Number One: Never look twice at a good-looking man who has a woman of unspecified importance standing next to him.
Rule Number Two: Never look twice at a good-looking man, period.
Maggie finished making the coffee and then turned around with the three coffees wedged inside a cardboard carrying tray. She was aware that his eyes were on her and felt an electric sizzle zinging beneath her skin. But he practically oozed the kind of alpha maleness that set her teeth on edge. And he clearly had money.
Men with good looks and money? You’d have to be certifiable to date someone like that.
“That’s quite a cake,” he said, surprising her.
He had a deep voice, like Sambuca mixed with cream and then set on fire.
Maggie made the mistake of gazing directly into his eyes and felt the hair rise on her arms. His eyes were glacier blue and surrounded by dark bristly lashes. A woman could lose her religion drowning in those things. “I beg your pardon?”
He nodded toward the kitchen, where the cake sat like a parade float. Coralee stood next to it, staring at him.
Maggie didn’t like what was happening to her. It seemed as though his intense gaze could see through her somehow, past the bossy efficiency, the big mouth, and her tendency to keep all men at a distance. For a second, the world fell away and it was just the two of them. She felt his lazy, dangerous maleness like she felt her own heartbeat. Then she blinked and the moment was gone.
“It’s for the wedding,” Maggie said stiffly. “My sister’s wedding.”
“You’re Cassidy’s sister? I wouldn’t have guessed that.”
What, did he think a woman like her, a woman who worked in a bakery, couldn’t possibly be related to a beautiful girl like Cassidy?
He must have seen that the remark made her prickly, but instead of apologizing, he smiled. “You look nothing alike.”
Coolly, she rang up three coffees on the vintage cash register. The total popped up on both sides of the display window. As a tall curvy brunette, she knew she looked nothing like her petite blond sisters. So what? No need to make it sound as though she were adopted. And what did she care what his opinion was in the first place?
“Five sixty-seven,” Maggie said, forcing herself to be pleasant. “Will that be cash?”
Power Tie handed her a twenty. She made change and then passed the tray of coffees over the counter, meaning to give it to him. Instead, the man in the tux took them from her. Briefly, their hands touched and she suppressed a shiver.
She stole a guilty glance at the woman standing near the door, but the woman’s beautiful face seemed as though it were a gate through which nothing passed.
“You ready, Jake?” Power Tie said. “There are some people I’d like you to meet. Commercial property investors out of San Antonio. They might be able to answer some questions for us.”
Jake, was it? Maggie watched him collect his date and open the door. He looked even more impossibly sexy in the pale April sunshine, which brought out the blond streaks in his hair and cast shadows beneath those Calvin Klein-model cheekbones.
The guy had cheater written all over him.
“Wow,” Coralee said. “I didn’t know men who looked like that actually existed in the world.”
Maggie turned away from the window and then marched back to the kitchen. “You can take it from me. The world would be a whole lot better if they didn’t.”
CHAPTER TWO
Maggie cleaned at warp speed after Donny and his brother hauled the seventy-five pound wedding cake out to their van. All that pointless mooning had shaved precious minutes off her schedule. While Coralee finished loading the big industrial dishwasher, Maggie rushed upstairs. The great thing about living in an apartment above your own bakery was the commute—which in her case was no more than twenty seconds.
Gus sprang up from a nap on her bed, which was strictly off limits, but Gus liked to pretend he didn’t know that. She heard his nails scrabbling on the hardwood floor in her bedroom. Then he came charging around the corner, tongue lolling, eyes bulging ecstatically. By prancing adorably around her legs, Gus tried to charm her into not scolding him, and it always worked. Maggie knelt down to pet his soft ears.
“Your breath is terrible,” she said as he gusted it all over her. “We’re switching you back to mint Milk Bones.”
Back end still wriggling, Gus preceded her into the bedroom. There would be a telltale warm spot on the bed, of course, but no time to fuss at him now. She shed her clothes and then cranked on the shower. As steam filled the bathroom, she watched her reflection fog over in the full-length mirror. When was the last time she actually looked at herself or paid the slightest attention to her body? Unbidden came the thought of what Jake would see if he were standing here. She imagined him gazing at her full breasts and small waist, her low-slung hips and strong thighs. A shiver rolled over her.
Oh, yes. More mooning. With a sound of disgust, Maggie got into the shower. She loofahed away all thoughts of Jake by scrubbing till her skin turned pink. Then she washed her hair using peppermint shampoo that promised extra shine.
By the time she dried her hair, grabbed her dress and clattered down the stairs, it was already half past one. Damn. Maybe weddings naturally put all kinds of stupid ideas into your head about…mating. Who knew better than she did that even if two people loved each other, that didn’t guarantee things would work out. Love was for fools and teenagers. At twenty-eight, she was far from being either one.
“Just lock up when you’re done,” she called to Coralee on her way out. Maggie ran outside to her truck, wondering how long it would take in this traffic to get to Cassidy and Mason’s ranch.
For the first time in the history of Cuervo, population three thousand, every parking space on Main Street was full. She stood blinking, trying to take it in. Men toting video equipment, microphones and camera lights wandered the streets, but there were regular folks, too, ones she’d never seen before, some standing around, others pushing baby carriages or strollers, clearly here to sightsee.
“My God,” she said out loud.
Network news vans idled in gridlock traffic. Across the street she could see other shop owners with their faces pressed against the windows, clearly just as alarmed as she was.
Maggie threw her shoes and purse in the front seat of her red 1953 Chevy pickup. In her rearview mirror, she saw Mr. Owen pointing straight at her while talking to someone who looked suspiciously like a TV reporter.
Even as Maggie started backing the truck out, the reporter and her cameraman were hurrying over. Maggie gave the engine more gas, narrowly avoiding a guy on a bike, and pretended not to see the reporter trying frantically to wave her down.
Maggie had managed to dodge the press so far. She sure wasn’t going to give up now. She saw an opening behind her and floored it. Score one for the local girl.
A minute later, her phone rang. She swiped to answer the call.
“For heaven’s sake, Maggie, where are you?”
Maggie could always tell when her mother was agitated because Priscilla’s drawl got more twang in it than a steel guitar.
“Don’t worry, Mom. I’m on the way. Listen, did you check to see if the cake arrived in one piece?”
“The caterers pushed it into the hallway and we had to save it. Look, I don’t trust that wedding planner. I’m pretty sure she drinks.”
To Priscilla, anyone who accepted an offer of a second beer “drank.” Maggie floored it to the next stoplight. “Mom, we’ve been over this. The wedding planner isn’t drunk. She’s just French.”
“Well, I don’t care what she is! I told Cassidy once if I told her a million times—”