Nikki reluctantly nodded.
Tara sighed, wiped her own eyes and walked to the bakery’s front door, where she glanced at her watch, then flipped the sign from Closed to Open, and unlocked the bolt.
“Seven o’clock,” she said. “Time to sell the doughnuts.” She shot Nikki a look of maternal tolerance. “And really, honeybun. Have a little faith.”
Huh. As soon as she was sure she wouldn’t cry into the muffin batter, Nikki began spooning it into paper muffin cups while Tara checked on the coffee in preparation for the morning rush. She’d gone to the back room to put on the music when the door chimes rang, signaling that a customer had come in.
Nikki wiped her hands and went to wait on the person. He was tall and about her age, and something about his face and his bowlegged stance was familiar. He had sandy, curly hair and a very ruddy complexion, as if he worked outdoors all day.
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Gib Tanner. Is Mrs. Fine here?”
“Just a moment,” said Nikki. “I’ll get her.”
As she went to get her mother, she realized where she’d seen the guy before—at that awful bachelor party. She hunched her shoulders and thanked heaven that she was wearing her hair tied back and no makeup. He didn’t seem to have recognized her. Why was he here? Was it an unfortunate coincidence?
“Mom. Someone to see you,” she called.
Tara went up front. Since the music was now on, Nikki couldn’t hear exactly what was said, but she did catch the words
roof
and
crew
and
Saturday.
What was going on?
Then the door chimes tinkled again and her mother appeared in the kitchen looking dazed.
“What was that about?” Nikki asked.
“That boy, Gib Tanner? He’s coming with a crew to work on my roof next Saturday.”
“Say what?”
Tara nodded. “That’s exactly what he said.”
“Huh? Who recommended him? What’s his estimate? And how are you going to pay him?”
Tara shook her head. “There’s no estimate. No bill. He said a friend of yours sent him, a fraternity brother of his, and not to worry about anything. He’d get me all fixed up.”
“What?”
“He has a construction company, he says. Him and his dad.”
“They’re doing this
free?
”
“Well…I guess so. He said all he needed was permission to go on the property.”
“Wait a minute. This is crazy, Mom. Stuff like this doesn’t happen.”
“Apparently it does.” Tara still looked dazed, but she glanced heavenward and her lips moved.
“Is this Gib person licensed? Insured? Bonded?”
“He showed me a bunch of papers to do with that.”
“Were they real?”
“Nikki!”
“Well? Seriously. And who is this supposed friend of mine?” Nikki found herself getting more and more agitated. The Gib guy had been at the bachelor party, no doubt about it. “What’s the name of my
friend?
”
“Adam, he said.”
“Adam?”
Nikki choked. “Adam’s a jerk and he doesn’t have any money.”
“Who is Adam?”
“A jerk, like I said.” Nikki’s head spun.
“He can’t be too much of a jerk if he’s doing this, sweetie.”
Nikki growled something about ulterior motives and stomped out of the kitchen. Should she call him? What
was
his motive? How could he be paying for this? Or did the Gib guy owe him a favor? If so, it had to be one serious favor—like hiding a body or something.
Hadn’t there been some mob-run construction company in the news recently when a bunch of corpses were found under a parking garage?
Right. And Gib looked so very Italian…not. What did she think, that the name
Tanner
was Sicilian?
Well, but it could have been shortened at Ellis Island from, um, Tanzale or Tantofino or Tiramisu.
Okay, she was an idiot. Gib looked as Scots/Irish as it was possible to get, and Tanner was most likely English in origin.
She was
so
confused. She would not call Adam. He was the reason she’d gotten fired. But—
Why had he done this?
This was way too elaborate for an apology. This was rooted in something else. But what?
Nikki grabbed her cell phone and dialed half his number before snapping the phone closed. Then she dropped it into her pocket and went back to portioning out the muffin batter.
She refused to make contact with him. And if he so much as polluted the screen of her phone with his number, she’d bake it along with the muffins.
21
ADAM STOOD IN THE MEN’S room and splashed cold water on his face repeatedly before drying off with a paper towel, replacing his glasses and steeling himself for the hour ahead. He and Dev had an appointment to see Dean Trammel. Goal: the reinstatement of Nikki’s job.
He straightened his collar and lapels in the mirror and practiced his most winning sixteen-tooth smile, which would do absolutely no good if Dev didn’t give the performance of his life and flash his
eighteen-
tooth smile, in which the corners of his mouth almost nudged his ears.
Adam had made Dev rehearse his role of graphic designer over and over, and one of Hal Underwood’s employees had provided him with an entire portfolio of his work, plus the fake originals of a different girl’s head on Nikki’s body and a different guy’s head on Adam’s.
Dev, who stood at the urinals behind him, finished his whiz biz and zipped up. Then he came to wash his hands.
“You ready to rock, Mr. Photoshop?” Adam asked him.
Dev cracked his neck and eyed his preppy new look in the mirror with disgust. “Yeah. I want to get this over with before my balls turn tartan and my ’Vette morphs into a Volvo.”
