Page 21 of Bad Boy Bakers, Vol. 2

Chapter Two

From the time they’d been little, Rebecca had always wanted a big family.

Grey had assumed that was because she was an only child, only grandchild, and the end of the line for both sides of her family.

Looking around the jam-packed room, at all the people laughing and eating, he realized she’d absolutely gotten her wish.

It might’ve been unconventional, but it was clear that Jonah’s business partners looked on her as every bit the mom Jonah did, and she doted on all their kids as well.

Brax and Mia’s little boy, who couldn’t have been more than two or three, perched happily in her lap, inhaling the carefully cut bites of everything from her plate.

Grey shifted, and his knee brushed against Rebecca’s. As the buzz of that contact seared up his leg, her gaze shot to his.

“Sorry,” he murmured. He wasn’t, really. They were all jammed in cheek-by-jowl, and though it had been an innocent touch, her reaction was exactly what he wanted to see. She’d felt something, too, and that gave him hope.

She shifted in her own chair, and her eyes slipped away, back to Duncan. There was something nervous about the move, and Grey wondered whether it was a good nervous or if his presence made her truly uncomfortable. She was too good a hostess to admit it.

Wanting to grant her a reprieve, he turned his attention to her daughter, who was seated to his left. “So, Sam, what is it you do?”

“I’m an English professor at a little private college in Chattanooga. And you’re an old friend of Mom’s?”

Her tone was perfectly polite, but he didn’t miss the rampant curiosity in her brown eyes. They were shaped like Rebecca’s, but the color was all Lonnie.

“And your dad’s. We all went way back.” He couldn’t mention one without the other.

A complicated mix of emotions flitted across Sam’s face, suggesting she’d had a complicated relationship with her father. He regretted saying anything to cause that flash of pain.

It was more than obvious to Grey that he’d never been talked about.

Which was fine. There was no reason for Rebecca to have ever mentioned that they’d been involved, considering she’d married his best friend.

The pang he felt at that was old and dull, an ache he’d long ago learned how to live with.

He didn’t have the right to be upset about it.

He’d blown his shot with her, and that had been the end of that.

Except it hadn’t been entirely the end. She’d divorced Lonnie years ago, well before he died. Grey wondered what had happened to destroy the happy picture they’d made. Now definitely wasn’t the time or place to ask.

“So why Rebel? I’ve never heard anybody call Mom that.”

“No one ever did but Grey.”

Tuning back into the conversation, he met her eyes again. “You never told them that story?”

Her mouth tipped up in a half smile. “And give them ideas when they were growing up? No, thank you.”

“Well, now you have to tell,” Jonah insisted.

Rebecca shot her son a look. “Can’t we just leave it that you didn’t get your wild streak from your dad?”

“Oh, no. Spill, Captain.”

Grey arched his brows at her, silently asking for permission.

She rolled her eyes with a sigh. “Fine.”

He waited for her to continue, but she just waved a hand in his direction. “You started this.”

As all attention swung to him, Grey steepled his fingers. “Well, your mom was a bit of a wild child.”

“I find this really hard to believe,” Sam put in.

Had she really changed that much or was this simply a part of her life she’d elected to omit? He liked the idea that he knew a side of Rebel that no one else here did.

“No, really. In some groups, it’s the girls who are the voices of reason, stopping the guys from doing something stupid or reckless. But your mom was right there with Lonnie and me, proving she could do everything we could, and do it better. She was fearless.”

“I wasn’t fearless. I just didn’t want to get left behind.”

There was something in her tone that made him wonder if she was talking about more than their group adventures.

“Anyway, are y’all familiar with Stockton Quarry Lake?”

Jonah frowned. “All the way down in Jericho? That’s a haul. Isn’t it private property?”

“Yep. Was back then, too. But that didn’t stop us from sneaking past the fences to go hang out there.”

“It’s this gorgeous blue water so clear you can see all the way to the bottom. Well worth the hike in.” Rebecca’s tone was nostalgic.

“Good thing, as it was quite the hike. It’s in the middle of at least three hundred acres of woods. Which we didn’t know that first time.”

“Lord, we had blisters for days from walking that far in flip-flops. Lonnie was so mad. He kept wanting to turn around, but I kept insisting it had to be just a little further.”

Grey chuckled. “If you were gonna go to the trouble to break and enter, you were gonna see what you set out to see.”

