The Cupcake Diaries (7 page)

Stacey met his gaze and couldn’t help but smile. “No. I didn’t.”

“Don’t you like tattoos?” he teased.

“You just don’t look like the type to have one,” she said at last. “The clean-cut, ice cream man image with the white uniform and black bow tie misleads one to think you are very traditional and conservative.”

“
Misleads
?” He laughed.

Oh, no.
The hole she was digging was getting deeper and deeper. Maybe she should have signed up for one of the sand castle teams instead of teaming with him.
Quick! Change the subject.

“Why a lightning bolt?”

“Trouble rains on both the rich and the poor,” he said, serving the next customer a tray of s’more cupcakes and ice cream. “And the lightning bolt is there to remind me to never take life for granted. Any one of us can get caught in the storm and get zapped.”

She looked at the tattoo again, most likely Guy Armstrong’s handiwork. “That’s why my motto is
Better safe than sorry.”

The conversation could have taken a more serious turn, but she supposed neither one of them wanted to head in that direction because Dave smiled at her as if she’d said something funny and teased, “Who’s being conservative now?”

T
HANKS TO
D
AVE’S
suggestion that they work together, Stacey sold out of cupcakes for the first time since setting up on Cannon Beach. She collected the empty boxes and walked back to the Volkswagen bus. As she began to stack them in the back, the beach cowboy rode up to her on a magnificent white horse.

“Hi,” he said, sliding out of the saddle. “You were busy today. I bought a cupcake from you earlier, but you probably don’t remember.”

Oh, she remembered. She’d had her eye on this guy for the last week as he led tourists on trail rides along the ocean surf. She’d thought of him as a possible candidate to ask to escort her to Kim’s wedding, but now that they were face to face, she realized there was only one man she wanted to escort her—and he served ice cream with a lightning bolt tattooed to his arm.

“Would you like to go on an evening ride?” the man in the straw cowboy hat asked, nodding toward his horse.

Stacey shook her head. “Thank you for asking, but I don’t know how to ride.”

“I could teach you,” he coaxed. “Or I could put you up in the saddle with me.”

She hesitated, glanced at Dave, and when she looked back at the cowboy he nodded, as if he understood.

“There’s someone else, isn’t there?” he asked.

She shrugged, not sure how to answer. Then the cowboy tipped his hat toward her, got back on his steed, and rode away.

Stacey
hoped
there was someone else. She turned back toward Dave’s ice cream truck. Someone she could continue to talk to and work with on a daily basis. Someone who made her feel . . .

She spotted Dave outside his truck talking to a blond bombshell of a woman in a black bikini, and her heart slammed into her chest, making it impossible to breathe. Worse, the sexy vixen kissed his cheek and wrapped her hand around his arm, the bicep with the tattoo, as if she owned him. Dave placed his hand on the woman’s waist, and . . . that was all Stacey needed to see.

Oh, great.
Dave had a girlfriend. Maybe she should have accepted the cowboy’s offer to go riding off into the sunset after all. Except she didn’t want anyone but Dave.

Her feet dragged as she made her way back to his stand to collect the rest of her empty boxes. The kiss he’d given her after she fixed his refrigeration must have been a friendly, spontaneous thank you, nothing more. Why did she keep reading more into the situation than was actually there?

Dave came back into his truck and smiled at her as he helped wipe the counters and close the side windows. “We did great today, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, great,” she agreed, trying her best to sound upbeat. “So I’ll see you . . .”

“Tomorrow,” he assured her.

“Yes, tomorrow,” she repeated.

Tomorrow she wouldn’t let herself be fooled by any “friendly” overtures. She’d have her overactive imagination decommissioned, her head on straight, and her heart focused on getting cash instead of kisses.

Tomorrow she wouldn’t be led astray.

B
ACK AT THE
shop, Stacey’s unharnessed emotions took another blow when she learned from Andi and Kim that their klutzy, kitchen college kid got a date with Heather.

“How did Eric get her to agree to go with him to the wedding?” Stacey whispered to Kim. “She’s beautiful, intelligent, self-assured, and seems way out of his league.”

Kim laughed. “You aren’t usually so judgmental. Is something bothering you?”

