Red Velvet Revenge (15 page)

“Was it just me or was it really crowded back there?” she asked.

“It wasn’t you,” Angie said. She was panting, too, and her long brown hair hung limply around her face. She reached up and twisted it into a knot at the back of her head.

“Come on.” Tate led the way along the side of the road. “You’ll feel better after a shower.”

Mel felt as if the town of Juniper Pass was miles away instead of just up ahead. By the time they got to the Last Chance, she was ready to collapse.

She must have looked worse than she thought because when they entered the saloon, Marty, who was seated at the bar with Delia, hopped off of his seat and crossed the room in three strides.

“What happened to you?” he demanded. “Why are you covered in blood?”

“Not here, Marty,” Tate said.

The eyes of the room turned toward them, and Tate was trying to get Mel out of there without having to explain about Ty in front of a crowd of people.

Marty looked ready to argue, but Angie gave him the “wait” hand gesture, which, coming from Angie, made it nonnegotiable.

Mel was just pushing through the small side door into the hotel lobby when the front door to the saloon slammed open, banging against the wall.

“Bull!” a man yelled, looking frantic. “A bull is loose on the town green!”

Sixteen

The customers in the bar ran to the doors. Mel and Angie exchanged a look. They had no doubt that it was “the bull.”

“C’mon!” Henry the bartender shouted at them. “This is an emergency.”

“What are we supposed to do?” Tate asked.

“Use that lasso you’re so fond of,” Angie said.

Mel frowned at her. The last thing they needed was for Tate to be dragged through town by a bull on a rampage.

“We need to get him back to the rodeo before he does himself or anyone else an injury,” Henry said. “Delia, you stay here and mind the bar for me.”

Delia bobbed her red head, and Mel could tell that had been her plan all along.

“I don’t want you two going out there,” Tate said.

Angie looked like she was going to kick him, but Mel was thinking he was talking good sense. She’d had more than enough drama for one day, and what the heck was she supposed to do with a loose bull anyway?

“There he is!” a shout sounded from outside.

Mel and the others crowded into the large picture window to see. It was dark outside, but the town’s old-fashioned streetlamps illuminated the town green, and it wasn’t hard to spot the boulder-shouldered, long-horned beast that was trotting around the green, lowering his head, and chomping at the petunias.

Several men, who looked as if they knew ranch work and how to deal with a burly behemoth on the move, were circling the green as if trying to get near him. A pickup truck with a horse trailer attached had been backed up to the green.

Mel assumed that the plan was to get the bull into the trailer. Given that this sort of event had not been covered at Le Cordon Bleu, she was more than happy to watch from the safety of the bar.

“Come on, Marty,” Tate said.

Marty cast a quick glance at Delia, who was pressed to the window, then looked at Tate with a wide-eyed “you are crazy” stare.

“Your hat is too tight,” he hissed at Tate.

“It’s our duty as men,” Tate said. “We have to help.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Angie said. “You don’t know a hoof from a horn from a hook. You’ll get trampled to death out there.”

“Oh, is that so?” Tate asked. Without another word, he pushed through the swinging doors out onto the sidewalk.

“Nice going,” Marty snapped at Angie, and with a sigh, he followed Tate.

“Tate! Marty!” Mel hollered. “Come back!”

They ignored her.

“Oh, dear,” Delia muttered from beside them.

Mel turned to glower at Angie.

“What?” Angie asked.

“Nothing had better happen to them,” she said. “Instead of taking your foul mood out on Tate, maybe you should do some soul searching and knock it off!”

“Well, that’s just—” Angie began but Delia cut her off with a gasp.

Mel and Angie turned to look at her and saw that her eyes were huge as she pointed out the window.

“Isn’t that the young man who works for you? What’s his name? Oscar?”

“Oz?” Mel peered back out the window. “What’s he doing out there?”

“Looks like he’s got a box of something,” Delia said.

As he passed under a streetlamp, oblivious to the chaos around him, Mel could see that he did have a big Tupperware tub in his arms.

