Frisked in Fondant: Tulle and Tulips, Book 6 (5 page)

“Dad picked me up and put me in the laundry room. He promised to be right back.”

“He didn’t come back.”

She shook her head. He’d shut her in the dark room and then left her there. She’d heard it all too clearly and it came back to life as she told Kyle about her first home invasion.

“Get away from her.” Dad’s command was muffled by space and the door, but it was the tone Gisella knew better than to ignore.

“Ron. No.” Mom sounded sad. Like she was crying.

Stronger than her dad’s command, or maybe just more violent, was another man’s voice. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Take whatever you want,” Dad said. “Just don’t hurt her.”

A thud reached Gisella a second before her mom cried out. “I don’t like being told what to do,” the man said.

Dad said something else Gisella couldn’t make out. Mom cried harder and begged the man to stop. Gisella sank into the tight space below the laundry room sink. Covering her ears offered no relief, so she held her breath and wished she could vanish into the wall.

“I couldn’t disappear,” Gisella said, coming back to the present, “but when I realized no one was coming for me I snuck out.”

Kyle brushed a tear off her cheek, making the memory slightly bearable.

“Mom and Dad were on the floor. Dad held Mom. They both had been shot.”

“Hearing that had to be horrible.”

“I don’t remember.” Shrinks had assured her it was normal to block certain details. Those same shrinks had blamed her eating problems on her grief. There was something to both theories.

“How you handled yourself last night makes mores sense now. You’re strong, and when anyone else would have given up or collapsed, you stood strong and fought to survive.”

“I couldn’t let those bastards make me beg and cry like my parents did.” She’d refused to give them the pleasure of her weakness.

Kyle turned more fully toward her. “You’re a remarkable woman, Gisella Sands.” He kissed the corner of her mouth. “Thank you for trusting me.”

Chapter Five

The Archies belting out “Sugar, Sugar” woke Gisella. Before opening her eyes she became aware of Kyle’s leg beneath her cheek. He laughed. “You are a woman full of surprises.”

Just like the night before, she felt safe. And treasured. “You’re still here.”

“You’ve been asleep less than an hour.” He brushed her hair away from her face. “Besides, you’ve been on me.”

She didn’t know how to handle his smile or his lack of concern about her drool on his chest. “Why didn’t you just roll me over?”

Kyle’s thumb brushed her lip. “I like you on me.”

Her phone rang again. She rolled sideways, stretching toward the bedside table for the phone. It was her best baker, who never called unless there was a pretty major problem. “Hey, Paige. What’s up?”

“The rolling machine’s broken and we have that six-tier cake to finish for tomorrow.”

“Damn.” Fondant could be hand-rolled, but it was a skill no one on her staff had mastered. “And I let Tommy T’s borrow the spare one.”

“I know you were already here today, and I promised I could handle this one.”

“I’ll come in.”

Paige sighed. “I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. Go home. I’ll be there in a little bit.”

Gisella loved everything about her job. The heat of the kitchen, the slide of her palms against fondant or chocolate, the scent of freshly mixed icing. She loved it all, and all of it brought her peace and calm when her world went insane.

She also loved sitting with Kyle, curled into his side with his warmth wrapping around her and his skin brushing his. Tension vacated her body when he was near. The ugliness of the past and recent home invasion memories lost their power beneath his touch.

He offered a different type of distraction from the darkness. He offered light, like her baking did, and she wanted the light.

“I can stay and help,” Paige said. “There’s the detail work to do too.”

Working alone was Gisella’s only hope of avoiding a continuous retelling of the invasion. She shook her head before considering Paige couldn’t hear her.

“Thanks for the offer, but I can handle it.”

“You sure? I don’t mind.”

Paige’s next argument would be that staying was her job, and any other time Gisella would have welcomed her help. “Positive. I’m kind of in a mood to work alone. Go home to your girl.”

“If I must,” Paige said with a chuckle. “She did want to go out tonight.”

“It’s a win for everyone.”
One of us should have a love life.

“Thanks. By the way, Lori stopped in to talk about her cake design.”

Which was Lori’s excuse for checking up on Gisella, because they had already planned the cake’s design and once Lori made up her mind she didn’t change it. “Thanks.”

Gisella hung up to discover Kyle watching her. Concern might be the dominant look in his eyes, if she allowed herself to believe he cared.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

“Cake emergency. I need to go to work.”

“There such a thing as a cake emergency?”

Aghast, she scoffed. “A bride facing a wedding day with no cake is scarier than any criminal you could face on your job.”

