Vanilla Beaned (4 page)

She glanced around at the other shops to see what sort of competition they'd be dealing with, but other than a frozen yogurt shop, there were no food places, just clothes and Vegas kitsch. Okay, so that was a point in the “to franchise” column, and now Mel was really glad that Tate had missed checking the place out.

She would be sure to make it sound like it wasn't all that. She glanced at the storefront. It appeared to be under construction. The windows had boards over them, and the front was half painted a deep purple, as if whoever had started the job had run out of paint before they finished. The iron sign holder above the door was empty, as if just waiting for a new owner.

Mel tried to picture her retro fifties atomic Fairy Tale Cupcake sign swinging right overhead. She shook her head. No, it didn't fit in here. She was not buying into the franchise.

“I have the keys,” Scott said. He took them out of his pocket. “I'll need to go in and deactivate the alarm. As you can see, it's centrally located on the street. There are no other comparable businesses in the immediate area. And just so you know, I already had a woman looking at this property this morning and she was very, very eager to lease it.”

“Well, she's in luck since it's not really what I had in mind,” Mel said. She glanced at Holly. “None of this is.”

Stuart gave her an odd look and then turned to Scott and motioned for him to unlock the door. “Let's not decide anything until we see inside.”

“Right.” Scott put the key in the deadbolt.

“You know what, forget it,” Holly said. She put her hand on Scott's arm, keeping him from turning the key. “I don't know what I was thinking. I can't do this. I can't do anything. I'm just a stupid showgirl and that's all I'll ever be.”

With a sob, she turned and ran down the walkway toward the fountain in the center of the shops.

“Huh,” Mel said.

“What do you mean, ‘huh'?” Stuart asked. “If you were any colder to her, she would have frostbite.”

“I don't know what you mean,” she said.

“Sure you do,” he said. Stuart gave her a shrewd look. “Tate told me you were balking about franchising and I was prepared for a little resistance, but I didn't think you'd be so mean.”

“I am not mean,” Mel protested.

“Really? Then why is she crying?” He gestured to Holly where she sat on the edge of the fountain, doubled over and sobbing into her hands.

Mel felt her heart sink into her shoes. She
was
mean. No, even worse, she was a bully, and for no other reasons than she was scared of franchising and Holly was pretty. She was a horrible person.

Mel approached Holly, feeling about as low as a cupcake heading for the floor frosting side down. She hadn't meant to make Holly cry. She just wanted to keep her world in order—was that really so wrong? As she got closer, she tried to see Holly's face. If the woman was a pretty crier, she really didn't think she'd be able to offer her much comfort.

Holly had her face buried in her hands and she was sobbing, not delicate little sniffles but deep-throated wails that sounded like someone was stepping on a duck, repeatedly, so that was promising.

“Listen, I'm sorry,” Mel said. “I was being a big jerk and I shouldn't have said what I did. You are probably nervous enough, putting your life savings into a bakery without me making you doubt your abilities.”

Holly peeked at her over the tips of her fingers. “You were so mean.”

Mel blew out a breath. She would have protested, but Holly and Stuart were right. She had been mean. She glanced over to where Stuart and Scott stood waiting for them. Scott was checking them out and licking his lips. Mel had a feeling he was thinking impure thoughts about them, ew, or maybe he just had a nervous condition.

“I'm sorry,” she apologized to Holly again, hoping to get this over with. “It's just that this is more Tate's thing than mine, and when I saw you, well, you really don't look like a baker, and, oh, I have no excuse. I was just an ass. Can you forgive me? Can we begin again?”

“Yes, of course, but where is Tate?” Holly asked. “I dressed like this because of him.”

Mel felt her hackles rise, and now she had to rethink being nice to this bimbo. “You do know he's engaged, right? In fact, he's here with his fiancée, Angie DeLaura, who is our other business partner.”

“Oh, I know,” Holly said. “I didn't mean, oh, we are really struggling to communicate here, aren't we?”

She dropped her hands from her face and reached out to touch Mel's arm. Mel was relieved to see that Holly's makeup had smeared and the tip of her nose was red. She was not quite the blotchy beast that Mel turned into when she cried, but at least she wasn't a pretty crier, either.

“I'm not interested in Tate like that,” Holly assured her. “It's just that I find men more manageable when I have all of my weapons strapped on.”

“Weapons?” Mel asked. She looked to see if Holly was packing a gun.

Holly gave her a wry look, then she pointed to each body part as she spoke. “Hair extensions, false eyelashes, padded push-up bra, Spanx, butt lifter padded panties—”

“No, sir,” Mel protested.

