Just Desserts Read online

  Lindy didn’t respond. Her spray bottle squirts kicked into high gear.

  Sadie tucked the ruby-red chard into her Trader Joe’s bag. “What? Why the silent treatment?”

  “Simple. That guy’s a dick and you know it. I wouldn’t be a friend if I kept that info to myself.”

  “What? Eddie’s any better?” Sadie shoved the greens so hard into the bottom of the bag the thick stems cracked.

  Lindy squirted Sadie in the face. “You, me, and Eddie have known each other since kindergarten. Don’t get all high and mighty. Eddie’s the guy for me, he loves me, and he’s a great guy. You know what a good guy is like. Don’t you, Sadie? They stick around when you’re down in the dumps. Bryan couldn’t manage to pull himself away from his spring break frat boy party in Florida to go to your mother’s funeral.”

  “It wasn’t a party. It was his mother and father’s silver anniversary and happened to be in Naples.”

  “Right. And I have some swampland for you to buy. Interested?”

  “Eddie isn’t God’s gift, Lindy. What’s he doing since he dropped out of Madison? Grub work?” Sadie immediately regretted dissing Eddie and realized her sting was just plain mean. Lindy and Eddie were her two oldest friends. The summer heat must have turned her brain to mush. “I’m sorry.”

  Lindy smiled and patted her on the shoulder. “You’re forgiven. This time. I’ll cut you some slack considering you and your dad are my favorite customers, and your mom was my foodie idol.” She squirted water at a splotch of red beet juice spattered on her white T-shirt and tried to rub out the stain with a piece of paper toweling. “I miss her, too.”

  Sadie grabbed a bunch of spinach off the table and stuffed it in her bag with the chard.

  Lindy added, “Actually, Eddie’s been apprenticing with Quinn Laughton all summer to get his plaster business off the ground. He’s molding trims for house renovations. It’s a craft. And guess what? We’re planning to move in together this fall.”

  “I’m excited for you two. A love nest with Eddie.” Sadie hugged her. “Are you sure his work with Quinn will pay off? He seems kinda cocky.”

  “There’s worse in the world. Eddie looks up to him. Quinn loves vintage. He owns the renovation company that’s rehabbing the Wrigley mansion and he’s eco-friendly. His updates are all green. He’s an earth-loving entrepreneur. Not a slick, suck-up type like Bryan. Not to mention he’s hot. Didn’t you notice? Or are you blinded by the Bry?” Lindy sang, imitating the Bruce Springsteen tune.

  Sadie remembered Quinn’s full lips and felt like she couldn’t breathe.

  Lindy stepped to the other side of the table and started to spritz the cobs of corn again.

  From around the corner of a man-size Sweet Organics sandwich sign, Quinn appeared. He leaned over a basket of pattypan squash on the table, picked one up, and played heads or tails with it. “I’m expecting to hear the Walton’s in this neck of the woods, not Rachel and Monica.”

  Embarrassed, Sadie widened her eyes at Lindy. Her BFF replied with a smirk and turned toward Quinn.

  “Hey, hunk. I’ll be your friend…with benefits.” Lindy flirted easily. She’d always been so damn pretty with strawberry blond waves and a button nose. She wasn’t the least bit self-conscious around anyone. Especially males.

  On the other hand, Sadie worried about every word that left her mouth, which many times left her speechless or driveling on in clichés. Handsome men and even the not-so-good-looking guys had her tongue tied.

  With Bryan she was more subdued when they talked but definitely not blinded since they texted more often than she cared to confess. Bryan didn’t seem to mind or notice her verbal constipation while he chatted on and on about himself.

  “You’re a tease, Lindy.”

  Quinn’s sexy voice jolted Sadie out of her thoughts.

  “Eddie took me to The Geneva Supper Club last night to show me his plaster work. Your main squeeze stared at his feet when we walked past a Playboy Bunny uniform circa1960, on display in a glass case. That man of yours is whipped,” he joked.

  Quinn turned and flashed her with a mischievous smile.

  “Eddie loves to show off the town’s old Playboy club,” Lindy said. “The crown molding is his prize work.”

  Sadie hadn’t realized how chummy Quinn had gotten with her best buds.

  “I don’t think he remembers any of his dinner, the relish platter or the Brandy Manhattans. You’re tempting, but I don’t mess with taken women, especially Eddie’s.”