Stacey quickly shook her head. But it didn’t change the fact that everyone had a date except her. There must be something wrong with her, something only others could see. She couldn’t change her personality, but she could change her appearance. Eric had combed his wild, bushy hair and given himself a close shave, making himself almost . . . handsome.

“Rachel,” she called, as her cousin came through the front door with her husband. “Do you think you could give me a makeover and some fashion help?”

Rachel stopped up short and stared at her. “
Hallelujah!
I thought you’d never ask. But first I have news.”

“You aren’t sick?” Stacey guessed, glancing from her cousin’s smiling face to Mike’s.

“No, the doctor said
I’m pregnant!
That must be why I was craving ice cream.”

Andi gasped, then gave her friend a hug. “I craved sea salt and vinegar potato chips during my first trimester. When are you due?”

Rachel smirked. “Valentine’s Day.”

Mike placed his right hand over Rachel’s stomach. “Boy or girl, this baby is going to be a sweetheart.”

Stacey, Kim, Andi, and the college employees behind the counter all congratulated Rachel and Mike, and Kim offered to paint multicolored candy sweethearts all over the walls of the baby’s nursery.

“Instead of the Cupcake Diaries, we’ll need Baby Diaries,” Kim teased. “Or Little Sweetheart Diaries.”

“Speaking of sweethearts,” Andi said, shooting a look at her sister Kim, “Dad keeps going to the Mermaid bookstore on 12th Street.”

Kim frowned. “So?”

“He doesn’t like to read.” Andi took the Cupcake Diary, filled with quotes, notes, and recipes, off the counter and held it up. “I asked if I could go with him to look at cookbooks, but he acted all funny and made an excuse to go a different time. I think his date for the wedding owns that store.”

An impish grin spread across Kim’s face. “I think I need to go check it out and see what they have to offer. I’ll ask Nathaniel if he’s up for a little recon mission and take him with me.”

Stacey thought of the bikini babe she’d seen with Dave and wondered if she should do a little recon investigation of her own. It didn’t hurt to check out the competition. Business-wise, of course. She couldn’t sell cupcakes with Dave unless she knew all the players involved, could she?

A
FTER WHAT SEEMED
an incredibly long day, Stacey plopped down on her bed and closed her eyes. Then the phone rang. With a groan she rolled over to answer it, wondering who could be calling her at this time of night on a Saturday.

She glanced at the phone’s caller ID, and her stomach contracted. She could choose to ignore the call, but the problem wouldn’t go away. Instead, she brought the cell phone up to her ear.

“Pam?”

“Yeah.”

“How are you?” Stacey didn’t know what else to say.

“Did you get my letter?”

Stacey hesitated. There was nothing like getting right to the point. “Yes, I did.”

“When do you think you’ll have the money?”

Stacey thought of the commission from her great day of sales and the money she’d saved so far in her bank account. “I should have it by the end of summer.”

“Not good enough!”
Pam shouted. “I need it by July 15.”

Why was she shouting? Was Pam
that
angry with her?

“You never asked me for rent the whole time I stayed with you,” Stacey reminded her. “You said you were happy to give me a place to stay.”

“I assumed you’d pay me as soon as you got a job, and you didn’t.”

“You never showed me any receipts or utility bills. Did you also assume I wouldn’t need to see any of them?” Stacey asked, shocked that for once she was holding her ground.

“I waited until I had the final tally before sending the bill,” Pam replied. “Look, I’ll make you a deal. Give me the money, and I’ll give you back your gold heart-shaped necklace.”

Stacey gasped. “You found my necklace? Where?”

“In a crack behind the top dresser drawer.”

“I checked the dresser drawers.” Stacey’s mind raced through each room of Pam’s small apartment. “I searched everywhere for weeks.”

Grandma Jean gave her the necklace on her fourteenth birthday, right before the tornado hit. Stacey had placed her grandmother’s photo inside the heart-shaped locket and placed the chain around her neck. That was the only reason the necklace survived, when everything else of value didn’t—including Grandma Jean. Other than memories, the photo inside the locket was all she had left of her.

Pam knew that the piece of jewelry held sentimental value and that Stacey would do anything to get it back. Had Pam taken the necklace and hidden it from her? She would never have thought her former roommate could do such a thing, but now she wasn’t so sure.

