what did she say? She’d been awful to him and he was complimenting the cake she’d worked so hard on. It made her feel even worse. “I’m trying to figure out how to apologize, but sorry seems like too small a word.”
“Don’t even worry about it.”
“Thanks,” she said shyly.
Brice Donovan’s smile made her even more muddled. Before he’d walked into the ballroom she’d been so happy, thinking how pleased Chloe was going to be. But now? Her heart twisted with agony. Her face was so hot and red from embarrassment, she could feel her skin glow. What she could see of her nose was as bright as a strawberry.
This was no way for a professional baker to behave. Feeling two inches tall, she looked up to Brice’s kind eyes. He wasn’t laughing at her. No. That was one saving grace, right?
“I am sorry. Really. Tell Chloe best wishes. This cake is my gift to her.”
“But she hired you to bake it.”
“So she thinks. I’ve got to go, I have another project to work on, but this, the groom’s cake and the favors, it’s all from me to her. She was a good friend to me when I really needed one.” Her chest felt so tight, she felt ready to burst. Embarrassment had turned into a horrible, sharp pain right behind her sternum.
Doom. She’d just made a mess of this. Would there ever be one time—just once—when she didn’t make a mess of something? There was no way to fix this, and the cake was finished. There was nothing else to do but grab her case and her baseball cap.
Somehow she managed to speak without strangling on her embarrassment. “Goodbye, Mr. Donovan. And I am s-sorry again.”
“Wait, don’t go yet, I—”
“I have to.” She was already walking away. She had work waiting and she couldn’t face him a second longer. She’d humiliated herself enough for one day and it was only 9:15 a.m. She hadn’t even had breakfast yet. Way to go, Ava.
She wasn’t aware of crossing the room, only that she was suddenly at the kitchen. But she was aware of him. Of his presence behind her in the spill of light through the expansive windows. She didn’t have to look at him as she pushed through the kitchen door to know that he was watching her. She could feel the tangible weight of his touch between her shoulder blades. What was he thinking?
Lord, I don’t want to know. She kept going. She hit the back service doors and didn’t slow until she felt the soothing morning sun on her face.
She skidded to a stop in the gravel and breathed in the fresh morning air. The scents of warm earth and freshly mowed grass calmed her a little. She breathed hard, getting out all the negative feelings. There were a lot of them. And trying not to hear her mother’s voice saying, You wreck everything you touch. Can’t you stop making a mess for two seconds?
She’d been seven, and she could still hear the shrill impatience. She still felt like that little girl who just didn’t know how things went wrong no matter how hard she tried.
You’re just a big dope, Ava, she told herself. What kind of grown adult had the problems she had? Wasn’t she going to turn over a new leaf? Start out right this time? Stop making so many dumb mistakes?
Well, no more. She wasn’t going to think about the way she’d embarrassed herself back there. She’d been hoping that by doing a good job with Chloe’s cake, she’d get some word-of-mouth interest and her business would naturally pick up.
But after this, what were the chances that anyone was going to remember what the cake looked like?
None. All Brice Donovan was going to do was to talk about the dingbat cake lady who mistook him—the city of Bozeman’s golden boy—for a philandering groom.
Her SUV blurred into one bright yellow blob. She blinked hard until her eyes cleared and reached into her pocket for her keys.
The only thing she could do was go on from here. Simply write off this morning as a lesson learned. What else could she do? She reached into her other pocket, but it was empty. No, it couldn’t be. Her heart jack hammered. Where were her keys?
She did another search of her pockets. Jeans front pockets. No key. Back pockets. No key. Those were the only pockets she had. Panic began to stutter in her chest. Where were her keys?
There. Sitting right in plain view on the rear passenger seat. Inside the locked vehicle. Right next to her cell phone and her sunglasses.
Super-duper. What did she do now?
“Looks like you need help,” said a rumbling baritone from behind her. A baritone she recognized. Brice Donovan.
Could the morning get any worse? How was she going to save her dignity now—or what was left of it? “H-help? Oh, no, I’m fine.”
“Fine, huh? Aren’t those your car keys inside the car?”
“I believe so.”
“I don’t know too many people who can actually lock their keys in the car with a remote. Don’t you need the remote to lock the door?”
“Yes.” She plopped her baseball cap on her head and pulled the bill low, trying to hide what she could of her face. Her nose was bright red again.
Brice studied her for a moment before realization dawned. Oh, he knew why she was acting this way, shuffling away from him, head down, avoiding his gaze. She was embarrassed. Well, she didn’t need to be. “Hey, it’s no big deal. This kind of thing happens, right?”
The tension eased from her tight jaw and rigid shoulders. She shrugged helplessly. “I’ve only had this car for a few months and I haven’t figured out all the settings yet. It’s too technologically advanced for me.”
“I doubt that.” Tender feelings came to life and he couldn’t seem to stop them. Maybe her keys getting locked inside the car was providential. Just like the fact that he was here to help at just the right moment. “I have a knack for this kind of thing.”
“Thanks, but please don’t bother.”
She still wouldn’t look at him. Instead, she stared hard at the toes of her sunshine-yellow sneakers. Yellow, just like her SUV. There was nothing mundane about Ava McKaslin.
He liked that. Very much.
She surprised him by sidestepping away, heading back to the service doors.
“Hey, where are you going?”
“To find a phone.”
“To call…?”
“My sister to come with the extra set of keys.”
Wow. She really didn’t want his help. Getting a woman to like him used to be easier than this, although he had been out of the dating circuit for a long time. After all, he’d dated Whitney two years before he’d proposed to her, which had turned out to be a much longer engagement period than either of them had expected. That put him nearly four, no, almost five years out of practice.
But still, he just didn’t remember it being so difficult. “Your sister doesn’t need to go to the trouble of driving out here. I’ll break in for you.”
She paused midstride.
He could sense her indecision, so he tried again. “Let me help. It’ll take a minute and then you can be on your way.”
“But I was so rude to you.”
“So? If you’re worried about retaliation, forget it. I’m a turn-the-other-cheek kind of guy. And I won’t leave a scratch on your new car. Promise.”
“And just why does a man like you know how to break into a car without leaving any evidence?”
“Chloe used to lock herself out of her car, too. I need a coat hanger. I’ll be right back.” He shouldered past her, pausing at the base of the concrete