He nodded, but it was clear he didn’t agree. Few men would, which was okay. As long as he didn’t stand in her way.

“You want company?”

“Did you hear me send Paige home?”

“I did. Do you want company?” he repeated.

She did. Badly. Working alone at home was one thing. After hours, in her space behind her office, she became uneasy. The building’s security helped, but her past was what it was, which was a darkness-filled abyss where doubts about safety flourished.

Yeah. She liked the idea of company. Especially Kyle’s company. She couldn’t make herself ask in a way that may make him feel obligated. “I’ll be several hours.”

He leaned forward and smiled. “I’m going. We should make a stop before we go.”

“A stop?”

“I’ll be quick.” His tone suggested mischief, but she would handle it if it meant not being alone. She’d gotten good at being alone over the years, or gotten used to it. Still, the hours away from Kyle, after a quiet night with him, had reminded her what kind of company, relationship, she craved. The kind of relationship her parents had shared.

The stop turned out to be Kyle’s home less than five minutes from hers. She’d barely been alone long enough to look around his nicely decorated, open-concept living room and kitchen before he returned with what looked suspiciously like an overnight bag.

Choosing steadier ground than asking about his plans for the night, she waved a hand. “This strikes me as a little formal for you. And entirely impersonal.”

“You might call me a transient resident.”

“Why?”

“For the benefit of low rent, I move into a house realtors expect to be on the market for awhile. I make it look more like a home than an empty house. When it sells I move again.”

“And this is your idea of what a home looks like?”

“According to the store I bought the furniture from. He rested his hand on her back and led her to the door. His touch sent shivers along her spine. “I’m rarely home, so I don’t care much about the furniture.”

“Workaholic?”

“A little. And most of my spare time is spent with family or my partner.”

Listening to Kyle talk about himself meant she didn’t have to think about her own life, so she kept him talking all the way to the office. He told her about working for his dad and running with his mom. When he mentioned that they did Sunday dinner on a regular basis she couldn’t help wonder if they were supposed to have one tomorrow.

What were Sunday family dinners like? What kind of family in today’s world still had them? Would her family have done them if they’d lived?

“Gisella?”

“Yep.” She jolted with a jerk of her head. “Sorry.”

“Why?”

“I’m being bad company.”

“I’m terribly turned off.”

He’d meant it as a joke, but the words hit her insecurities and set her confidence spinning like a top. The brief taste of passion had been enough to breathe fresh fire into her dreams of love. Romanticism rioted inside, filling her with ideas not entirely safe.

When Kyle pulled into the parking garage at Tulle and Tulips, he backed into a brightly lit spot close to the building entrance. He turned off the car but didn’t make an immediate move to get out. He instead checked the mirrors and said, “Stay,” in a tone that commanded obedience. He was out of the car and rounding the hood before she could argue or agree.

“Did I sprout a tail and droopy ears since we left my house?”

“No.”

“Then don’t speak to me as if I’m a dog.”

“I didn’t…” He trailed off and then cleared his throat. “I didn’t mean… I’m sorry.”

For a gun-wearing detective who’d protected her and refused to let her go alone to the office, he blushed easily. It was the cutest, most endearing thing she’d ever witnessed.

Aware of what romantic moments looked like, having witnessed countless ones thanks to her job, she saw the change in his eyes when she stood and faced him. He looked at her the way grooms looked at their brides… He turned her to mush. “I’ll forgive you.”

“Thank you.”

“On one condition.”

A vertical crease deepened in the middle of his forehead. She hadn’t paid much attention to it before. It was sexy. “What?”

“You need to relax.” Irony about what she was about to say consumed her, but she said it anyway. Maybe one day she’d believe it for herself. “Just because you’ve seen what hides in the shadows doesn’t mean there’s always something there.”

He slid a finger along her temple, the touch tender but heavy enough to remind her of the bruise coloring her face. “I always see danger.”

The attention didn’t bother her, and she did feel safer with him near, but she didn’t want to come to rely on him. Fear’s debilitating force had controlled her life for years. It had pressed in on her willpower last night, terrifying her almost as badly as the impression of cold sharp steel slicing into her neck. Its seductive sway grew bolder when she’d been alone, had peaked at the sound of Kyle’s knock at her door and reared its head again at the idea of going to work.

“I feel safe with you beside me.”

His tension didn’t lessen, so she explained the security, what she knew of it anyway, in the hope it would settle him. “You met Trevor Masters at Darci’s wedding, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Trevor, or his company, Blue Chip Technologies, owns this building. His head of security is Jace.”

“The former Marine?”

