Reckless

Usually, this was one of her favorite times of day. When the morning baking and the lunch rush were over and she could enjoy the afterglow of a job well done and kvetch or gossip with Nina while she tried out a new recipe.

Sometimes it was difficult to remember that Nina Leonard was her boss. Nina certainly never put on any airs, and she always treated Heidi like a coworker rather than an employee. Ideas were exchanged, schedules switched. And there wasn’t a thing Heidi couldn’t tell Nina.

Her cheeks felt as if they were on fire…along with her pants. What was the saying? Liar, liar, pants on fire?

There was one thing she wouldn’t dare tell Nina. And that was anything having to do with her recent sexual awareness of Kyle. To do so would be the ultimate in reckless, and even worse, it would be taking that awareness beyond a real fear to a very real reality.

“So what did you tell him?” Nina popped another cracker into her mouth.

Heidi slowed her kneading. “What was I supposed to tell him?”

“That you had to check your schedule?”

She pinched off a bit of dough and threw it at Nina. “I told him yes, of course.”

Kyle had offered a convincing case. Said he wasn’t used to organizing parties but wanted to do this one thing for his best friend to make a dent in the debt he owed Jesse for helping him out on so many occasions.

“What do you know about this guy?” Nina asked.

Heidi shrugged. “That he and Jesse met at college. That they roomed together for two years. He’s an architect and works a lot in cooperation with Jesse’s family’s company…”

“What about personally?”

“Like how?”

“Like does he have a girlfriend?”

“Not that I can tell. Jesse and I haven’t really discussed it.”

Nina pushed off the counter and threw away the dough stuck to her shirt. “I’d be careful there.”

Heidi’s kneading came to a full stop. “How do you mean?”

“I don’t know. You could say that I’ve had a little experience being…friends with two hot men.”

Heidi remembered the rumors and was tempted to ask about them. But the telephone rang, like some sort of physical warning that she should just leave well enough alone. She was mildly surprised that Nina didn’t seem to hear it. Someone must have picked it up out front.

“Anyway,” Nina said, checking the progress of another bowl of dough that was rising on top of thewarm stove. “I just think it’s important for you to be careful.”

“I’m not following you.”

“You know, you might not want to be…alone with Kyle during any of the planning meetings…stuff like that.”

Heidi laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Jesse and I have been a couple for eight years.”

“Just the same…”

Janice, the front-counter girl, opened the door a crack. “Heidi, it’s for you.”

Her throat suddenly went dry. Nina’s gaze sharpened on her.

“I’ll finish up,” her friend said. “You go talk to whoever it is.”

Heidi wiped the dough from her fingers and then quickly washed her hands before picking up the phone in the corner.

“Heidi?”

Her shoulders instantly relaxed and she made a point of saying directly to Nina, who was still watching her, “Hi, Mom.”

Then she turned away, not about to admit that she, too, had been half afraid that the call was from Kyle.

She groaned inwardly. However was she going to plan a party with the man if she couldn’t deal with the thought of talking to him on the phone?

She didn’t know. But she knew that, for Jesse’s sake, she was going to have to find a way.

Chapter 3

HEIDI COULDN’T IMAGINE what her mother wanted her for. It wasn’t like Alice to be cagey. But all she’d said on the phone was that she needed to see Heidi and could she please come over to the house when she had the chance?

Heidi put the last of the dough in the fridge and then leaned against the kitchen island and sighed. It was after nine and it had been a long day. But since she wanted tomorrow off for a catering job, she’d needed to put in the hours. She was lucky that Nina and Kevin allowed her to work around her class schedule and whatever else came up. Definitely different from any other employer she’d worked for. And if she wanted to use the kitchen after hours to prepare for any catering gigs that she’d put together, that was all right, too.

Of course, her long day had left her no time to stop by her mother’s. Which was just as well, because after the day she’d had, she wasn’t sure she was up for any surprises. At least not any more surprises. She had her hands full trying to figure out what she was going to do about Kyle. More specifically, she had to get a handle on her sudden, runaway attraction to him.

Jesse was busy tonight with softball practice and would no doubt be at the pub with the rest of the gang right about now. She’d spoken to him earlier and bowed out of his invitation to meet him there when she finished. She was tired and, okay, more than a little distracted. She didn’t think it was a good idea that she be anywhere near Kyle until she figured out what was going on between them.

Or rather, what was going on with her. Because if there was one thing she was relatively sure of, it was that Kyle Trapper wasn’t interested in her. Not one iota. He’d made that abundantly clear with his constant frowns in her presence, and he’d gone out of his way not to interact with her in any capacity.

Until now.

Heidi untied her apron and lifted it over her head, hanging it next to the door before going out into the café. The place was quiet. Nina had left some time ago and asked her to close up shop. She switched off all the lights save the one over the display counter which was always kept lit, and walked toward the music center. It was dark as well except for a couple of backlights in the public area. The same applied to the bookstore division, which was set up to look like a comfortable living room-library combination in a large, century-old house. Although the fireplace was empty of logs, the explosion of flowering plants in the hearth still made it the center of attention, and the overstuffed sofas and chairs invited road-weary shoppers to sit down for a moment and crack open one of the books in carefully arranged stacks on the nearby coffee and end tables.

The utter quiet brought Heidi a brief sense of relief, a feeling of control that she liked. There were no customers to wait on, no bosses to answer to. Her time was her own.

And she really should be getting home to catch up on her course work.

She checked to make sure the back door was locked, then headed toward the front, clutching her purse to her side. She turned the key to let herself out, and nearly fell backward when someone appeared on the other side of the glass.

It would have been bad enough had it been a stranger. What made it worse was that it was Kyle.

HE’D FRIGHTENED her.

Kyle held open the door, prepared to steady Heidi. He’d been hoping to catch her as she was leaving the store, but he hadn’t planned to scare her.

“I’m sorry. I startled you.”

“No, no. That’s okay,” she said quickly, her color high, her breathing uneven. She easily stepped out of touching range.

Damn, but she looked good. Her hair was a dark cloud around her pretty face, her eyes but shadows in the dim light. It had only been a few hours since he’d last seen her, and she’d looked good then. But that had been in the plain light of day. Now that it was night…