“Yes, ma'am,” Holly said and she spun around to show Mel her impressive gravity-defying booty. Then she jiggled it and turned back around and said, “Support hose, platform heels, a half hour spent contouring my face, and about five pounds of makeup. Seriously, if I ditched all of this and passed you on the street, you wouldn't even recognize me.”

“I am stunned,” Mel said.

“And I am ashamed,” Holly said. “It's just that this bakery is so very important to me. I'm a showgirl, you know, and I want to make a different life for myself. I thought all of this would help me negotiate with Tate or at least keep him distracted enough that he wouldn't ask for my credentials, which of course, you did right away.”

“That's because all of this intimidated me,” Mel said, and she waved her hands at Holly's overall appearance. She gave Holly a sideways glance. “Can I pinch your butt?”

“What?” Holly laughed.

“I just want to see what a butt lifter padded panty feels like.”

“Why not? At least you asked first.” Holly shrugged.

She spun around and Mel tried to figure out how to pinch her butt in public without looking like a perv. She
settled for just jabbing Holly's butt with her pointer finger. Holly didn't even flinch. Mel figured what the heck and she pinched the other woman's behind between her thumb and forefinger. Holly didn't even register the touch.

“Wow,” Mel said. “Just wow.”

Holly turned back around with a smile. “They come in handy when you have to sit on a hard chair for any length of time.”

“I'll bet,” Mel said. They grinned at each other. “Well, should we try this again?”

“I'd really like that,” Holly said. She fished a tissue out of her purse and used the reflective surface of her smart phone to see her face while she cleaned up her ruined makeup.

“Hi, I'm Melanie Cooper, but everyone calls me Mel.”

“Holly Hartzmark, a pleasure.”

Mel gestured back to where Scott and Stuart were waiting. Scott had clearly settled in and lit a cigarette while Stuart cast him an annoyed look and moved away from him and his smoke while checking his cell phone.

“So, what made you choose this location?”

“It's close to the Strip, but I think when you see the inside of this place, you'll see the same potential that I do. It's not huge but it's big enough to start. We can always move when we get a following going and demand increases.”

Mel forced a smile. Holly's enthusiasm was a bit alarming, but Mel liked it so much better than Holly crying that she nodded and gestured for Holly to lead the way.

When Stuart saw them coming, he turned and shouted
something to Scott. Scott nodded and turned back to the door, unlocking it. Mel and Holly were still several storefronts away when Scott dropped his cigarette. He pulled the door to the shop open and was about to step on the cigarette at the same time, but there was a loud
whoosh
as flames shot up from the ground, covering Scott who screamed. Stuart dropped his phone and ran toward him, yanking off his jacket at the same time, and he began beating the flames off Scott, who had fallen to the ground.

The roar of an explosion sounded and the boards that had covered the windows blew out. Holly shrieked and Mel grabbed her and ducked down to the ground. Covering her head with her arm, Mel couldn't move while bits of board rained down over their heads and clouds of dust and smoke filled the air, making her eyes tear and her lungs burn.

When it stopped, she glanced up to see Stuart on the ground with the front door on top of him. She couldn't see Scott. Smoke and flames shot out of the opening where the boarded windows had been.

Mel waited until there was no more flying debris then she ran toward the storefront, shouting at Holly, “Call 911!”

The other pedestrians in the area had scattered with screams and shouts. Several were on their phones calling in the explosion while others were filming it and taking pictures.

Mel shoved the heavy wooden door off Stuart. He was unconscious with a gash on his forehead. But she didn't see any other signs of injury. She quickly undid his tie and used it to bandage the wound on his forehead.

Holly came running up to her. “The ambulance is on its way. Is he all right?”

Mel checked Stuart's pulse. “I think so, but I don't want to move him in case of an unseen injury.”

Holly nodded. “Where's Scott?”

They both glanced back at the doorway. There was a pile of rubble on the ground and a man's hand was just visible.

“There!” Mel cried. Holly ran to Scott while Mel grabbed a woman standing nearby, pulling her down beside her. “I need you to stay with him.”

The woman crouched beside Mel, looking scared. “I don't know how . . . what do I do?”

“Just stay with him,” she said. “Talk to him. If he wakes up, call me.”

Mel hurried to help Holly. They began pulling the debris off Scott and Mel was relieved when more people stepped up to help. The sight that met their eyes beneath the boards and bricks was fit only for a horror film.

