Page 41 of A Spot of Trouble
I am most definitelynotokay.She pasted on a smile. “Fine and dandy.”
“Good, because Sam just walked in,” Ethel said under her breath.
And there it was—that exhilarating and thoroughly annoying crackle in the air. A shiver ran up and down Violet’s spine. She absolutely forbade herself from glancing toward the door, but of course she did it anyway. Sam looked as heroic as ever in his fire marshal uniform, all pressed ebony cotton and that shiny silver badge pinned to his impressive chest. How did a man get muscles like that, anyway? It had been years since he played college baseball. Surely it wasn’t just from throwing fire hoses around and rescuing kittens from trees. Every firefighter Violet had ever known did those things, and somehow they never ended up shirtless in a charity calendar.
Sam’s gaze swept the room and paused the moment it landed on her, causing Violet to tremble like Mavis’s Chihuahua.
“I have cupcakes to finish,” she said as steadily as she could manage.
Opal nodded. “We should be getting back to the registration table. Barbara said she’s expecting a record crowd tonight, thanks to the new overflow seating plan.”
Of course she was. Sam Nash saves the day…yet again.
Violet turned her attention back to her meringue as Mavis, Opal, and Ethel guided their walkers toward their table. She couldn’t believe they’d allowed themselves to be so dazzled by Sam and his Dalmatian that they’d forgotten all the very real reasons why Violet couldn’t trust him. It seemed like they would know better. How did the old saying go? Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
Exactly. Violet had already been played for a fool, and the entire island had witnessed the fallout. She wasn’t in a hurry to do it again.
Anyway, she had a bet to win and a business to run. Sweetness on Wheels was just getting started. Violet would just have to block everything out and finish creating her sugary masterpieces before the last-minute rush that always hit right before bingo got going.
She flicked the button on her culinary torch to the on position and took aim at her next cupcake, but before she could run the blue flame over the perfect swirl of meringue, a familiar low voice growled out a warning.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Sam, of course.
What now? Was he going to attempt to mansplain to her how to make a cupcake?
Sprinkles’s tail beat fast against Violet’s leg as she and Cinder greeted one another. Violet’s greeting for Cinder’s master was pointedly less enthusiastic.
“You’re not the boss of me,” she said.
Ugh, what was she—nine years old? Why did she always behave this way around him?
Sam’s lips twitched. “I beg your pardon.”
“You heard me.” She put down the torch and reached for the little chalkboard she always used to write the name of the special cupcake in brush-style modern calligraphy. Violet had spent four Friday nights last month learning this particular skill via YouTube like the girl boss she was trying so hard to become. “Can I offer you a cupcake? I know how fond of them you are.”
Sam narrowed his gaze at her perfectly executed signage. “‘Burn the Fire Department Lemon Meringue?’”
“Tonight’s special,” she said.
“And I suppose that’s what your incendiary device is for?” He pointed an accusatory finger at the butane torch in her hand.
“Incendiary device? Really?” Violet rolled her eyes. “You make it sound like I dragged a stick of dynamite in here. It’s a culinary torch.”
“It’s also illegal.” He reached into one of the pockets of his annoyingly pristine cargo pants and pulled out a familiar pink notepad.
Violet fumed.Not this again.“You’re not seriously writing me a ticket for another fire code violation.”
Sam flipped the pad open and pulled a pen from yet another pocket. Those cargo pants were the fashion equivalent of a clown car. “If you agree to put the torch away, a verbal warning will suffice. But something tells me things aren’t going to be that easy.”
Violet weighed her options while Sprinkles danced at her feet in an effort to lure Cinder into a game of chase. Thus far, Sam’s Dalmatian was as unyielding as the man himself.
Perhaps it was time to take the high road, especially if said high road involved obeying the law. She could afford to lose this one battle, so long as she won the war. Most of the cupcakes had already been torched, anyway.
But just as Violet was about to surrender, Hazel Smith from the Turtle Beach Public Library rushed to Sam’s side.
“Oh my gosh, you came!” Hazel clutched Sam’s arm like it was a long-overdue library book.
First Barbara, now Hazel. Was Violet going to be forced to watch every eligible woman on the island throw herself at Sam Nash?
