Sweet Sinclair (Masters of the Castle) (11 page)

“If that was a prime example of how well—”

“My friend, you really do not want to finish that sentence.” Jackson tried to catch Parker’s shoulder, to pull him back a step, but Parker ripped free and then he was advancing on her.

“—of how well you take care of yourself, sweetness, you’re God damned lucky I don’t chain you to my bed where I can keep a closer eye on you!” He grabbed her shoulders, giving her a shake now too. It might have been softer, gentler than the way he’d grabbed onto Charlie, but it certainly didn’t feel that way right now.

“Get out of my store!” she shouted, kicking, thrashing and punching her way out of his hands. She shoved him, pushing with all her might just to get him to yield a single backwards step. “Get out! I don’t ever want to see you again! Get! Out!”

Jackson pinched the bridge of his nose.

His grey eyes as cold as the display case had felt only moments before, Parker took a single, slow, deep breath and then he nodded. “Fine.”

Jackson pinched the bridge of his nose even harder. “Don’t do it,” he warned to no one, since no one was listening anyway.

Snapping about on his heels, Parker stormed out of her shop and disappeared down the sidewalk beyond the view of her storefront window.

That he went at all hit her like a punch. Yes, she’d told him to go, but even as she’d said it, she hadn’t really meant it. She sucked at air, suddenly so shockingly bereft that it was everything she could do not to fall to her knees. She felt stretched, right to the very point of snapping, and so brittle that she just knew, if she did snap, she’d never be able to come back together again.

She began to shake.

“Hey.”

She turned to look at Jackson. She’d forgotten he was there. She latched onto him with her eyes, like he was the last anchor of security she had and the only thing currently keeping her from drowning.

Shaking so hard it felt like the floor was quaking, she gasped for air. Everything before her was blurring behind a fast sheen of watery tears.

“Hey.” Jackson came to her, catching her chin in his big hand and making her look at him. “Breathe,” he told her. “In.”

She sucked air when he did, grateful just for someone to cling to, even if it was the wrong someone.

“Out.”

She followed his lead, letting out all her air the same way. In, and out again. They stood there, holding each other and just breathing until from somewhere inside her she found the strength not to burst into useless tears. She blinked them back. She even managed to get her legs to solidify somewhat, although she still needed Jackson’s strong arm to help her to his van. Walking on them felt like walking on rubber. He practically picked her up and put her in the front passenger seat. Parker was not in the vehicle.

“Where is he?” she asked, so ashamed of her outburst that she didn’t even know if she had the right to ask.

Jackson didn’t pull any punches either. “He brought his own car. He thought the two of you could ride back together privately and talk.” He patted her knee. “Don’t worry. He’ll be calmed down enough to reason with by the time you both get there. In the big scheme of things, this really isn’t as insurmountable as you might right now think.” He pointed at her sternly, but he was smiling when he added, “Don’t forget to breathe now. In and out. I’m going to go back and get your stuff. Give me the keys to your shop so I can lock up.”

He shut the door, sealing her into the front of that van where she had nothing else to do but replay the entire awful day over and over in her head. She stared out the untinted windows at all the people passing in cars and walking in and out of other shops, and watched while they stared right back at her.

She felt stupid. She felt sorry.

She really hoped she hadn’t just ruined one of the best things to have ever happened to her.

And when this whole silly party was over and done with, she really, really hoped she didn’t lose her store.

* * * * *

Parker got halfway back to the Castle before abruptly pulling over onto the graveled shoulder. He threw his car into park, but he didn’t shut it off.

He wanted to hit something, but he didn’t.

He wanted to hunt this Charlie person down and do more than give him a boot to the backside, but he wasn’t going to.

He wanted to drive like hell all the way back to Granger, grab Sinclair by the shoulders and shake an explanation out of her, but he’d sooner cut off his own arms than hurt her. Well, except for the really, really good spanking his palm was currently itching to deliver, except that he wouldn’t dare touch her in the mood he was in right now.