  Sadie’s tongue turned to lead. The smatter of ginger freckles on Quinn’s cheeks warmed his icy blue eyes. He wore the standard issue construction uniform: faded Levi’s, reinforced steel-toed Red Wing boots, and a T-shirt. But the color of his tee—Dijon, not yellow mustard but Grey Poupon—threw her off. It enhanced the tan on his muscular arms, and it wasn’t standard issue Jockey or Hanes. This man probably stirred buckets of mortar and paint, but she could bet his closet secreted a stash of Calvin Klein’s from Barney’s men’s department.

  How had she missed this at the diner?

  He reminded her, in her sick foodie brain filled with desserts, of a hot apple pie slathered in caramel sauce. And absolutely not a la mode, too cold and made the crust mushy. Ice cream had better places to be. Quinn oozed warm, sweet and crunchy

  Had she really spoken so freely and then spewed at him earlier in the diner? Maybe being in her mother’s diner gave her a burst of confidence. The diner. Gooey good hunk wanted her mom’s diner. She snatched a carton of pattypans away from him and dumped them in her plastic bag.

  “Ah you don’t fool me, Laughton,” Lindy teased. “You’re no innocent. My Eddie tells me everything and I know your notch list is longer than Chicago’s One Mag Mile.”

  “Shh. I’m gonna need to talk to Eddie about letting you in on the true depth of my sleaze, Lindy.”

  “Don’t do that. He’s learned so much from you. And I’m reaping the rewards of his newfound tricks. Please, no…you can’t…don’t…stop…not…now.” She panted salaciously and laughed.

  Sadie backed up closer to the van opening as she listened to Lindy’s fake orgasm. She wasn’t a prude, but her libido was suffering. Bryan had wanted to take things slow so not a whole lot had transpired in the bedroom. She couldn’t wait until he came back from Europe. She had some ideas that would knock off Bryan’s socks as well as all his other clothing.

  Quinn laughed, and then looked at her. As they glimpsed at each other for a moment Sadie felt exposed. She shivered.

  Quinn abruptly turned toward Lindy. “Eddie’s free for the rest of the afternoon. I let him and the boys off. Extra time for you two to look for your new home. I don’t want your true love boo-hoo-ing about not seeing you. If this humidity lifts, I need him to focus and finish that plaster archway tomorrow morning.”

  “Great news, sexy. But I’m at the diner this evening, so he’ll have to come in for dinner and wait for dessert. But this one—” She chuckled and pointed toward Sadie. “She needs a night out. You willing to show her a good time? It’s Monday. The Bunny Club has two-for-one margaritas.”

  “Oh, Lindy. I can’t, I’m not, I don’t. I’m not going anywhere with him,” Sadie sputtered.

  Their raunchy pillow talk had her flustered, or was it Quinn’s laser-like vision? Her cheeks burned. She clutched the recycled grocery sack over her shoulder and perused the veggies on the table. Sadie ripped off a full stem of chard and fanned it in front of her face. “I’m busy.”

  Lindy looked at her skeptically.

  “I’ll come when I’m invited. If Sadie’s occupied, then maybe we’ll get together another time,” Quinn said.

  Sadie felt harried by his seductive scrutiny and innuendo. She stumbled and bumped into the corner of Lindy’s produce table.

  Quinn draped his arm over her shoulders to steady her. Snug against his chest, his warmth was heady. When the back pocket of her denim mini-skirt vibrated, she let out a grunt and swallowed an orgasmic sounding moan.r />
  “My cell—it’s on—it—oscillates .” She stepped away from Quinn and his mind-bending testosterone and avoided the word vibrate.

  Bryan: Where r u? Here at market

  She pivoted around and scanned the line of farmers’ stalls under the big top tent.

  “Sadie, what’s going on? What was on the oscillating cell phone?” Lindy chided.

  “Bryan. He’s finally here.”

  Quinn leaned against the table and thumbed back the husk tip of an ear of corn.

  Sadie’s body temp cooled down since the corn had Quinn’s undivided attention.

  “Woo-hoo,” Lindy groaned.

  Chapter Three

  Sadie shaded her eyes to search for Bryan’s inky clean-cut hair topping off his six-foot frame. He would undoubtedly be in his khaki trousers and maybe, if he were a daredevil, he traded his standard blue oxford for a short-sleeve white one, considering the day’s sauna-like conditions.

