Recipe For Love

Jack was sleeping hard when the doorbell rang.

It was one of those deep, hard-core sleeps where the ringing of the doorbell read just like a fire alarm in a dream that featured a muscled-stud wearing chaps and painting the wall of that weird little club on Fifth and Gardener.

It wasn't until the doorbell rang again, then again, that he managed to wake himself up and stumble across the apartment floor. "Just a sec!"

He tripped on one of the piles of clothes, bouncing off a set of unpacked boxes, and went down hard, his entire body jostling. "Fuck."

He wasn't unpacked enough to figure out where the fuck things were. Shit, he wasn't sure what Chris had fucking given him when he'd gotten thrown out. He sure as shit wasn't ready to answer the door at o-dark-thirty and...

He scrambled up as the doorbell rang again. "I'm coming, for fuck's sake! What on earth is the--"

He tore the door open, blinking into eyes the same color green as his own. "Rache?"

Those eyes filled with tears, and his teenaged daughter nodded. "I... Hey."

"Hey." He blinked at her again. Rache lived with his ex-wife in Boston, eleven hundred miles away. They spoke once a week and she came for a couple of weeks in the summer, maybe, and it wasn't fucking summer. Hell, it was cold, and she was pale, eyes dark and shadowed.

"What..." Surely she wasn't here for Christmas, right? Surely he would have remembered that?

"I...I came on the bus. On the bus. Daddy, I messed up. I messed up so bad."

"Did you kill someone? If you did, was it your mother?" He'd always thought he'd enjoy that job.

She shook her head and opened her coat. She was wearing a Boston College sweatshirt and the little garnet necklace he'd given her for her sweet sixteen, and... Oh.

Oh, fuck him raw.

"Is that...? Tell me you just got fat."

"Jesus, Daddy!"

"Sorry. It's late. I'm... I was dreaming."

She arched an eyebrow and tilted her head.

"Right. Sorry. Come on in. I'll make coffee. You are just eighteen, right? You didn't turn thirty and get married without warning your old man?" Maybe jokes would stop the tears.

"I didn't. I don't know... Daddy, I'm so scared." He found himself with an armful of wailing, shaking girl, and suddenly it was more than a decade ago and he was still the hero.

He blinked at the clock. Three-fourteen A.M.

Wow.

Right.

Coffee.

Possibly a beer.

Definitely Excedrin.

Then he'd try to wake himself up again.

Daniel worked on the cake for the Rosignol wedding, carefully doing the piping while keeping half an eye on Billy. The kid meant well, but he had the attention span of a gnat on crack and today he seemed especially unfocused.

When a tray of cupcakes, fully decorated no less, was upended, sending fancy, frosted cupcakes sailing through the air and crashing to the ground, Daniel gently put down his bag of icing and began to count to ten. Then twenty, then thirty.

He swore if Billy wasn't his sister's kid, Dan would have fired him ages ago.

Big brown eyes met his glowering gaze. "I'm sorry, Uncle Danny, I swear I didn't mean to do it."

"No one ever means to trash two dozen cupcakes. And it's Dan. Uncle Dan." Only his sister got to call him Danny. "You're more out of it than usual today." He narrowed his eyes. "Are you high?"

"Uncle Dan!"

"Well? Are you?"

"No, I am not. Jeesh. Thanks a lot." Billy grabbed the paper towel and a couple of dishcloths and start cleaning the floor.

Dan fetched the broom. "What's up, then?"

"Nothing."

Dan didn't say anything. He just let one eyebrow go up to let Billy know what he thought of that answer. Billy didn't make any other reply until they had the floor very nearly under control and Dan didn't push. He knew not saying anything was far more effective with Billy.

"You remember Rachel," the kid suddenly blurted out.

Rachel... Rachel... They'd had an intern at the bakery called Ra-- No, she'd been Andrea. "Um..."

Billy rolled his eyes. "I was hanging out with her last summer."

"Ah, right." Now he remembered the name. Annie had not been happy about it. She'd thought Billy and the girl had been getting far too serious. Of course, it had only been a summer fling, so clearly she'd been wrong.

"What about her?" he finally asked when Billy didn't seem to be inclined to continue any time soon.

"She's in town. She wants to see me. She's coming here at three."

"Yeah? And that's a good reason to throw my cupcakes on the floor?"

"No. Duh. I'm nervous."

"What's she coming to see you about?"

"I don't know!"

It was his turn to roll his eyes. Everything was drama with teenagers.

"Well, it's only eleven A.M. Do you think you can manage to actually help me out instead of making more work for me for the next few hours?"

Billy sighed, the sound long and very put upon. "I can try."

"Terrific. You can start by baking me another two-dozen cupcakes. Lemon vanilla. The recipe is in the book."

"Yes, Uncle Danny."

Kids. Dan bit his tongue and grabbed his pastry bag, taking a few breaths before getting back to his piping.

* * * *

"I can't do this, Daddy."

Jack looked at his daughter and counted to fifty again. "You have to. If you didn't want the boy to know, you should have stayed in Boston."

The waterworks started again. "You...you don't want me here?"

Oh for fuck's sake.

"Rachel Samantha Martin, quit it right now." It wasn't that he didn't want her here, he just... Jesus. "I could just cut the kid's balls off."

They pulled up in front of the address Rachel'd given him. The Sugar Oven. Why the hell were they meeting this boy at a bakery?