Her lips curved. “Heck yeah. If I was risking getting arrested, I wanted it to be worth it. And oh, it was.”

“To you, anyway. You weren’t the one who ended up with buckshot in your backside when the owner caught us all swimming out there.” He shifted in his seat, as if the sting of the shot were still fresh.

She pressed her lips together in an effort to sober, but her green eyes danced with mirth. “I did apologize.”

“You did. Didn’t stop me from snarling at you the whole time you were doing field surgery to fish the pellets out. ‘If you didn’t have to be such a rebel, this never would have happened.’” Grey shrugged. “And the nickname just stuck. Not sure you got all that buckshot out, for the record.”

“Well, that’s what you get for thinking I could do field surgery with you laid out on the hood of a truck.”

“Lonnie got sick at the sight of blood. You were definitely the better option.”

They were grinning at each other by the time Grey registered that everyone else was staring.

Sam shook her head. “I… don’t even know what to say about that.”

Rebecca shrugged. “I was far more interesting in my younger years. Now, who wants dessert?”

A resounding chorus of affirmatives rang out around the table.

“Actually, before we do that, now is probably a good time to open that other thing I brought. It’s kind of for everybody.”

“Okay.” With a not insignificant level of side-eye, Rebecca rose, passing Duncan to Mia.

She came back with the bag and sat, pulling out tissue paper to reveal the contents. Her face lit up with surprise and joy as she pulled out the first box.

“Christmas crackers!” The smile she aimed his way made it worth the drive into Knoxville to track them down.

“I remember how much you used to love them.”

“Are they cinnamon-flavored or something?” Griff asked.

“No, no. They’re not food.” Rebecca tore open a box and pulled out one of the crackers. “Let’s show them how it works.”

Grey dutifully took the other end of the twisted cardboard tube. “On three. One.”

“Two.”

“Three.”

They both tugged, and the cracker made its signature pop! as it ripped apart. Grey ended up with the bigger portion of the tube.

“You won.”

He pulled out the paper crown and unfolded it. “Well, obviously, there’s only one person here who should wear a crown.” Before he could think better of it, he settled the green paper crown on Rebecca’s head.

She pursed her lips and flashed her pageant-ready smile. “Why thank you, kind sir.”

That smile hit Grey right in the sternum. Blindly, he reached for the cracker and dumped the rest of the contents. His fingers closed on the slip of paper with the joke. “What do you get if you eat Christmas decorations?”

Eyes narrowed in consideration, Rebecca sat back. “I know I’ve heard this one before.” She straightened, slapping a hand on the table. “Tinselitis!”

“Got it in one.”

“That’s terrible,” Jonah declared.

“That’s prime-time dad joke material,” Holt argued.

Into it now, Rebecca leaned forward again, green eyes sparkling. “What’s the novelty?”

“It seems we have ye classic Fortune Teller Fish.”

She plucked it from his grasp, pulling out the card and the red cellophane fish from the bag and placing the latter in his outstretched hand.

Sam peered at the thing in his palm as it started to wriggle. “How’s that supposed to work?”

“The fish moves and is supposed to tell you something about the person who’s holding it,” he explained.

“We used to have the best time with these. Okay, let’s see. The tail is moving. And the head.”

As they all watched, the thing curled up into a roll.

“That means Grey is—” She paused, consulting the card with the interpretations. Color rose in her cheeks and her gaze shot to his, her pupils blown wide.

Mia peered over her shoulder to read the answer. “Passionate.”

Grey’s skin caught fire with memory. The silence spun out way the hell too long, but he couldn’t look away.

She was frozen, eyes blurred with the same memories of a summer night a lifetime ago when everything had changed.

He wanted to touch her. Wanted to lean forward and lay his lips over the rosy blush of hers to see if she tasted as he remembered.

As if she could read his thoughts, her mouth parted.

“Those look like fun. Are there enough for everybody?”

Rachel’s voice broke the spell. Rebecca dropped the card and reached into the bag. “Looks like. Here.” She leaped up and passed out more of the crackers to everyone.

Keeping his movements unhurried, Grey exhaled a quiet breath and gulped down more tea to wet his parched throat.

He watched as the others opened their crackers, laughed as they read the jokes, and pretended not to notice the long, assessing looks periodically shot his way.

He ate the dessert, though he couldn’t have said what it was on pain of death.

And as little kid eyes began to droop, and the young families started gathering people up, he helped to clear the table.

“I can help with dish duty.”