rehearsal dinner, David. Go away."

"It's about Cal," David said, and Min grew still. "I still care for you, Min, and you need to know something about Cal Morrisey."

"Do I," Min said flatly.

"That night he picked you up?" David said. "He did it because he made a bet that he could get you into bed in a month."

"He did," Min said, thinking,
What a waste you are
.

"The bet's up next Wednesday, Min," David said, sincerity oozing through the phone. "And Cal Morrisey does not lose. He'll do anything to win that bet. I thought you should know. I don't want you to get hurt."

"Gee, t
hank
s," Min said.

"You don't sound upset," David said.

"Boys will be boys," Min said.

"I thought you'd be shocked," David said, sounding shocked himself.

"David, I knew," Min said. "I overheard you. Which is why I also know that Cal didn't make the bet, you did. It was your idea, which makes you the chief slimeball in this."

"No," David said hastily, "no, I was upset because we'd broken up—"

"David,
you
dumped
me
," Min said. "What the hell were you upset about?"

"—I've regretted that bet a thousand times since, but Cal won't call it off."

"Asked him to, have you?" Min said, not believing him.

"Over and over," David said.

"David?" Min said.

"Yes?" David said.

"Rot in hell," Min said, and clicked off the phone.

She stood on the porch of the bed and breakfast and looked out over the river beyond. It was very pretty. "Damn," she said. She believed in Cal, she really did, but that bet...

I'll ask him after the wedding,
she told herself. When she was out of that awful corset, when they were alone, when they could talk it out without Diana tugging on her arm for help, she'd ask him then.

Tomorrow night,
she told herself and went back inside in time to catch what was definitely the high point of the evening, Nanette's face when she saw the Krispy Kreme cake.

"Hey," David said when Cynthie picked up the phone on Sunday afternoon. "I haven't heard from you. What's—"

"It's over," Cynthie said, and she sounded as if she been crying. "They're in infatuation. It could be years before he comes to his senses. We lost, David."

"No, we didn't," David said. "I don't lose."

"Cal loves her. He's being honest with her. There's nothing—"

"No, he isn't," David said, fed up with hearing about Cal. "He's chasing her to win that damn bet."

"What?" Cynthie said.

"Uh," David said, trying to find a way to explain that without looking like slime.

"Tell me," Cynthie said, her voice brooking no nonsense.

"That first night," David said. "I was mad. And hurt. And—"

"David,
I don't care about you"
Cynthie said. "Tell me about the bet."

"I bet Cal that he couldn't get Min into bed in a month," David said.

"Cal would not make that bet," Cynthie said, her voice sure.

"Oh, because he's too noble."

"He distracted you with something else."

"He bet me he could take her to dinner."

"She left with him because
you made a bet
?" Cynthie said, fury in her voice.

"It wasn't my fault," David said.

"It doesn't matter now anyway." Cynthie's voice dropped back into misery. "Even if you told her about the bet, she'd check with Cal."

"She already knew," David said, resentfully. "I called her and told her last night. She said she'd overheard us."

Cynthie didn't say anything.

"I think she went to dinner with him to make me mad," David said. "He sounded like she was pretty snippy, so she must have made him pay, too." The silence stretched on until David said, "Cynthie?"

"Does he know?" Cynthie said, her voice tight. "Does he know that she went out with him to make him pay?"

"I don't think so," David said. "He hasn't called me to tell me the bet's off, and once he knows that she knows, it's off."

More silence.

"Cynthie?"

"Do you know where Cal is now?" Cynthie said.

"No, but he'll be at Diana's wedding tonight," David said. "What diff—"

"I know how to break them up," Cynthie said, her voice like lead.

"How?" David said.

"Take me to the wedding. If she hasn't slept with him yet, he's frustrated to the breaking point. I'll watch them, and if something makes him tense, if she turns him down again, if something goes wrong..." Cynthie paused again, and then he heard her take a deep breath. "I'll tell you, and you go tell him that Min's been making a fool of him all along. Tell him that everybody thinks he's stupid."

"That's enough to break them up?" David said.

"That's enough to give Cal nightmares for years," Cynthie said, her voice miserable. "It's illogical, but it's been his trigger since he was a kid. Push that button and he explodes. If he does it in front of her family and friends—"

"Wow," David said, impressed with her once again.

"What time is the wedding?" Cynthie said.

"Seven," David said. "Diana wanted it at twilight. Some fairy tale garbage."

"Pick me up at six," Cynthie said, and hung up.

Min had spent the night with Diana, who'd been so manic that she'd still been up, fixing bows on cake boxes, when Min gave up and went to bed, too tired even to miss Cal. But the next day, Di was quiet, still tense but not manic with energy anymore.