He felt like he was smothering under a thousand regrets, but if he had it to do all over again, he couldn’t for the life of him think what he’d do differently. From the moment he’d seen that “help me” look on her face, he’d just lost it.

The cellphone in his back pocket chimed the receipt of a text message.

He ignored it, but when it chimed again a half-second later, stifling a sigh, he dug it out and looked at the message.

Your sub just had a panic attack
, the first one read. The second was much more succinct:
Jackass.

He dropped the phone on the passenger seat and was about to whip the car around when the third message chimed in.

On our way back now. Be ready in twenty minutes to pick up the pieces.

Although his car was there, Parker was nowhere to be seen when Sinclair and Jackson arrived at the Castle. A long line of kitchen help came out to take half the totes to the ballroom and the other half to the kitchen. Struggling to keep herself together, Sinclair lingered in the ballroom just long enough to realize Parker wouldn’t be coming and then she followed the line of totes to take stock of the kitchen that had been made available to her on this, the last night before the Castle’s first Valentine’s Day party.

She was met at the door by Cook Connie, the same gruff, frowning woman she remembered from the day she was hired. Cook Connie made no bones about her displeasure at having an interloper taking charge of her kitchen. That the Castle cook did, in fact, have two other fully operational kitchens made absolutely no difference to her. She was still cross and resentful, and she let Sinclair know exactly how she felt.

“I’ve been told to give you access,” she started off by saying. “That doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.”

The tour of the kitchen pretty much went straight downhill from there.

“My kitchen bitches are mine. If you need help, you ask me. You go above my head and I’ll make a rotisserie out of your scrawny ass.” Looking her up and down, the stocky cook turned on her heel and beckoned. “Follow me. I don’t have time for this crap, so keep up. Ask questions if you have to, but if they’re stupid ones, I’ll ball-gag you. This is the pantry. It’s fully stocked. Any modern appliance you need, you’ll find on the far shelves. If you take it down, you damn well better put it back. I’m not your maid or your mother, and I want it all back where you found it, am I clear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Stopping mid-step, Cook Connie turned around and looked at her. “I look like a ma’am to you?”

No, but she did look like one of the scariest—
if not
the
scariest—woman Sinclair had ever met. She didn’t say that, however. This was not turning out to be a good day no matter what she did, and she still felt so brittle and raw right now, she didn’t think she could bear any more confrontations. “I didn’t mean any offense.”

Tipping her head, Cook Connie edged a step closer. “When and if you ever actually do offend me, little girl, don’t worry because you’re going to know it. You can say “Yes, Cook Connie
,” and “No, Cook Connie,” and you keep your ma’ams to yourself, you understand?”

“Yes, Cook Connie.”

Another moment of silent speculation passed before, with the barest nod, the Castle chef continued the tour. “Walk-in fridge is here. Freezer is around the corner. Anything you need, I’ve been told to make available to you, so fine. If we don’t have it or you can’t find it, you talk to me. You use it, you put it back. You make a mess and leave it for me to clean up, I’ll skin your ass and make a purse out of it. Got it?”

“Yes, Cook Connie,” Sinclair said, but she was starting to bristle just a bit.

“I’m giving you a spic and span kitchen,” the terse cook said, pointing out the bank of ovens on one wall and the cooling racks lined up neatly along the other. “I expect to get it back in the same condition. If I don’t, I’ll—”

“Torture me in some truly sadistic way and make me really sorry I ever met you?” The minute those words were out, Sinclair regretted them, but probably not half as much as Cook Connie could have made her regret them. Though when she snapped around on her heels and stepped stiffly right up in front of Sinclair, she looked like she wanted to try.

“Are you having a tough day, baby cakes?” she said, her tone both soft and mocking, hard and yet strangely gentle all the same time.