  The market had begun to empty out, but on the far end of the public pier a gang of public works guys unloaded a truck. They wheeled around blocks of mobile bleachers, dollies loaded with folding chairs and stage pieces. Sadie wondered what band would be playing later.

  From the glare of the afternoon sun, her vision was spotted as she texted Bryan. Suddenly, a yank on her elbow swung her around. Before her, a man that might have passed as Bryan, in the nineteen-sixties, ogled her. She stared at her straight-laced man who now looked like he’d found hippy-ism or joined some sort of cult.

  Bryan’s jet black hair had six more inches to its length and he donned a beard and a mustache to match it. The coup de grace was his Birkenstock sandals, which replaced his standard Allen Edmonds’ wing-tips. His tie-dyed shirt sported a silhouette of Bob Marley and drooped down over a bulging beltline. Only his trademark khaki trousers were dully recognizable.

  Lindy and Quinn no longer found the ears of corn titillating.

  “Sadie, Sadie, my little lady,” he sang. “I’ve found you.”

  Funny Lady?

  “Bryan?” Sadie cast off her shock and went to hug him, but a piece of green food buried in his wiry beard distracted her. She stopped and shook his hand instead.

  “It’s been so long, babe, I know. I would have been here sooner, but there’s been some changes.”

  “Really? We haven’t talked since before my mom’s funeral, and I’ve been busy taking care of—” She stopped and shook her head to look closer at the man who she’d pinned all her hopes on of escaping Lake Geneva. She tried to adjust to his new psychedelic vision. Overwhelmed and a tad woozy, she perched on Lindy’s display table and clutched the edge.

  “Sadie, you’re a beautiful human being. You’re blessed with hair as lovely as the vision of the setting sun,” Bryan sang.

  “That’s divine. Does he know Kumbaya, too?” Quinn whispered in her ear.

  She shuddered. Whether it was from Bryan’s drastic transformation or Quinn’s warm breath, Sadie was too shell-shocked to figure it out.

  A waif-like blond with a slinky black skirt and tank top sidled up next to Bryan and hooked a boney arm around his elbow.

  Sadie felt the blood drain from her face.

  “This is Bridget. I met her in Amsterdam. I wanted you two to meet. If it weren’t for you both, my life would still be a vapid wasteland.”

  “Vapid wasteland? Getting an MBA at the University of Chicago and working at your father’s firm in The Board of Trade? That’s vapid?” Sadie crossed her arms.

  “Yes. That’s what I came to tell you. I wanted to thank you. In Florida, for spring break, I became the victim of unfortunate circumstances. I developed a filthy disease and the only way I could purge it was to escape. That’s when it happened. I met Bridget in Amsterdam and she showed me the true path to cleanliness and harmony.”

  “At your parents’ anniversary party? In Florida? What do you mean?” She struggled to keep up with Bryan’s words while still adjusting to his newfangled psycho-spiritualism.

  “Herpes.”

  “Herpes is an unfortunate circumstance?” Sadie gasped as an alarm rang in her head. She woke up from the nightmare that had starred Bryan since last fall.

  Sadie closed her eyes. Thanks, Mom, you kept me away from this nut bag.

  “Yes I’d been intimate with a young woman on the beach, and she left me with a disease that I can never be free from.”

  “You fucked some nasty in Naples, got an STD, and found 4/20?” Lindy spewed.

  Lindy came out from behind the booth, perched next to Sadie, and grasped her trembling hand. Quinn sat closer, and his thigh touched her bare leg.

  Bryan prattled on, clueless to her shock. “This may surprise you, but if it weren’t for you I wouldn’t have decided to go to Europe. I didn’t want you to see or touch me again. That’s why I left. And then I met Bridget and she showed me that the only one good enough to touch me was above me.” He pointed up to the big-top tent.

  “John Ringling?” Lindy cracked.

  Sadie snorted. “Bridget? She opened up your path to a higher power or just a high? Is she allowed to touch you?”

  “Oh, yes. Bridget has made a sacrifice to be with me because I can touch her at any time.” Bryan entwined his fingers with Bridget’s.

  “Right. She’s sacrificed herself to your hunger?” Sadie couldn’t help it. She rolled her eyes. “Or should I say munchies?”

  Bridget nodded at Bryan like a ventriloquist’s dummy.

