“I hope not.”
“Me too,” Pippa replied.
Flick thought about secrets and gossip and knew that a tsunami of talk would be generated when the town found out that Gina, their doyenne, was a borderline hoarder and a shopping addict. The cupcake turned to dust in her throat and Flick had to swallow a couple of times to get the crumbs to move down her throat.
“Uh, Pips?” She was trying to sound nonchalant but suspected that she sounded like she was being strangled instead. “Did you ever find out why Gina had that receipt for that storage locker?”
God, she hoped she had. Then they could get this situation out into the open and she could stop feeling so damn guilty. And split in two.
“Haven’t had a sec,” Pippa replied. “I’m crazy busy at the moment and, really, I’m pretty sure it’s a clerical error. It’s way down on my list of things to do.”
Well, hell.
“Why are you asking?”
Flick lifted a shoulder. “Just curious.”
“If you want to give them a call, feel free,” Pippa said, pulling the receipt out from under a folder on her desk. “You’d be doing me a favor.”
Flick stared down at the paper, wishing that she didn’t have to take it, knowing that if she did it was just another small deceit. Like her aunt’s piles of shoes and clothes, she was building her own heap of trouble...except that hers wasn’t tangible and, it had to be said, was a great deal less colorful.
“Are you okay?” Pippa demanded, waving the paper to get her attention.
Flick took the receipt and shoved it into her pocket. “Sure, why?”
“You’re acting weird.”
“Weird how?”
“Like there’s something you want to tell me but you don’t know how to.” Pippa leaned back in her chair and tapped the top of her pen against the edge of her desk. “The last time I saw you this edgy was when you told me you’d kissed Tommy Grant a couple of weeks after we broke up.”
Her cousin knew her too well. That was the problem with lying to someone who’d known you since you were in diapers together. Flick forced a smile to her lips. “I haven’t kissed any of your castoffs, Pips.”
Pippa sent her another searching look. “Good to know.”
“Not that you’ve had any castoffs lately,” Flick goaded her, trying to change the subject.
Pippa pointed at the door. “I have too much to do to waste any time discussing my sex life...get out.”
“You have to have a sex life to be able to have a discussion about it,” Flick teased, walking to the door.
“Who says I don’t?” Pippa called as Flick pulled the door closed behind her.
Well damn. Did she? Unlike her, Pippa wasn’t a blabbermouth and rarely, if ever, spoke about her relationships. Saying that was just mean because Pippa knew that not knowing would drive Flick crazy. She was tempted to go back in and demand some answers, but she reminded herself that she’d already dodged one bullet this morning.
There was only so much luck she could count on in a day.
On the other side of Mercy, Kai sat in his office, working his way through the pile of reports, audit statements, and correspondence that Sawyer thought he needed to see as part owner of Caswallawn. His butt had been plastered to the chair for a couple of hours and his brain was turning to mush.
He glanced at his watch. Five more hours and another ten piles of paper to work through and then he’d be on the road. Another three hundred minutes of fighting the urge to call up that sexy baker to ask her to meet him at his house, or her house, or anywhere, for last-minute sex.
Flick had been generous and sexy and giving and, God, he really wanted a repeat performance. He wanted to taste that spectacular mouth again, feel those lips tickling his stomach, drifting down further, and taking him into that warm, wet mouth.
A sharp rap on his door kept that fantasy from developing and he looked across the room as Sawyer sauntered in. His friend dropped into the chair opposite him and rested his hands on the arms of the office chair, his fingers drumming the varnished wood. Since Sawyer was normally too laid back to get worked up about anything, Kai frowned and leaned back in his chair.
“What’s up?” he asked.
“Problem,” Sawyer said.