Had it been any other day, Sinclair might have been able to hold herself together, endure what little time she would have to spend with this truly unpleasant woman, maybe even let her comments wash over her and roll away. Like water off a duck’s back, as the saying went. But today wasn’t a normal day and, having dangled for what felt like hours now at the end of what she could take, to her horror, she found herself tearing up right in front of the hard-as-nails Cook Connie. She’d have sooner cried in front of Casey.

“No, Cook Connie,” she breathed, fighting to keep her tone steady and the tears from falling.

The Castle cook looked at her, the dark brown of her eyes piercing right through the middle
of Sinclair and all the way into her fragile soul. “Was someone mean to you today?”

“I don’t have to put up with this shit.” She was breaking, trembling, and her voice was trembling along with her.

“No, you don’t,” Cook Connie softly agreed, a tight ghost of a smile curling at the corners of her mouth. “So why are you?”

Tiny fissuring splinters cracked her. She weakened, and almost as if the words were being pried out of her against her will, said, “Because I need the money, or I’ll lose my store.” And there was a chance that, no matter what she did, it was already beyond her ability to save. She didn’t know what she’d do if she lost her dream now. How could she live in a town like this, where everybody looked at her the way they’d looked at her today and where Casey—Casey, of all people!—took everything that was important away from her?

Except that Casey hadn’t won everything yet, and Sinclair hadn’t yet lost anything.

She breathed in a shaky breath, clawing her way up out of this quagmire of despair. She still had a chance. She could still make it. There were more than fifteen thousand people in this rotten, piss-ant city and Casey couldn’t possibly know or have sway with all of them.

“Atta girl,” Cook Connie murmured, a glimmer of hard approval broadening her slim smile. “You’re not beat yet, are you?”

Sinclair made herself shake her head. She also lifted her chin, dragging the tattered remains of her stubbornness in tight around her. “No, Cook Connie.”

“Ha,” the hardened woman said softly. “Don’t you dare forget it again. And you—” Cook Connie’s dark eyes slid past Sinclair, locking onto something just beyond her shoulders. “She’s my kitchen bitch now. The day I learn any one of these tears is because of you, I
will
make you regret whatever decision brought you here.”

Startled, Sinclair turned to find Parker standing in the open doorway. He was staring right at her, as dark as his leathers, his expression impossible to read. He gave Cook Connie only the barest glance and that only because as she slipped past him on her way out of the kitchen, she paused and whispered something too soft for Sinclair to hear.

Parker said nothing. He waited until she was gone and then he shut and locked the door behind her. It was a big kitchen, but like the ballroom, with him locked in there with her, suddenly it became much too small.

“What did she say?” Sinclair asked.

At first she didn’t think he was going to answer her, but then Parker took a breath and came in a few steps closer. “She said she likes you.”

“I think she’s got to be one of the scariest people I know.”

“Probably,” Parker agreed, and that was the end of that conversation.

She should apologize for earlier, Sinclair knew, for everything she’d said to him that she’d regretted ever since, but the words wouldn’t come. Not even a simple “I’m sorry.”

Turning from the door to the line of aprons hanging on hooks along one wall, he took two down and passed her one. “Let’s get to work,” he said, as if that entire argument earlier had never happened. Except that it had and it wasn’t resolved; it just hung in the air between them, making the silence too heavy to stand.

“Parker,” she tried, but stopped because friends called each other by their first names and she so badly wanted to be more right now that just his friend. She wished she were wearing his collar. She wished she could just break and call him “Master,” but she didn’t.

Resting his hands on the stainless steel surface of a large cooking island, Parker only looked at her, smiled wanly and said, “What are we doing first? I am yours to command.”

Oh, how she wished it were the other way around.

* * * * *

They made pan after pan after pan of brownies, tartlets and tea cakes that had yet to be frosted, but at least they were baked. They filled serving tray after serving tray with big puffy marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate squares and Hers
hey hugs and kisses, among many other types of candy. They loaded three entire tower racks full of heart-shaped sugar cookies fresh from the oven, and Parker had every expectation that when it came time for him to collapse into bed at the end of this day, heart-shaped sugar cookies was exactly what he was going to see dancing behind his eyelids. He was tired. His back ached from leaning over that damned island and his feet were killing him, but he kept at it because Sinclair kept at.