Scott was severely burned. The left side of his face was a boiled scarlet red along with his arm and his chest. He was moaning even though his eyes were shut and he seemed to be drifting in and out of consciousness.

Holly knelt down beside him. “It's okay, Scott, we're here and we're going to get you to the hospital.”

Scott moved his lips as if to speak but nothing came out except more moaning.

“Shh,” Holly crooned. “It's going to be all right.”

She glanced up at a man standing beside her. He was
wearing baggy jeans, a sideways baseball cap, and was covered in tattoos and piercings.

“I need you to run to the ice cream shop and get cool,
not
cold, clean towels to put on his burns. Hurry!”

The man nodded and ran. Holly looked at Mel and said, “We have to get his jewelry off. These burns are going to start swelling.”

Mel nodded. She reached around his neck and unhooked the thick gold chain while Holly removed his ring from the pinky on his left hand. Mel glanced at his body and felt her gag reflex kick in as the smell of charred skin and hair infiltrated her nose.

“What about his belt?” she asked Holly.

Holly was swallowing convulsively and Mel knew the smell was getting to her, too. She wiped her nose on her arm and nodded. Together they carefully unhooked his belt buckle. Holly lifted his hips, while Mel pulled the belt free.

Scott moaned and the women froze, fearing that they'd hurt him. Then he licked his blistered lips and croaked, “If you wanted my pants off, all you had to do was ask.”

Holly choked out a sob-laugh and said, “Shut up. You're going to be fine. Do you hear me?”

The Hispanic man who'd run for the towels returned and Holly gently placed the damp cloths on Scott's burns. Sirens broke through the crowd noise and Mel glanced up.

“You've got him?” she asked. Holly nodded and Mel hurried back over to Stuart and the woman, still kneeling beside him.

She checked his pulse again and the gash on his head. His pulse was steady and the tie around his forehead was saturated in blood but the wound beneath looked to have stopped bleeding and was beginning to congeal. He didn't appear to have been burned.

Mel looked at the woman beside her. “Thanks.”

The woman nodded but didn't leave. Mel understood. Once you watch over a person in danger, you become invested in their well-being. She'd been here before.

An ambulance parked at the top of the street and three paramedics came running. They reached Mel first and she pointed to Stuart and said, “Head injury,” and then at Scott, “Severe burns.”

One man knelt beside Stuart while the other went to tend Scott. The third ran back to the ambulance to get the stretcher. Mel backed up to give the man room to work. While he checked Stuart's vitals, he asked, “What happened?”

“We were here to look at leasing a property,” Mel said. “When Scott, the man who is burned, unlocked it and opened the door, there was an explosion and the whole place went up in flames.”

More sirens sounded. The smoke had cleared and there didn't seem to be as much fire coming from the storefront. The fire truck pulled in behind the ambulance and the firefighters jumped off the truck and came toward them, hauling on their gear as they ran.

Several men started pushing the crowd back. Holly came to stand beside Mel as Scott was put on the stretcher
and taken to the ambulance. Another stretcher appeared and Stuart was placed on it. He was unconscious.

“Are you family?” the paramedic asked. Both Mel and Holly shook their heads.

“Business associates,” Mel said. She noticed that she sounded apologetic as if she wished she could offer them more of a relationship than the acquaintanceship she had with both men.

“Where are you taking them?” Holly asked.

“UMC,” the paramedic said. “He'll get excellent care there.”

His partner arrived and they pushed off with Stuart between them before Mel could ask any more questions.

“University Medical Center,” Holly explained. “It's a hospital northwest of the Strip.”

“We need to evacuate the area!” One of the firefighters came at them at a run. “There's gas in the building. We need everyone to leave the area.”

Mel and Holly exchanged a look and began to back away.

“Gas?” Mel asked. Then she felt dizzy as she realized it had been Scott's cigarette that had probably ignited the gas into a fireball. “Could a cigarette have caused this?”

The fireman looked at her. “Explain.”

“The man who was burned was smoking a cigarette. He dropped it to the ground right before he opened the door.”

“If the gas was concentrated enough, yes,” the fireman said. “That will help us deal with this. Thanks.”

“Is the gas coming from a line?” Holly asked. Mel knew Holly was thinking the same thing that she was. As bad as it was that Scott and Stuart had been hurt, and that was horrible, a gas leak meant that this could have happened after they'd opened their shop, killing staff and customers.

The fireman looked harried. “No, in fact, it appears someone left the gas oven in the kitchen on. The whole shop was full of it. Damn lucky it was caught early or it could have blown up the entire street.”