Susan Mallery - Sweet Talk

“She likes you,” he said, sounding unhappy with the fact. “Would you be willing to watch her? It won’t be for long. A week or so. I’ll pay you.”

Claire blinked. Amy liked her? A happy warmth filled her body. “Really? She said she would like me to be her sitter?”

“Go figure,” he grumbled.

Amy liked her! Claire wanted to do a little happy dance right there on the landing. Finally, someone around here enjoyed her company.

“I like her, too,” she told Wyatt. “Of course I’ll look after her. I’d be delighted. Just tell me when and where and I’ll be there. You don’t have to pay me. I’m happy to help.”

“Don’t make this more than it is.”

“I won’t.”

“You’re grinning. It’s weird.”

“I’m excited. It’ll give me a chance to learn sign language.”

“There’s nothing to be excited about. She’s a kid. You watch her. End of story.”

Maybe for him, but this was the first positive thing to happen to her since she’d moved to Seattle.

“Starting tomorrow?” she asked.

He sighed heavily. “I’m going to regret this, aren’t I?”

She held her happy dance inside. “Not even for a minute. Thank you, Wyatt.”

He grumbled something and left. Claire twirled to her room, went inside and fell on the bed.

This was a sign, she told herself. Things were turning around. Everything was going to work out great.

CLAIRE WALKED into the bakery at four-thirty the next morning. Sid saw her and started shaking his head.

“No.”

She ignored that. “I’m here to work.”

“We can’t afford your help.”

“I did fine yesterday.”

“You had a breakdown.”

Claire didn’t want to think about that. “I had a panic attack and I handled it. I helped out when you were in trouble. You owe me.”

“That’s crap.”

She put her hands on her hips. “It’s true and you know it. Plus, I’m Nicole’s sister. This is a family bakery. I’m family. Put me to work.”

He glared at her. “Why do you want to be here?”

She thought of the line from An Officer and A Gentleman. Richard Gere’s impassioned cry that he had nowhere else to go. “It’s important. I’m offering you free labor. Why is that a problem?”

“Because two days ago, you ruined a batch of French bread. You’re a pain in the ass.”

She winced. “The salt thing wasn’t totally my fault.”

Sid glared at her.

She held up her hands. “Not that I won’t accept my responsibility in the situation. Look, I’m just asking to help out. There must be something I can do.”

Despite the loud noise from the mixers and the hum of the ovens, she would swear she could hear his snort of impatience. Still, he didn’t dismiss her again. Instead he yelled, “Phil, the princess is back.”

Phil, a tall, thin man, stuck his head out from behind a stack of racks. “Tell her to stay away from me.”

“I was thinking she could do the sprinkles.”

“What?”

Sid jabbed his finger at her. “Don’t screw up.”

“Words to live by. I won’t. I swear.”

Sid looked unconvinced as he walked away.

Claire turned to Phil and gave him her best smile. He glowered. “Come on.”

She trailed after him, weaving through narrow walkways, avoiding contact with any equipment. They came to a stop in front of a slow-moving conveyor belt.

“The sprinkle attachment is broken,” Phil said as he handed her a hairnet and gloves. “You’re going to put on sprinkles by hand. Not too many, not too few. You got that, Goldilocks?”

She nodded, wishing she knew how many were the right amount.

“That’s what you’re wearing?” he asked.

She glanced down at her black wool slacks and knit sweater, then nodded.

He muttered something, passed her what looked like a giant salt shaker, then hit a button on the conveyor belt so it started moving again.

Chocolate-covered doughnuts inched toward her.

“Sprinkle,” Phil said.

She hated that she wasn’t dressed right and found his disapproving attention unnerving. Worse, when she upended the shaker over the first doughnut, about a pound of sprinkles tumbled out.

“Just great,” he muttered.

“I’ll get it,” she said, trying not to sound defensive.

“It’s sprinkles. There shouldn’t be a learning curve.” With that, he left.

Claire quickly learned the right angle for the shaker and began to cover all the doughnuts evenly. Chocolate iced changed to white iced and she kept sprinkling. When her right arm got tired, she switched to her left, then back.

Thirty minutes later, both her arms burned and trembled, but she didn’t stop until Phil reappeared and switched off the conveyor belt.

“Muffins on trays,” he said by way of explanation and started walking.