He didn’t know how much more she wanted to do—every spare shelf in the walk-in fridge was now occupied and he was having to scrounge in other kitchens to find enough containers for all the sprinkles and coconut shavings and chocolate chips and chopped Oreo and Butterfingers, to name just a few of the toppings that she planned to set out near the chocolate fountain she was currently scrubbing out at the sink. It had come new out of the box, yet she was determined to make sure it was sanitary before she used it. He would have thought new from the box pretty much was sanitary, but Sinclair was adamant. She was also incredibly tired, but for the past few hours, she had been moving at an increasingly frenzied pace, as if no matter how much she got accomplished, she just kept falling further and further behind.

They might be, Parker honestly didn’t know. Though it wasn’t yet midnight, it was still late and less than sixteen hours stood now between them and the start of the party. That was a lot of pressure to have to take, and yet, he realized, if he didn’t step in soon, she was going to work herself into an absolute frenzy and probably fall apart all over again.

“Time for a break,” he announced, taking his apron off.

“You go ahead.” Pausing to swipe her arm across her forehead, Sinclair returned to her scrubbing. “I have too much to do. I can’t afford… not right now…”

Parker left his apron draped over a corner of a pan rack,
and then he went to her. “Fifteen minutes isn’t going to sink this ship.”

“That’s what you think,” she muttered, but he took the pieces of the waterfall and the scrub brush out of her hands anyway. “Parker, I…
I can’t! Maybe in another hour…”

“Now,” he told her, removing her wet apron as well. “Come on. Captain Tight Pants commands it.”

He regretted those words the second he saw her flinch, but she also stopped arguing and fell quietly into step alongside him, allowing him to lead her out of the kitchen and into the cool night air outside on the concrete patio slab. They sat down at one of the picnic tables.

“Ow,” he said, the only acknowledgement he offered his poor, aching feet.

It was dark, the only lights being the many amber glows that escaped the many Castle windows above them and the kitchen door they’d left open to help cool the place. It was amazing how hot it got with all the ovens going.

Elbows resting on the table, Parker watched Sinclair pick at her fingernails and tried to think how best to approach all the things that needed to be said right now.

She found her tongue first. “Thank you for helping me tonight.”

He was a little surprised at that, actually. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”

She traced the wood grain lines in the picnic table so she wouldn’t have to look at him. “I hoped you would, but when I didn’t see you—”

“You’d have seen me if you’d come to the ballroom.”

Her hands stilled and she looked at him. “I did.”

“
We must have just missed one another. I waited there for you until Jackson brought the totes. He told me you were working in the kitchen instead, so I got a handful of Little Maids together and have them now putting all those chocolates you brought into each of the gift bags we made yesterday. They’re going to wrap the tops in ribbons, just like you planned, and Mr. Grimsley is standing over them to make sure any and all taste tests are met with swift consequences, so that should keep sampling to a minimum. Hopefully, you brought extras.”

“I did.” Her eyes were wide and filled with gratitude. “So, we can mark that off our list. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, but that’s not what I want to talk about. And I don’t want to talk about what’s left to be done, either.”

She immediately looked back down at her fingers, forcing him to reach across the table and grasp her chin. He brought her eyes back up, but they went everywhere except where he wanted to see them.

“Look at me,” he said firmly.

It took several aborted attempts before she could make herself comply. But before he could even begin to scold her, she surprised him a second time. She scolded herself.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. A wet shimmer of tears began to build in her eyes, catching the dim lighting. “I don’t know why I got so angry, but I took it out on you and it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault at all. If you hadn’t come when you did, I… I don’t know what would have happened. Charlie’s never been like that before. Please don’t be angry with me, Parker. Today has been the worst day of my life; I know I deserve it, but I don’t think I can take it if you’re mad at me now too.”