"You can
not
, Daddy! He's a nice boy!"

"Nice boys don't get high school girls pregnant, Rache."

Her eyes flashed, and Jack almost smiled. Almost. "It's not like I wasn't there, Daddy."

He winced. "Shut up, Rache." Last thing on earth he wanted to think about was his little girl doing the deed with some pimply-faced, octopus-handed Lothario.

They went into the bakery, and he had to admit the place smelled like heaven. The guy behind the counter making change for an old lady in a purple sweater looked like a slice of heaven, too. Tall, broad, with amazing arms poking out of the short sleeves of his chef's jacket, the guy had a killer smile.

There were no pimply-faced, octopus-handed Lotharios in sight.

Jack leaned against the doorframe and arched an eyebrow at Rachel. He wasn't going to leave her here to do this alone. No way.

The old lady took her change and her bag and headed out, and the stud's attention turned to him and Rachel. "Hi there, can I help you?"

"I... Uh... Is... Uh... I need to talk to Billy, please?"

Jack didn't say a word. He just stood and watched.

The guy glanced at the clock. "You must be Rachel."

When Rache nodded, the guy called out. "Billy! Rachel's here for you."

A kid who couldn't have been any older than Rachel came out from the back, wearing an apron over a white T-shirt and jeans, along with a little white paper hat. "Rachel? Hi." He smiled, snatched the hat off his head and came up to her, hugging her tight. "I couldn't believe it when you called and said you wanted to see me."

He then stepped back, looked down at her belly.

Rachel turned bright red. "H--hey, Billy."

"OMG! You're...are you?" he stammered, going as red as she was.

Something suspiciously like a groan came from the guy behind the counter.

God had a vicious sense of humor, really. When Caroline had come to him and said she was pregnant with Rachel, he'd at least not had an audience.

"Uh-huh. I'm sorry. I just... I am."

The kid stood there blinking at her for a minute. For two. Then he looked over at the guy at the cash register.

"Okay." Mr. Stud in white came around and put a hand on Billy's shoulder. "Why don't the two of you take a seat?" There were a cluster of four little tables with chairs around them, though the place was, blessedly, empty. "You want some milk or water or something, honey?"

"Uh-huh. This...this is my daddy, Jack Martin. Daddy, this is Billy."

"Hey."

Billy swallowed hard. "H-Hello, s-sir."

"I'm Dan, Billy's uncle. Go ahead and sit down. I'll get you both some milk. And cookies. Christ."

Rache's shoulder were hitching before they sat and Jack just stayed put, ignoring Caroline's phone call as "The Bitch is Back" rang through the bakery.

They were still all just watching each other when Dan came back with two glasses of milk and a plate of delicious-smelling chocolate chip cookies, which he set in front of the kids. Dan ran a hand through his hair. "Okay. So."

"It's due in March. I don't know if it's a boy or a girl yet." Rache hiccupped with tears. "I'm sorry. I just... I didn't know what to do."

"I... I..." Billy stuttered a few times, just staring at Rache like a deer caught in the headlights.

Dan put a hand on the kid's shoulder. "Are you and the baby both okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, we're good. I went to the doctor, heard the heartbeat."

Jack closed his eyes. Went to the doctor. Heard the heartbeat. Finished her classes to graduate early. Told her mother she was pregnant. Then took a bus to Texas.

"No disrespect intended, honey, but you are sure it's Billy's, right?"

"Uncle Dan!"

Jack's eyes flashed open. Oh, no he didn't. "Pardon me?"

"No. I'm not being an asshole here. It's a legitimate question."

The waterworks started again, Rache's chest hitching. "I haven't. There isn't. You were. I mean. You were my first."

Billy reached out, took her hand. "I know. Hey, I know. You're my girl." Billy looked at his uncle, frowning hugely. "She's my girl. She wouldn't cheat on me."

Cheat on him? Jack hadn't even heard this kid's name (at least he didn't remember hearing it) before last night. He was going to hit something.

The asshole also known as Dan just nodded. "Someone had to ask. Billy's not going to shirk his responsibilities here, so we needed to know."

Billy was red as a beet. "Do you think... Can we have a couple minutes to talk?" Billy nodded at him and at his uncle. "Like, alone."

"Rache?" Jack wasn't leaving his baby girl alone if she didn't want him to.

Rachel nodded. "I'm cool, Daddy. I need to talk to Billy, huh?"

"Come on, Jack. Let's give the kids a minute. I've got a bottle of something a little stronger than milk in the back."

"I could handle that." His fucking shoulders were climbing up around his ears and his phone was ringing again. "Ex-wife, sorry."

"I bet she's ready to commit murder. I know my sister will be when she finds out." Dan locked the front door and turned the sign to
Closed
, then led him into the back of the shop to the kitchen. There were cakes and cookies and pies and cupcakes everywhere. They went to a little desk at the very back of the room. Dan got a bottle of whiskey and a glass out of one of the drawers.

Jack rolled his head on his shoulders. "She's fucking furious. Wants me to send Rache back home."

But, hell, Rache was an adult, and she said she wanted to stay.

"Billy's momma is going to kill him." Dan poured a couple of shots from the bottle and set a plate of fancy-assed cupcakes down next to them.

Jack sat, not knowing what to say. Should he ask if the kid got a lot of girls pregnant? Maybe if the kid had another girlfriend? Money to help support the baby?

Dan drank his whiskey in one shot and sat back, sighing.