She put down the sprinkler shaker and followed him.

They stopped in front of racks and racks of huge, warm, steaming muffins. Her mouth began to water.

Phil pointed from the muffins to big empty trays that would fit in the display case. “Keep the same kind on the same tray. Fill the trays. Got that?”

She nodded and went to work.

After muffin duty, she dumped dozens and dozens of bagels into bins. At six-thirty, she ducked out of the bakery and drove back to the house. She made coffee, then carried it upstairs with two fresh muffins.

Nicole was still asleep. Claire crept into the room, put everything on her nightstand, then tiptoed out. She was back at the bakery by seven-fifteen and put to work shoving loaves of bread into plastic bags.

NICOLE WOKE and rolled over. It took her a second to realize the smell of coffee wasn’t just her imagination, and that next to the carafe was a plate with fresh muffins. Muffins that could only have come from the bakery.

It was barely seven-thirty, which meant Claire had gotten up early, driven to the bakery, picked up the muffins and driven back. Perhaps not a big deal for anyone else, but for the piano princess? Actual work?

Nicole sat up slowly, holding in a groan as the movement pulled at her incision. She ached, which was how she started each day lately. She knew she was healing, but the process was a whole lot longer than she wanted it to be. There were-

Memories from the previous night crashed in on her. The fight with Claire, what she, Nicole, had yelled at her, Drew showing up, Claire attacking him.

Her sister had been possessed, leaping on his back and swinging that high heel like a knife. She’d managed to wrestle Drew to the ground, which was damned impressive. Claire had protected her, even after everything that had been said.

Nicole reached for the carafe and poured herself a cup of coffee, then sipped the hot liquid.

Claire was like one of those puppies that just kept coming after you, no matter how many times you told it to go away. Except Claire wasn’t a puppy and Nicole hadn’t told her to go away-she’d told her she wished she were dead.

“A pretty horrible thing to say,” she murmured to herself. Worse, she’d meant it at the time. Not yesterday, but twelve years ago, when their mother had died, she’d really wanted Claire to take her place.

It shouldn’t have been like that, she thought sadly. It should have been different. She and Claire had been so close when they were little. Like most twins, they knew what the other one was thinking. They’d been there for each other. Then one day Claire left and Nicole had felt as though someone had cut off her arm.

She’d spent weeks crying, wandering from room to room thinking that maybe if she kept looking hard enough, she would find her sister. But Claire had been really gone-probably lapping up her new princess life, she thought bitterly.

Familiar anger filled her-resentment for all Claire had experienced, annoyance that she, Nicole, cared. Genuine rage for being stuck behind to take care of everything.

Then she sipped the coffee again, coffee Claire had made and brought. Okay, maybe it wasn’t the beginning of world peace, but Claire was making an effort. She could have left the first time Nicole told her to. But she hadn’t. She’d hung in and kept trying.

With anyone else, she would have assumed that had to mean something. But with Claire…Nicole couldn’t figure out if all this was a game or not. But maybe, just maybe, it was time to stop assuming the worst.

Shortly after noon, Claire climbed the stairs. She knocked on Nicole’s open door, then stepped in.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“A little better.”

“Good.”

“Thanks for bringing me the coffee and the muffins. They were good.”

Claire beamed. “You’re welcome. I was happy to do it.”

About a thousand sarcastic comments exploded in Nicole’s brain. They were coming so fast, she would have trouble picking one. She remembered what had happened yesterday, what she’d said and what Claire had done and vowed to try not to be such a bitch.

“You got up early.”

Claire eased into the chair by the bed. “I was at the bakery at four-thirty. Sid nearly had a heart attack. I promised I wouldn’t screw up. I told him I just wanted to help. He didn’t believe me at first, but then he put me to work. I did the sprinkles and sorted bagels and that kind of stuff.”

Idiot work, Nicole thought. Where the new kid always started. “Kid” being the key word.

“Why would you do that?” she asked. “Get up that early, go down there and do the crappy jobs?”

Claire frowned. “Because this is a family business and you can’t go there yourself. I know I can’t fill in for you specifically, but I can free up someone else to do what’s important.”

The words made sense, but in this context they were way confusing. “You’re a famous concert pianist. You probably make millions a year. Why do you care about the bakery?”