Best Of My Love

He looked at Shelby. “What?”

“You’re not listening to me.”

“Sorry. It’s your dad. Where is he now?”

“In prison. He’s serving consecutive sentences. Even with good behavior, he won’t be out for about fifty years.”

“I want to go find him and punish him.”

She reached across the table and lightly touched his hand. “Thank you. I appreciate the thought, but it’s not necessary.”

“I need to hurt him.”

“It won’t change him.”

Probably not, but that wasn’t what had him telling himself to let it go. Beating up her father wouldn’t help Shelby. That was the real point of it.

“I wish I’d known you then,” he told her. “I would have helped.”

Her breath caught and she cleared her throat. “Thank you for saying that. I believe you. Which is part of the reason I wanted to talk to you. About my problem. And yours.”

“That you pick the wrong guy because you’re not willing to trust a man not to physically hurt you and that I pick the wrong woman because I don’t want to get stuck?”

She nodded.

He tried to remember the last time he’d had a conversation this honest and couldn’t. Shelby had laid it all on the line. He figured he had to do the same.

“I’m not looking for home and hearth,” he admitted. “I just want to stop being a jackass.”

She laughed. “A worthy goal.” Her humor faded. “I thought I was doing better. I thought I was healed. Then I went out with a guy I knew was a total flake. He swore he was seeing only me, but he wasn’t. It was then I realized I wasn’t as far along as I thought.”

She pointed to the cupcakes between them. “Everything else is great. I went to culinary school and discovered I’m more of a dessert-pastry chef. I moved here and bought into the business. I have friends, I’m going to be an aunt in a couple of months. It’s all good.”

“Except for Mr. Right.”

She nodded.

He was no longer as concerned about what she wanted from him. Shelby had been through a lot and if he could help, he wanted to. If she was looking for the perfect guy, by now she knew he wasn’t even close. Anything else was doable.

“Where do I fit in?”

“I need to learn that I can trust a man who isn’t my brother,” she told him. “I was hoping we could be friends. Real friends who do things together. I thought if we could do that, we could get over what’s holding us back. You obviously need to start seeing women as something other than short-term sexual partners. I thought we could work on this together. Hang out. Get to know each other. Develop a relationship based on trust and respect.” She wrinkled her nose. “Without the complication of the whole boy-girl thing.”

Honest to God, Aidan didn’t know what to say. Friends? Her points were valid and he could see how her plan might work, but damn.

“Would there be a time limit?” he asked.

“Sure. I don’t know. How long until we’re both better? Six months?”

So until June.

“Just friends.” Because he wasn’t sure he’d ever been friends with a woman before. Not since maybe high school. “Nothing else.”

“Nothing,” she said firmly. “We’ll do stuff and talk and you’ll see that women are more than a booty call and I won’t be scared anymore. In six months we’ll both be better people and we’ll go back to our regular lives.”

He wanted to protest the booty-call comment but knew he’d earned it. Friends. Just friends. Was it possible? Did he want to bother?

The thing was, if he didn’t, wouldn’t he stay exactly where he was? And he knew he didn’t want that.

“Maybe,” he said slowly.

She brightened. “So you’ll think about it?”

There were a lot of ways to answer the question, but he figured they both deserved the truth. “Shelby, I’m pretty sure I won’t be thinking about anything else.”

CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_d70adfbd-7eec-550e-b19e-59e5313a8f12)

AMBER DUTTON CLOSED her eyes and made a low moaning sound at the back of her throat. “You’re killing me.”

Shelby did her best not to preen. Impressing her customers was one thing, but impressing Amber was harder. Amber had owned Ambrosia Bakery for over ten years. She knew the business inside and out and she’d tasted more than her share of chocolate mousse.

Amber broke off a piece of the dark chocolate shell that held the mousse and put it in her mouth. She let it melt on her tongue before swallowing. “Amazing. You made these, too?”

Shelby nodded. “It’s not that difficult. I’ve been working on the recipe for a while. I thought we could try adding more upscale desserts to the inventory. Maybe start on certain days to see if there’s any interest. With the city’s online connection, we could send out an email to men, suggesting the high-end desserts as a special surprise to take home to the women in their lives.”

“We just have to give out a few samples and we’ll be flooded with interest.” Amber took another bite of the mousse. “This is going straight to my hips and I genuinely don’t care.” She pointed with her spoon. “I thought that bread you did last week was the best new thing, but this is better.”

“I have a lot of ideas.”

“Hiring you that first day was the smartest thing I’ve ever done.”

Amber dug her spoon into the mousse. Shelby smiled as she basked in pride and happiness. She loved the creative side of her job. Back at her small apartment, she had an idea file overflowing with different items she wanted to try. Cupcakes and brownies, mousses and breads. On her days off she often played around with recipes. Finding the exact combination of ingredients, the right presentation and flavors took time. But the work was so fun and fulfilling.

Culinary school had been a revelation for her. She’d discovered that there were other crazy people who dreamed up recipes. She’d loved the technical classes as much as the practical information. She’d wanted to know more and more. Getting her first job had made her giddy. Then her mom had gotten sick and everything had changed.

Being trapped in that house, knowing her father was going to find that vulnerable moment and hurt her, had left her feeling shattered. While the bruises and welts would heal, every day that she was with him had drained her spirit, and she’d worried about that a lot more than the damage he would do to her body. Having Angel and Ford show up when they did had saved her. The invitation to go to Fool’s Gold had come with an introduction to Amber. Working in the bakery had been exactly what she’d needed.

Now she was a part owner and there were so many possibilities. Next on her bucket list was having Aidan agree to her wild plan so she could complete her healing and move on with her life.

Amber finished the mousse and dark chocolate shell, then licked her fingers. “I’m going to have to walk an extra hour on the treadmill to burn off those calories and it was so worth it.”

“You don’t have to do anything to burn off the calories,” Shelby told her. “You always look great.”

Her business partner—a tall, curvy, dark-skinned woman with beautiful eyes and long braids—laughed. “If only that were true. I passed forty nearly two years ago. I’m fighting gravity and a slowing metabolism, but I’m determined to win.” She walked around to the front of the display case. “The blue-and-white cookies are adorable.”

“I thought they’d be a quirky addition for the week.”

Patience had finally given birth to her son two days before. Shelby had decided to make some baby-inspired cookies. There were little ducks and small rattles and a square frosted cookie like a baby block. The latter had taken a lot of time, so it wasn’t a practical addition to their everyday menu, but she’d had fun with it.