  Sadie didn’t feel much more intelligent. She dropped her head down and fixated on Quinn’s solid leg and willed the stash of giggles mixed with tears to go away. She needed a breather from the stoned insanity standing in front of her.

  “You are an idiot, Morton,” Lindy hissed. “Did you get lost in Amsterdam’s red light district and smoke so much black hash that your brain fried?”

  “Lindy, you’re a chosen child of this beautiful earth, so I can overlook your cold heart—”

  Quinn stood up, his alpha male intimidating the gangly hippie. “I think, Mr. Morton, you and your friend should get back to your compound. Sadie has heard enough of your crazy philosophic rambling.”

  Quinn eclipsed Bryan, and Sadie was distracted by his broad shoulders, which flexed under his—now she was sure—designer T-shirt. He crossed his arms, turned, and gave her a better view of The Life of Bryan, but she preferred Quinn’s ripped biceps. They were much safer and definitely saner.

  Bryan offered his hand to Quinn. “We haven’t met. You are?”

  “Right,” Quinn said, keeping his arms where they were. “I’d prefer not to chance it.”

  Sadie fought a tiny pang of sympathy for Bryan. He looked bewildered at Quinn’s refusal. Had he considered his handshake an effort or showing of goodwill between the two men? But then Bryan’s expression darkened. As he gaped at her, a question seemed to flash across his face. Who is Quinn to Sadie?

  Quinn sat down beside her on the edge of the table. He began to trace the length of her bare thigh with his fingertip

  She sucked in her breath.

  He caressed her leg, from her knee to the hem of her mini. It tickled. Heat spread through her.

  Quinn grasped her thigh gently and tucked his fingertips between her legs just under her skirt hem. She exhaled but barely moved. The rough tips of his fingers were like tinder, close to setting out to burn and within an inch of a scorching her. A tingle of nerves shot through her and she bit her bottom lip to stop a moan from slipping out. Goosebumps covered her arms.

  Bryan brushed off Bridget’s hand like a discarded paper towel.

  Quinn squeezed her inner thigh tenderly. He glowered at Bryan and then turned to kiss her.

  Sadie glanced past Quinn’s shoulder.

  Bryan’s face had drained of all color. His loony bird, Bridget, perched near his arm again and then they both stepped back. “I see the devil in that man, Sadie…be careful.”

  Sadie didn’t respond. She wasn’t about to break from Quinn’s delicious lips. She cl
osed her eyes and wrapped her arms around Quinn’s neck to give Bryan an image he’d never forget. The full amount—just how much his trip to Amsterdam cost him.

  Bryan and his groupie set out on their next pilgrimage.

  Quinn’s lips didn’t disappoint and didn’t stop. He angled his shoulders, which hid her from view of the general public and dappled kisses from her lips to her earlobe and took a tiny playful nibble.

  “Okay you two, he’s gone to part the Red Sea. Either cut it out or go get a room at the Hilton.” Lindy swatted at them with rhubarb greens. “Move along little horn dogs.”

  Sadie reluctantly parted from Quinn’s chest and sprang off the table. A jolt of adrenaline shot through her as Quinn’s hand, still on her thigh, slid up below her skirt and accidentally grazed the lace trim of her panties.

  “You move too quickly, Sadie. I didn’t mean that.”

  She yanked down her skirt and shook him off. “No harm, no foul. I should thank you. I’m wondering how long it will take for Bryan to come to from his Dutch trip. Jeez.”

  He laughed, showing off an easy smile that made Sadie relax.

  “I hope I didn’t misunderstand and compromise your relationship with that nut-case. What he really needs is a good kick in that deluded head of his. Sorry if I overstepped my bounds.”

  She slipped the bag of the now wilted greens from her arm and handed it to Lindy. “Do you mind delivering these to my dad when you go to the diner? I think I need to get home.”

  “Sure. No problem. You all right? You look paler than usual.”

  “I’m okay.” Sadie retrieved her bike which was propped against the side of Lindy’s white van and walked it out to the market’s emptying galley way. “Considering my escape clause just got scratched.”

  The cacophony of van hatches slamming shut and the screeching of metal tables and chairs, as they were dismantled, filled the stifling air.

  “See you, Lindy.” Sadie straddled the silver mountain bike and adjusted her butt on the seat, careful to keep her skirt from riding up. “Thanks, Quinn. Uh, for your…Quinn.”