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Izzie shot her cousin-who sat on the other side of the bakery kitchen-a glare. “You want to do this?”
Bridget, who was pretty and soft-looking, slid a strand of long, light-brown hair behind her ear. “You’re the baker. I’m the bookkeeper.” She sipped from her huge coffee mug. “So why did you walk away? You’ve wanted him forever.”
“Maybe. But I don’t want forever in general,” she reminded her cousin as she floured the countertop and began to work the dough with a rolling pin. “You know I don’t want this for any longer than I’m forced to have it.” She glanced around the kitchen, where she was working alone to finish up the dessert orders for their restaurant clients. Including Santori’s.
Not that she’d be the one delivering their order…no way. Her delivery guy would be in to take on that task shortly.
“I know. You’ll be gone again once Uncle Gus is well enough to come back to work.” Bridget didn’t sound too happy about that, which Izzie understood. Her sweet, gentle-natured cousin was an only child, and she’d practically been adopted by Izzie and her own sisters. They’d been very close growing up.
Izzie missed her too. But not enough to stay here. As soon as her father recovered, and her mother no longer had to nurse him at home full time, Izzie would be out of here for good. Whether she’d go back to New York and try to reclaim some kind of dancing career she didn’t yet know. But her future did not include a long-term stint as the Flour Girl of Taylor Street.
It also didn’t include becoming the lover of any guy who her parents would see as the perfect reason for Izzie to stick around and pop out babies. Even a lover as tempting as Nick.
“So how’s your life going?” she asked her cousin, wanting the subject changed. “How’s the job?”
Bridget leaned forward, dropping her elbows onto the counter. “I guess I’m not very good. My boss obviously doesn’t trust me, there are some files he won’t even let me look at.”
“Weren’t you hired to keep the books at that place?”
Bridget, who’d gone to work three months ago for a local used car dealership right here in the neighborhood, nodded. “They’re a mess. But every time I ask him for access to older records, he practically pats me on the head and sends me back to my desk like a good little girl.”
Izzie assumed her cousin meant her boss figuratively patted her on the head. Because, though Bridget was in no way a fireball like Izzie and her two sisters-she wasn’t a pushover, either. It might take her awhile to get her steam up, but Izzie had seen glimpses of temper in her sweet-as-sugar Irish-Italian cousin. That boss of hers obviously hadn’t gotten to know the real Bridget yet. Because she was about the most quietly stubborn person Izzie had ever met…as anyone who’d ever tried to beat her in a game of Monopoly could attest.
“Why don’t you quit?”
Her cousin lifted her mug, leaning her head over it so that her long bangs fell over her pretty amber eyes. She looked as if she had something to hide. And if Izzie wasn’t mistaken, that was a blush rising in her cheeks.
A blush. Cripes, Izzie didn’t even know if she remembered how to blush. The last time her cheeks had been pinkened by anything other than makeup was when she’d burned herself while lying out too long on the deck of a cruise ship a year ago.
Trying to hide a smile, she murmured, “Who is he?”
Her cousin almost dropped the mug. “Huh?”
“Oh, come on, I know there’s a guy.”
“Um…well…”
“For heaven’s sake, you’re looking at a woman who used to schedule two dates a night, just come out with it.”
Chuckling, her cousin did. “There’s this new salesman.”
“A used car salesman?” Izzie asked skeptically.
Frowning, Bridget asked, “Do you want to hear this or not?”
Izzie made a “lips-zipped” motion over her mouth.
“His name’s Dean,” Bridget continued. “Dean Willis. And Marty hired him about a month ago. He’s got cute, shaggy blond hair and big blue eyes-well, I assume they’re big. They could look bigger because of the thick glasses he wears.”
She watched Izzie, as if waiting for a comment. Izzie somehow managed to refrain from making one.
“He’s sold more cars than anyone else because he’s just so…quiet. Easy to talk to. Unassuming.” Sighing a little, Bridget added, “And he has the nicest smile.”
Izzie had never heard her cousin go on like this about a man. Must be serious. “So, have you gone out with him?”
