Bringing Home a Bachelor. Karen Kendall

Kendra’s legs looked like chopsticks, if you asked him, and her arms were toothpicks. She looked downright brittle; as if she’d break in half if she so much as stubbed a toe. Mark was lucky that she hadn’t punctured his kidneys in the night, with one of her elbows.

      Put them side by side, Kendra and Melinda, and Pete’d take Mel any day of the week. She had beautiful skin, bright eyes, shiny dark hair that was always escaping the clip she wore to hold it back. And oh yeah, there were those abundant curves of hers.

      Pete personally had never been a fan of the South Beach Swizzle Sticks that Mark had collected in college. And they tended to be low-energy and moody, since they were malnourished.

      “Well, anyway. The family’s been a little worried about Mel lately. Something happened with a big account at the bakery last week—she won’t talk about it—and she’s been holed up in her shell, doing nothing but work. So if you’d just—I don’t know—get her out on the dance floor for a few numbers … well, I’d really appreciate it.”

      “No problem,” Pete said again. “Mel is a very cool girl and I’d be delighted.”

      “You don’t have a date to the wedding either, right, bud?” Pete gritted his teeth. “No, Mark, I don’t.”

      “That’s what Mom and Kendra said—that you were coming stag.”

      Thanks, Mom and Kendra. Appreciate it. No need to rehash why he was coming alone—that he’d been unceremoniously dumped by his wine-distributor girlfriend a month before. For the hotel manager of an entire cruise line.

      Yes, Maribel mixed business and pleasure very well indeed, and he’d just been too stupid to realize that she’d move on when she found a guy a few pay grades and career notches above him.

      “So that’s perfect, then,” continued Mark.

      “Yep. Perfect.” Pete was nothing if not agreeable. It was part of his job, part of his personality. It sucked sometimes, being a Certified People Pleaser, but placating various warring family members had set him on that course long ago.

      So when Pete felt like telling people to take a flying leap, he generally stuffed his emotions and smiled instead. He offered to give them a courtesy discount, no matter how discourteous they’d been to him. He jollied them into a better mood. He sent them complimentary champagne and fruit baskets.

      Pete hotly denied, though, that he was a member of the subspecies Doormaticus. Nor was he a butt-kisser or a toady. He was simply a customer-relations expert. He kept the peace, and there was nothing wrong with that, was there?

      Pete handled situations with his trademark easy smile, a professional grade eye-twinkle and a voice carefully modulated to Soothe/Empathize on his Internal Customer Service Dial.

      Everybody loved Pete … with the evident exception of his ex, Maribel.

      Mark had called her a witch. Their fraternity brother Adam, a medical student, had said Pete was well-rid of her. And Dev, another fraternity brother, had offered to love-her-and-leave-her in a one-night-stand of revenge on his friend’s behalf.

      Pete had politely declined this generous offer of male solidarity and explained to Dev that even he, as a former rock ‘n’ roll stud who still owned leather pants, couldn’t compete with the hotel manager of a cruise line—at least not in terms of business opportunities for Maribel.

      “I don’t hold anything against her,” Pete told him. “It’s just her nature.”

      Dev had coughed. “I don’t hold anything against scorpions, either, dude—but I still step on ‘em.”

      Pete couldn’t help a snort of amusement at that, but he quickly banished it in favor of feeling magnanimous towards Maribel, and therefore superior. That really helped with the whole lovelorn depression thing.

      “So,” Mark boomed, “I’ll see you guys Thursday night, then!”

      “Yes, you will … though you probably won’t see us in focus for very long, my man. After a few shots, you’ll be seeing two of everyone.”

      “I’m not sure I can handle seeing two of Dev,” Mark said, sounding a little alarmed.

      Pete laughed.

      “And don’t hurt me too bad, or Kendra will be pissed.”

      “Why don’t we manage that possibility from the get-go,” Pete suggested. “Do not make any lunch plans with your bride for the next day.”

      THE MORNING WAS NOT receding, no matter how much Melinda Edgeworth wished it to. In fact, the Miami sun was rising into the sky as cheerfully as it always did; defying her and shining down upon her lazy, moping self.

      She wanted it to immolate her like a vampire so that she wouldn’t have to face her bakery and work. Tomorrow she had to deliver three hundred fresh chocolate croissants and three hundred vanilla raspberry scones to a medical convention, which meant that she and Scottie, her assistant, had to make them today.

      That, in addition to a groom’s cake, an elaborate baby-shower cake, and a large order of petits fours for high tea at a ladies’ club.

      Noooooo! Melinda closed her eyes again and groaned. She felt the small, warm body against hers stir. Mami, her little Schipperke mix, got to her tiny, fuzzy feet and yawned, sending a wave of hot dog-breath up Mel’s protesting nostrils.

      Melinda opened one eye. “You have the breath of a camel, sweetheart.”

      Mami yipped, climbed onto Mel’s chest and licked her face with gusto.

      “That wasn’t an invitation to make me smell like a camel, too.” But Mami was irresistible, and knew it. Mel scooped her up, kissed her head, and tucked her under her chin.

      Mami tolerated this treatment for a couple of minutes, but then wriggled free, yipping for her breakfast.

      “Not open for business yet,” Mel grumbled. She rolled onto her stomach and stuffed her head under her pillow. At least she had her brother’s four-tiered wedding cake done. But there was so much else to tackle.

      Get out of bed this instant and don’t be a whiner, said her Inner Drill Sergeant. You’re lucky you get to play with ganache and fondant and don’t have to work in a coal mine.

      God, she hated her Inner Drill Sergeant. Why couldn’t he strangle to death in a loop of her small intestine? Or fall into a pit of digestive acid?

      Twenty minutes later, Mami had her heart’s desire out of a can, while Melinda sat at her breakfast table, deeply committed to smothering her Inner Drill Sergeant in pancakes, butter, syrup and bacon. Lots of bacon, crispy, the way she liked it.

      She pictured the Sergeant being pelted by the mouthfuls of food as she swallowed them. “That’ll teach you to nag me about work ethic and calories and exercise,” she muttered.

      But it didn’t shut him up, of course.

      No, he just asked her nastily whether she was finished yet, or whether she wanted to add another thousand calories to her breakfast—a third of a pound. He told her she was a disgrace. He told her that she was fat …

      Just like Franco Gutierrez had, last week, when she’d smacked him for snaking a hand down her pants and fondling her bare butt. She’d chased him out of her shop with a rolling pin, instead of compromising her ethics in order to keep his very large Java Joe’s account.

      Gorda! He’d spat at her. Cow! This was followed by something filthy in Spanish. The implication was that she’d be lucky if he deigned to ‘do’ her. Who was she to turn him down?

      But she had, and it was going to seriously hurt her in financial terms. Java Joe’s, a big café chain, supplied almost twenty-five percent of her income. How was she going to replace it? She couldn’t go to her aunt Kylie at Sol Trust again. Kylie had made her the initial bank loan for the startup after Mel had graduated from culinary school and hung out her shingle as a pastry chef,