One of the men on the town green shouted and waved at Oz, but he had his iPod earbuds in and was bobbing his head to whatever punk band he was listening to, so he didn’t hear the shouts, and before anyone could get to him, the bull spotted him and lowered his head.

“Sweet petunias,” Delia muttered. “That bull is going to charge.”

As one, Mel and Angie fell back from the window and burst through the doors.

“What do we do?” Angie cried.

“I don’t know, but I am not returning Oz to his parents in a bucket.”

Together Mel and Angie dashed across the deserted street, but before they could jump onto the curb, a strong hand grabbed each of their elbows and dragged them behind a parked car and held them.

“Don’t move!” Jake Morgan hissed as they tried to jerk out of his grasp. “You’ll get that boy killed if you spook the bull.”

Mel and Angie watched helplessly as Oz continued down the sidewalk and the bull lumbered forward. Mel saw Tate hop over a park bench and angle himself so he could jump in front of the bull if need be.

“Oh, no, Tate, no,” Angie whispered.

The bull stepped onto the sidewalk, and Oz stumbled to a halt. Mel couldn’t see his eyes through the bangs that covered them, but she was betting they were wide-open now.

The bull snorted and pawed the ground. Oz slowly reached up and pulled out his earbuds.

Mel could hear Tate talking to Oz. She saw Oz shuffle toward the bench, but the bull shook its mighty crest, the top part of its shoulders, and Oz froze. Slowly, ever so slowly, she saw Oz move his hand toward the top of the Tupperware.

Carefully, he slipped his hand inside the tub. He held something in his fist, and as she watched, he lobbed it underhand right at the bull.

“Did he just…?” Jake’s voice trailed off, and his grip on their elbows loosened as he stared at the scene before him.

“Throw a cupcake at it,” Angie said. “Yeah, he did.”

They all held their breath as the bull snorted over the cupcake on the sidewalk. As they watched, the bull’s large pink tongue came out, and he rolled the cupcake into his mouth like a cowboy packing chewing tobacco in his cheek.

While the bull worked on the cupcake, Tate called out to Oz to get behind the bench. Oz shook his head. Instead, he walked toward the bull.

“Oz, don’t do it!” Tate ordered. “He’s not a stray dog. He’ll squash you like a bug!”

Oz took two more steps toward the bull. The bull eyeballed him, and Mel felt her breath stop somewhere in her windpipe. She was frozen with fear and could neither inhale nor exhale.

Then the bull gave a hoarse cry and stomped toward Oz, making him jump. Oz fished out another cupcake and tossed it at the bull. The bull snorted it up and looked up for more, but Oz was already running across the green.

“Run, Oz!” Mel yelled.

Several cowboys, including Tate and Jake, sprinted forward to help him, but the bull was gaining on him. Mel knew that if Oz tripped, he was a goner.

“Head toward the trailer!” Jake yelled.

Clutching the Tupperware to his chest, Oz veered across the grass, throwing cupcakes over his shoulders like they were hand grenades. The bull stayed in pursuit, but Oz had a good lead as the bull slowed down to snuffle up the cupcakes left in Oz’s wake.

The bull was going full tilt after him right up until it spotted the trailer. Then the two thousand plus pounds of bull balked and threw itself into reverse.

Mel and Angie circled the back of the parked car and started to run. As they neared the trailer, Mel saw Tate grab a rope off of the gate and send it up in the air in a wide, looping circle that came down neatly over the bull’s horns.

“Holy cow!” Angie cried. “Did you see that?”

Four other men, including Jake and Marty, jumped in, and together, with Tate controlling the horns with the lasso, the men chased the bull up into the trailer with a little help from Oz, who threw several more cupcakes into the back of the trailer.

Jake slammed the gate of the trailer shut and shot the bolt home. The men broke out into cheers. Oz and Tate were soundly smacked on the back, and they both looked sheepishly proud of themselves.

Angie ran across the grass and catapulted herself at Tate, who grabbed her close, much to the delight of the crowd that had gathered. Mel followed, feeling her knees knock against each other as she thought of what could have happened, especially to Oz, and the fact that she would have had to explain it to his parents.