“Yeah.” Talking must be working, because he moved less rigidly when he led her toward the entrance. “He lost his hand on his final tour. Since coming to work for Trevor he’s overhauled the security. I think he went as far as he did so he could feel like Misty’s safe when she works late.”

“She’s the florist?”

“Yes.” After a wave toward the camera, and whichever guard would be watching from his post at the front desk, she keyed in her code to the entrance.

“Are there a lot of late nights in wedding planning?”

“More than you might think.”

* * * * *

Kyle had asked Gisella for a place to work, so she’d set him up in her small office. The only furniture was a small round table with four chairs and another half-round table against the wall holding display cakes and a leather-bound binder. She’d said she only used the space for client consultations and did all her work in the bakery.

Curious about her work space, he’d followed her through a back door in her office into a kitchen. A large counter dominated the middle of the room. The outer walls housed a large oven and metal shelves that held supplies and equipment. The space wasn’t as large as he’d expected, but it looked like it was set up to be efficient. In one corner was a tall chair and drafting table that looked like it was used as a desk often.

Immediately upon entering the kitchen, she’d twisted her hair into some kind of knot and slipped on an apron. Giving her space to work, he went back into her office to touch base with Blake.

Asking the other detective for help that morning had stung, but he’d been strictly professional about it, so Kyle had asked him to take point for the night. Blake taking point didn’t mean Kyle hadn’t been reviewing evidence in his mind though.

Duty and desire both demanded attention. It was only with the help of Blake he was able to indulge both. Pulling his phone from his pocket, he called Blake.

“This is Blake.”

“It’s Riley.”

“It’s almost midnight.”

“Did I wake you?”

“No. Just making sure you know what time it is.”

“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about the previously hit homes.”

“Of course you have.”

“The pattern is too well organized. They have to have a plan.”

“You have ideas?”

“Possibly.” After spending a few hours earlier analyzing the pictures of all the scenes, comparing them to the map he’d created and then using Google’s 3D street maps to attempt narrowing the possibilities further, he pinpointed a possible neighborhood.

Kyle told him what he thought he’d found and what he’d look for if he were out there.

“I’ll call Burns. We’ll cover more ground with two of us patrolling.”

“Thanks. Let me know if you find anything.”

“Will do.”

With his hands tied until he heard from Blake or Burns, or until another call came in about another home invasion, Kyle left his phone and tablet on the table and went back to the kitchen.

The bruise on Gisella’s face had darkened and spread to cover her entire eye and part of her forehead. Her eyebrow and the top half of her eyelid were swollen and very painful looking. It would look worse before it got better, but she was still gorgeous.

Despite the serving of shit heaped on her plate, she’d been kind to her employee and sacrificed sleep to go to work. Damn if her lips didn’t curl into a slight smile as she used one hand to turn a spinner beneath a layer of cake and used the other hand to cover a cake with icing. A sheet of something white lay on the counter beside the cake. Best guess, it might be the fondant stuff she’d mentioned.

Kyle leaned against the wall and watched her. Six cake layers sat around the counter, already covered. Gisella worked on one and had another waiting its turn.

She smoothed icing over the cake and then laid the fondant sheet over that. Her hands moved over the cake, massaging and smoothing the fondant until no wrinkles existed. She cut away the excess fondant, and in the end, the two layers had perfectly smooth, white surfaces.

She took the completed layer off the rotator tray and put the next layer in its place.

She smiled the whole time. She moved effortlessly and looked at ease. The bruise and bandage were the only signs she wasn’t at a hundred percent.

The sight of them renewed his desire to find the assholes who’d hurt her and then beat them into the heart of hell. Curbing his thirst for violence, he forced himself to stay where he was.

Watching her shifted his thoughts of aggression to ones of passion. From the graceful lines of her neck to the swell of her breast and the flare of her hips, the woman was a seductress. He wanted to take her into his arms, kiss her, undress her, make love to her. He wanted to learn everything about her, and more shocking, he wanted to share himself with her.

She nodded with satisfaction when she stepped back from the last layer, now smooth and white.

“You enjoy your work,” he said.

“It’s been awhile since I did the work by hand.” She smiled and shrugged. “Convenience and speed makes it easy to forget the pride of going old school.”

He still didn’t move, afraid if he did he’d keep her from finishing. “What’s the next step?”

“Decorate the individual layers—some of them will get an airbrushed paint job—then stack them before adding the finishing touch of icing borders.”

“How long will all of that take?”

“Depends on the cake. For this one, there’s about three hours of work left, if I don’t screw it up.”

Three hours. “And you told Paige you would finish the whole thing?”

“I did.”