“I guess I could always pawn the necklace . . . and take whatever money they give me,” Pam said, her voice hesitant, as if unsure what to do.

“No!” Stacey swallowed hard, all thoughts of using the cash she’d saved for the security on her apartment fading away. “I’ll send you what money I have and get you the rest as soon as I can. I promise.”

“Thanks, Stacey,” Pam said, a smile coming through her confident tone. “I never thought you wouldn’t.”

E
ARLY THE NEXT
morning, Stacey cut up her maxed out credit cards, ate one of the peanut butter-and-cracker MREs from her backpack for breakfast, and mailed a partial payment to Pam.

She’d ask Andi, Rachel, and Kim if she could work more hours and brainstorm a way to sell more cupcakes. When she arrived at the beach, she opened her Cupcake Diary and made a list.

Dave suggested she offer deals like “
Buy One, Get One Free
” or “
Dollar Discount on a Dozen.
”

They still advertised their two-for-one deal with ice cream and cupcakes, but this week she was back in her own trailer, and he was in his. The customers got their ice cream from him, then moved to her stand for the cupcake.

The pages in her diary fluttered in the warm breeze, and she set Rocky down on the edge of the book binder.

“Yes, I agree,” she told her pet rock. “What I really need is a way to get back inside Dave’s trailer.”

She hesitated, looked at the face on the rock, then added, “No, not for personal reasons. This week sales are good, but the day we sold out of one trailer sales were even better.”

“Who are you talking to?” Dave asked, coming up to her window.

She smiled and pointed to the rock with her pen. “Rocky.”

Dave looked at her smooth, round rock with the happy face and nodded. “Did you ever think about getting a cat or a dog instead?”

“I can’t right now, but I will, as soon as I can afford to buy a house with a fenced in yard.”

“And what’s this?” he asked, indicating the jar of colorful sea glass.

She smiled again. “Payment from the poor for cupcakes.”

“Have you tried depositing that in the bank?” This time he grinned. “I’m afraid you’ll have a hard time buying a house with sea glass.”

“Which is why I need you,” Stacey said, fixing an image of
Kate Jones
in her mind to fortify her courage. “What if we cored out the center of the cupcakes, but instead of frosting, we filled it with ice cream?”

Dave held her gaze. “We’d have to work together so the ice cream wouldn’t melt.”

Stacey nodded, holding her breath.

“The ice cream would keep the cake moist,” Dave added, “and guarantee it’s served fresh.”

Stacey nodded again, not trusting herself to speak.

“Okay,” Dave said, lifting a few dozen boxes of cupcakes off her counter and nodding for her to follow him to his truck. “Let’s do this.”

A
FTER ANOTHER FANTASTIC
day of sales, Dave grinned. “I was hoping I could repay you for fixing the refrigeration on my truck.”

“Just as long as it isn’t with sea glass,” she joked.

“How about I buy you dinner?”

She tensed.
Don’t get misled
, she told herself. He probably meant he’d send her home with a pizza. Alone. “You don’t need to repay me. My life has been cursed with trouble, and your truck probably broke because I was too close to you to begin with.”

“I like having you close,” he said, giving her a little sideways bump. “That’s why I want to ask you out on a date.”

“A date?” She swallowed hard, wondering if she’d heard him right. “W-with
you
?”

A worried expression crossed his face. “You make it sound like
I’m
the one who’s cursed.”

“What about your girlfriend?”

“Girlfriend?” He looked at her as if he had no idea what she was talking about.

“Black bikini and diamond stud sunglasses stuck onto a tanned, commercial-thin body?”

Dave grimaced. “Not a girlfriend. She’s the ex-wife. Her name’s Carla, and she came by to rub in the fact that Dave’s Ice Cream Palace has been reduced to a cheap pile of rubble on the beach.”

“You—you’re that Dave, owner of Dave’s Ice Cream Palace?”

He nodded. “Was. Past tense.”

“My cousin, Rachel, used to rave about your ice cream all the time when I lived in Nebraska. She said I’d have to come out to Oregon for a taste to believe how good it was.”

“Well, the Palace is gone. My ex took as much as she could in the divorce, and I had to sell everything and start over from scratch.”

“That’s when you got the tattoo?” Stacey asked. “To remind you not to take life for granted?”