She snatched Tate’s hat off of his head, as it was the handiest weapon available, and began to swat him with it.

“Have you lost your mind?” she yelled.

“Hey!” Tate dropped Angie and spun on Mel. “Not the hat!”

Mel threw it at him and then turned on Oz. “And you! Do you have any idea what could have happened to you?”

Oz looked at the trailer where the bull was banging around in protest and then at Mel. He gulped.

“Yeah, I have a pretty good idea,” he said. He visibly paled beneath his shaggy bangs, so Mel took pity on him
and forced herself not to belabor the point, much as she would have liked to.

Instead she hugged him close and said, “Do not ever scare me like that again!”

“So, Oz, where did you get the cupcakes?” Angie asked.

She smoothed down the front of her shirt as if she were trying to appear casual. Mel glanced from her to Tate, who was watching Angie with an intensity Mel usually saw only on her true cupcake-connoisseur customers when they were trying to make a flavor decision.

“I made them,” Oz said.

“Really?” Angie asked. “Where?”

“At the diner,” Oz said. “Ms. Ruth let me use the kitchen.”

“So you felt the need to bake more cupcakes because the ten thousand we brought weren’t enough?” Mel asked.

Oz let out a sigh, and then he said, “This wasn’t how I was going to tell you, but these are vegan.”

Tate was the first to grasp the meaning, and he laughed and said, “So that explains why the bull liked them so much. They probably taste like grass.”

“Soy, actually,” Oz said.

Mel glanced into the Tupperware. “I’ve been thinking we need to offer a vegan alternative. Let’s have it, then.”

She held out her hand and waited for Oz to fish out a cupcake for her.

“They were prettier before I had to flee for my life,” he said.

He handed Mel and Angie each a vanilla one and Tate a chocolate. The frosting was lopsided and mashed, but Mel could tell it had been lovely before the running of the bull.

Mel peeled off the paper wrapper and took a bite, making
sure to get an equal amount of frosting and cake, since she considered the frosting-to-cupcake ratio critical, especially when trying a new cupcake.

She savored the first bite and then took a second. The cake was dense and moist with a definite hint of soy milk, but it didn’t overpower. The frosting was as smooth as silk, and she marveled at its texture.

As if reading her thoughts, Oz said, “Organic margarine, organic powdered sugar, and vanilla bean paste.”

Mel swiped some up on her index finger and tasted it without the accompaniment of the cake. It was delicious.

“I’m impressed,” she said, and finished off the cupcake.

“I was thinking I’d like to offer organic cupcakes in the bakery,” Oz said.

Mel could tell he was watching her through his bangs, as if afraid she was going to shoot him down.

“Well, I don’t know,” Mel said. “I really can’t make an informed decision until I’ve tried your chocolate version.”

Oz hurriedly reached into the box and grabbed a chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting. His eagerness almost made Mel feel bad for teasing him, but then she bit into the chocolate and forgot that she’d been kidding.

Again, the cake was dense and moist, and the chocolate flavor was dominant. The frosting was luscious. She gave Oz a surprised glance, and he smiled.

“Unsweetened cocoa, agave nectar, and organic margarine,” he said.

“It’s a deal,” Mel said. “You are hereby our organic cupcake chef.”

Tate and Angie both nodded in agreement. “These are amazing.”

“I need to try the vanilla,” Tate said.

“I’m out,” Oz said. “I used most of those on the bull.”

Tate looked crestfallen.

“Oh, here,” Angie said. She offered him the last half of her vanilla.

Instead of taking it from her hand, Tate leaned close and opened his mouth. Angie flushed bright pink and carefully fed him the cupcake from her fingers.

Mel watched as they gazed at each other with such naked longing that she had to turn away because she felt as if she were intruding.

She grabbed Oz by the elbow and spun him around, too. How offering a person a cupcake could be R-rated, she had no idea, but she really felt that Oz was too young to witness such an intimate moment.