Jamie Farrell

And this is Kimmie Elias.__immie inhaled a loud breath. __ had a dream you were thelove child of Bugs Bunny and the abominable snowman, but in my dream that was a good thing, and you lived in a mushroom that hadsecret passages into outer space,_ she said.And here he thought he__ already heard it all.

That was his biggest regret. He loved playing for aliving, loved hearing his songs on the radio, loved being on a stage and the road, but some days, he wouldn__ have minded going home every night to a sweet wife and a couple babies and fried chicken on the table. That was what Lindsey had taken from him. He__ fallen hard. He__ seen what his momma must__e felt for his daddy, he__ felt his world crack right down the middle when the girl who hadbecome his everything ripped his heart out of his chest.

He looked up from the paper he was scribbling on and offeredher a lopsided grin. __ey, sweet pea. You bring me anythingspecial?__he lopsided bit wasn__ odd, but there was something forcedabout it. __ot a fresh bag of cat food outside._ Cat food that she__bought with the twenty he__ left to pay for his ice cream.He pushed his makeshift drum set aside and rose with astretch. __ords every man dreams of hearing. Make my night ifyou say you got catnip too.__he tried not to giggle. She tried hard.But she couldn__ help herself. __xtra strength,_ she said.This time, his grin came out bigger, less forced. __oman ofmy dreams.___n your dreams,_ she said.

You could make friends with a possessed unicorn, couldn__ you?___robably so. We both fart rainbows.

But he knew how to kiss a woman until she needed his kisses more than she needed to breathe. Until her bones melted. Until she gave him exactly what he wanted.

Josh squeezed her arm. ____l behave,_ he murmured. __or now._ She__ going to pickle your cucumbers._ __e has more than one?_ Natalie whispered. __hat__ between me and Kimmie,_ Josh replied.

In the third cabinet under the counter, she hit the good stuff. __h! You have a KitchenAid._ __f you__e planning on caressing my mixer, you should know that might make my testicles explode,_ he said from behind her. Her cheeks went hot enough to glow. __hat would be awkward.

He was the most handsome nightmare she had ever met.

Heaven__ Bakery help them all.

Is he nice?_ one whispered over her gum paste roses for this weekend__ wedding cakes. __m, obviously,_ Kimmie said. __ou__e why he__ always coming around? I know he__ hot stuff in Chicago, but he always seems so stiff when he comes here,_ another added from the sink. __oney, you want them stiff,_ a third said_

Right on time, sugar._ Josh draped his arm around her shoulders and steered her through the lobby. __raffic okay?_ __eah, except when that alien spaceship landed on I-90 and then all those crickets jumped out to perform Beethoven__ Fifth on kazoos. Otherwise, clear sailing.

He was sort of Kimmie__ boss. And he wasn__ just a thorn in General Mom__ side _ he was a whole stinking rosebush. If the rosebush were six feet of hunky, cake-blaspheming, rich playboy.

Her eyes slid closed, her secret places pulsed in anticipation, and his lips settled onto the skin beneath her ear. That was magic. She held perfectly still. He pressed a kiss to her neck. Then another, lower. A third, even lower. She squirmed. He dropped his hands. __orry. I---_ __on__ stop,_ Kimmie whispered.

Your mother can__ hear you here._ __istance is no match for my mother__ eavesdropping and mind-reading skills._ __ had steel anti-mind-reading plates installed this week. Specially designed to be Marilyn-proof. Also sounds an alarm if she gets within two hundred yards of the building, and I sent the guards downstairs to ninja training. You__e safe.

If my mom sees you here, she__l ---_ __aper the walls with my innards while the innocents watch?

A fake ring. A fake engagement. Fake love. Everything was fake. Shiny and put together on the outside, empty on the inside.

Speaking of cupcakes, Will wants two dozen off your special menu to take on the road after the wedding._ __he, erm, peach kind?_ __he peach kind,_ Lindsey said. __ like the peach kind,_ Josh said. Mikey had named them Sex on a Peach. And they were Kimmie__ second biggest seller, after the Hairy Dicks, which were coconut cake balls strategically placed with Dahlia__ chocolate-covered, ice cream-filled bananas. And Josh__ frown had disappeared, and now he was grinning as if he knew it. All of it.