Adam rolled his eyes. “Remember, the tall bony crone is Margaret, and she’s in charge of the Perez scholarship stuff. Work your magic on her. Tell her you hear she makes the best cheesecake in the country—lie and say I gave you a piece. Make her feel like Miss America.”
“Done. Women love me—you know that.”
“One of life’s great unsolved mysteries,” Adam muttered. “Come on. We need to get in there.”
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly as they left the men’s room and marched down the hallway to the dean’s office.
Inside, Margaret sat at the reception desk in Nikki’s absence, looking none too happy about it.
“Hi,” Adam said cautiously.
“You,” she said, dismissing him with a flicker of her eyes.
“Er, yes. It’s me, Adam Burke. And this is my friend Devon McKee. We have a two-o’clock appointment with the dean.”
Dev shot her the eighteen-tooth grin that he’d perfected on so many women over the years. “Are you the culinary genius who makes that legendary cheesecake?”
“Don’t try to butter me up,” she snapped.
“Oh, no, ma’am. I’m serious as a heart attack. I dream about that cake.” Dev’s voice had dropped half an octave, into his signature nightclub croon. “Adam gave me a piece.”
Margaret looked up and scanned Dev from head to toe while he made eyes at her, too. Dev had an enviable trick of seeming to stroke a woman with his gaze, lingering just a flattering touch too long on her best features, and then coming to rest at her eyes again, where he deepened his smile suggestively and quirked his lips.
It was masterful, if nauseating to watch.
“Mmm,” Dev said, leaving it open to interpretation whether he meant Margaret or the cake.
Too much, Adam thought, but before his eyes Maggie actually fluttered her sparse eyelashes.
Dev leaned forward, not enough to be completely obvious, but enough to suggest conspiracy. “I don’t suppose you’d share the recipe, would you?”
Margaret’s color heightened; her cheeks flushed a delicate rose. “It’s a family thing. We keep it close to the vest.”
Dev gazed into her raisinlike eyes for a beat too long before he averted them. “Lucky vest,” he murmured.
Adam swallowed a snort.
No, he did
not
just say that.
Margaret’s mouth opened slightly and she put her hands up to her cheeks. Then she shook a finger at him.
Dev leaned in a couple more inches. “You sure I can’t talk you out of it, hmm? It was the sweetest thing…all creamy and delicious.” His grin had widened until Adam could swear that twenty teeth were showing. All very white and professionally sincere.
“You,” she said, shaking her head but dimpling.
It was the polar opposite of the
you
she’d addressed to Adam when they came in.
“You’re a naughty boy,” Margaret said.
Adam prayed she wouldn’t offer to spank Dev right there and then.
“No, ma’am,” Dev said. “I’m good. Good through and through.” He winked a bordello-blue eye. “Just like your tasty cake.”
Under Adam’s disbelieving eyes, Margaret giggled.
And just as he thought he’d hurl on his shoes, the door to the dean’s office opened; the man emerged.
“Sir,” Margaret said, “these two young men are here to see you.”
Adam smiled and stuck out his hand. “Yes, sir, we are.” He introduced himself and then Dev, and they followed Dean Trammel into his office, where he told them to take a seat.
“How can I help you two?” the dean asked.
“Well, sir, we’re here to clear up a misunderstanding,” Adam said. “Two days ago, as you may remember, some racy pictures were tacked to the bulletin board in the hall.”
Dean Trammel’s eyes flashed with sudden recognition. “You were the boy in the pictures,” he said, frowning.
“Well, sir, it did look that way.”
Trammel raised his eyebrows. “You’re going to tell me that you have an evil twin? Come on, Mr. Burke. Pictures don’t lie.”
“Excuse me, sir,” Dev said smoothly, “but there are times when they do.”
Trammel crossed his arms across his chest and leaned back, his body language stating clearly,
Oh, I can’t wait to hear this one.
“You may have heard of Photoshop, sir?”
The dean nodded curtly.
“As a graphic designer I use it every day. And as an old fraternity brother of Adam’s, here, I used it to play a tasteless joke on him.”
“Go on.”
“Adam, see, is all work and no play. He studies constantly, sir, and any muscles he has are purely from hefting those fifty-pound medical texts of his.”
Adam cut his eyes at Dev.
Don’t lay it on too thick.
“Well, anyway, a very good friend of ours got married last weekend, and Burke, here, refused even to go to the bachelor party because he had too much studying to do. We weren’t happy about that. So early this week, we decided to punk him.”
“Punk?”
“Er, play a prank on him. And see, I knew that he had this instant crush on a girl who worked here in your office. So, sir, I got a couple of shots of her while she was walking on campus, and I used Photoshop to put her head onto the body of the stripper from the bachelor party. Then I did the same thing with Adam’s head and the, um, bachelor’s body.”
“That’s possible?”
“Yes. I can show you the original photos if you’d like.” Dev patted the zipped black portfolio he’d brought with him.