and tingle. Nobody that sexy had passed through Cuervo in a long time. She practically had to force herself to remember that good-looking men were bad news. If a man was handsome, you could count on him for two things: to screw you over and to break your heart.
She gave her tingly feelings a violent shove to the side.
It was hard not to feel sorry for the woman he was with. Poor thing. She’d never see it coming.
Maggie inserted a portafilter into her Italian espresso machine. She turned the portafilter to the right and locked it into place. The machine was a thing of beauty, all chrome and knobs and levers. Even with her back turned, she could study the guy in the tux in the machine’s reflective surfaces. Yet the longer she looked, the more annoyed she became with herself. Men were trouble. A lot of trouble. She knew that. So why keep torturing herself?
But there was something stern and mysteriously self-assured about him that drew her in. He struck her as a man used to giving orders and to getting his own way. His hair, sandy blond, was cut short on the sides and slightly longer on top. His face was broad across the jaw and cheekbones, which saved him from being merely pretty.
Maggie didn’t like pretty. She liked men who looked like men—who could wear work boots as well as tuxes.
Mostly, she liked men you could depend on not to cheat on you the minute some woman flashed them a smile.
She pressed the tamper down on top of the coffee grounds and squeezed hard, wishing she could do the same thing to her brain. It had taken her years to get her life back together again, and now it was exactly what a life was supposed to be: boring. The formula was simple, really. You worked. You spent time with your family. You knitted ridiculous sweaters for your pug. Rinse, lather and repeat. What you didn’t do was let yourself eyeball other women’s boyfriends.
Rule Number One: Never look twice at a good-looking man who has a woman of unspecified importance standing next to him.
Rule Number Two: Never look twice at a good-looking man, period.
Maggie finished making the coffee and then turned around with the three coffees wedged inside a cardboard carrying tray. She was aware that his eyes were on her and felt an electric sizzle zinging beneath her skin. But he practically oozed the kind of alpha maleness that set her teeth on edge. And he clearly had money.
Men with good looks and money? You’d have to be certifiable to date someone like that.
“That’s quite a cake,” he said, surprising her.
He had a deep voice, like Sambuca mixed with cream and then set on fire.
Maggie made the mistake of gazing directly into his eyes and felt the hair rise on her arms. His eyes were glacier blue and surrounded by dark bristly lashes. A woman could lose her religion drowning in those things. “I beg your pardon?”
He nodded toward the kitchen, where the cake sat like a parade float. Coralee stood next to it, staring at him.
Maggie didn’t like what was happening to her. It seemed as though his intense gaze could see through her somehow, past the bossy efficiency, the big mouth, and her tendency to keep all men at a distance. For a second, the world fell away and it was just the two of them. She felt his lazy, dangerous maleness like she felt her own heartbeat. Then she blinked and the moment was gone.
“It’s for the wedding,” Maggie said stiffly. “My sister’s wedding.”
“You’re Cassidy’s sister? I wouldn’t have guessed that.”
What, did he think a woman like her, a woman who worked in a bakery, couldn’t possibly be related to a beautiful girl like Cassidy?
He must have seen that the remark made her prickly, but instead of apologizing, he smiled. “You look nothing alike.”
Coolly, she rang up three coffees on the vintage cash register. The total popped up on both sides of the display window. As a tall curvy brunette, she knew she looked nothing like her petite blond sisters. So what? No need to make it sound as though she were adopted. And what did she care what his opinion was in the first place?
“Five sixty-seven,” Maggie said, forcing herself to be pleasant. “Will that be cash?”
Power Tie handed her a twenty. She made change and then passed the tray of coffees over the counter, meaning to give it to him. Instead, the man in the tux took them from her. Briefly, their hands touched and she suppressed a shiver.
She stole a guilty glance at the woman standing near the door, but the woman’s beautiful face seemed as though it were a gate through which nothing passed.
“You ready, Jake?” Power Tie said. “There are some people I’d like you to meet. Commercial property investors out of San Antonio. They might be able to answer some questions for us.”
Jake, was it? Maggie watched him collect his date and open the door. He looked even more impossibly sexy in the pale April sunshine, which brought out the blond streaks in his hair and cast shadows beneath those Calvin Klein-model cheekbones.
The guy had cheater written all over him.
“Wow,” Coralee said. “I didn’t know men who looked like that actually existed in the world.”
Maggie turned away from the window and then marched back to the kitchen. “You can take it from me. The world would be a whole lot better if they didn’t.”
CHAPTER TWO
Maggie cleaned at warp speed after Donny and his brother hauled the seventy-five pound wedding cake out to their van. All that pointless mooning had shaved precious minutes off her schedule. While Coralee finished loading the big industrial dishwasher, Maggie rushed upstairs. The great thing about living in an apartment above your own bakery was the commute—which in her case was no more than twenty seconds.
Gus sprang up from a nap on her bed, which was strictly off limits, but Gus liked to pretend he didn’t know that. She heard his nails scrabbling on the hardwood floor in her bedroom. Then he came charging around the corner, tongue lolling, eyes bulging ecstatically. By prancing adorably around her legs, Gus tried to charm her into not scolding him, and it always worked. Maggie knelt down to pet his soft ears.
“Your breath is terrible,” she said as he gusted it all over her. “We’re switching you back to mint Milk Bones.”
Back end still wriggling, Gus preceded her into the bedroom. There would be a telltale warm spot on the bed, of course, but no time to fuss at him now. She shed her clothes and then cranked on the shower. As steam filled the bathroom, she watched her reflection fog over in the full-length mirror. When was the last time she actually looked at herself or paid the slightest attention to her body? Unbidden came the thought of what Jake would see if he were standing here. She imagined him gazing at her full breasts and small waist, her low-slung hips and strong thighs. A shiver rolled over her.
Oh, yes. More mooning. With a sound of disgust, Maggie got into the shower. She loofahed away all thoughts of Jake by scrubbing till her skin turned pink. Then she washed her hair using peppermint shampoo that promised extra shine.
By the time she dried her hair, grabbed her dress and clattered down the stairs, it was already half past one. Damn. Maybe weddings naturally put all kinds of stupid ideas into your head about…mating. Who knew better than she
