The Cupcake Queen

“Did anybody ever tell you that you look great in mud?”

“Sorry,” Owen said. “I’d like to return the compliment, but no dice. You’re just not the mud type. Let me help you get it off.”

“No, I don’t want your help.”

“Too bad, because I really want to do it.”

It was a primitive form of play, as old as man, as enticing as woman. Winding his hand through her long, wet hair, Owen tugged just hard enough to let her know he could.

Olivia let him draw her back until her gaze met his, only inches separating them. And in that small space where their breath meshed, the air was hot enough to turn the rain to steam….

Dear Reader,

Spring is a time for new beginnings. And as you step out to enjoy the spring sunshine, I’d like to introduce a new author to Silhouette Special Edition. Her name is Judy Duarte, and her novel Cowboy Courage tells the heartwarming story of a runaway heiress who finds shelter in the strong arms of a handsome—yet guarded—cowboy. Don’t miss this brilliant debut!

Next, we have the new installment in Susan Mallery’s DESERT ROGUES miniseries. In The Sheik & the Virgin Princess, a beautiful princess goes in search of her long-lost royal father, and on her quest falls in love with her heart-meltingly gorgeous bodyguard! And love proves to be the irresistible icing in this adorable tale by Patricia Coughlin, The Cupcake Queen. Here, a lovable heroine turns her hero’s life into a virtual beehive. But Cupid’s arrow does get the final—er—sting!

I’m delighted to bring you Crystal Green’s His Arch Enemy’s Daughter, the next story in her poignant miniseries KANE’S CROSSING. When a rugged sheriff falls for the wrong woman, he has to choose between revenge and love. Add to the month Pat Warren’s exciting new two-in-one, My Very Own Millionaire— two fabulous romances in one novel about confirmed bachelors who finally find the women of their dreams! Lastly, there is no shortage of gripping emotion (or tears!) in Lois Faye Dyer’s Cattleman’s Bride-To-Be, where long-lost lovers must reunite to save the life of a little girl. As they fight the medical odds, this hero and heroine find that passion—and soul-searing love—never die….

I’m so happy to present these first fruits of spring. I hope you enjoy this month’s lineup and come back for next month’s moving stories about life, love and family!

Best,

Karen Taylor Richman

Senior Editor

The Cupcake Queen

Patricia Coughlin

For Amy Mullervy,

with gratitude

PATRICIA COUGHLIN

is a troubling combination of hopeless romantic and dedicated dreamer. Troubling, that is, for anyone hoping to drag her back to the “real world” when she is in the midst of writing a book. Close family and friends have learned to coexist peacefully with the latest cast of characters in her head. The author of more than twenty-five novels, she has received special recognition from Publishers Weekly and Romantic Times. Her work also earned her numerous awards, including the prestigious RITA from Romance Writers of America. Ms. Coughlin lives in Rhode Island, a place very conducive to daydreaming.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter One

O livia hated to lose. To be truthful, it went beyond hate. She abhorred losing, to anyone, under any circumstances, but she especially loathed being bested by one of her four older and frequently infuriating brothers.

Together, they had seen to it that she learned to think fast and stand her ground at a very young age. Now twenty-four, she no longer had to dodge water balloons or check for reptiles before climbing into bed, but their propensity for teasing and practical jokes persisted, and she was adept at deflecting, countering or ignoring their efforts as the situation warranted. Sometimes she even enjoyed the challenge, and she dearly loved her brothers. She just flat-out refused to lose a wager to one of them…particularly as ridiculous a wager as the one she’d allowed herself to be roped into this time.

Olivia winced just thinking about it. If Brad had challenged her privately, she would have found some way to resist the bait. But no, her brother had tossed down the gauntlet in the middle of the Historical Association’s annual ball, in front of dozens of amused witnesses. In Baltimore society, it didn’t get any more public than that. She’d had no choice but to accept the challenge on the spot, and now pride and her own mulish nature demanded she follow through. Precisely as Brad had anticipated when he set her up, she thought with chagrin.

Pride and pigheadedness. The combination had landed her in a tight spot on more occasions than she cared to recall. But this time she’d even outdone herself. This time she was scaling new heights of absurdity. There certainly was no sane explanation for crawling out of bed at what she deemed the crack of dawn on this brisk October morning, to drive to some godforsaken little town in the backwoods of upstate New York.

She kicked the large suitcase by her side.

“Ouch.”

It was packed solid. So solid she’d had to jump up and down on it before she could close the zipper. The “Rules According to Brad” limited her to one suitcase. That presented a formidable challenge to a woman who required a minimum of two bags for a weekend jaunt, and in the end she’d resorted to cheating by wearing everything she couldn’t stuff into the suitcase.

There was a reason the layered look went out of style, she reflected, squirming uncomfortably inside a turtleneck jersey, denim shirt and three sweaters. She didn’t even want to think about how she must look. Not that it was likely to matter much where she was headed. For all she knew, the layered look was still the rage in Danby.

She reached for the oversize tote bag which she defied Brad to call a second suitcase and was rummaging through it for a map when her mother joined her in the foyer of Twin Brooks, the grand Georgian-style mansion that had been home to the Ashfields for nearly a century.

“What time do you expect Bradford?” Helen Ashfield asked her youngest, and most exasperating, child.

“I told him I was leaving at ten sharp and he’s supposed to be here to see me off. Which gives him—” Olivia glanced at her watch “—five minutes. Damn, why didn’t I think to stipulate that if he isn’t here on time, he forfeits?”

“Perhaps because you were too busy making a spectacle of yourself, throwing arrows…”

“I think you mean darts.”

“Of course, darts,” her mother conceded, oozing disapproval. “That makes it infinitely more dignified than tossing arrows at a map stuck to the wall of the Continental Ballroom.”

Olivia shrugged. “It seemed the most logical way to choose a destination under the circumstances.”

“Logical? Logical? There is not one scintilla of logic in this latest…escapade that you and your brother have cooked up.” She sighed. “I thought Bradford had more sense.”

“Well, he doesn’t.” It did not escape Olivia that her mother had not said that she thought she had more sense.

“Does that mean you are obligated to go along with whatever asinine scheme he proposes?”

“What can I say? He has a way of bringing out the worst of my inner child.”

“Please don’t joke, Olivia. Your father and I are very worried about you going off alone like this.”

“Mom, I’ve been traveling alone for years.”

“Traveling, yes. Not living and working and fending for yourself in some strange place. I cannot for the life of me understand why— Don’t say it.” She raised her palm to halt Olivia’s response. “I’m weary of hearing you say it’s the principle of the matter…whatever that means. How principle can be at stake in such a foolish, not to mention dangerous, stunt, eludes me.”

“We’re not talking about Beirut, Mom. I’m going to a town named Danby, population 14,000, for heaven’s sake. I suspect the crime rate there is lower than in Baltimore.”

“I don’t care what the population is. Every one of them is a stranger. And it’s not as if you’ll be spending a weekend. You’ll be there for months…”

“Eight weeks.”

“Alone, with no family, no job, no friends, no one who even knows who you are, for heaven’s sake.”

“That’s the point,” Olivia countered wryly, bringing a familiar, long-suffering expression to her mother’s face.

The sunlight streaming through the leaded glass windows of the foyer might have been hard on the appearance of another woman in her fifties, but not Helen Templeton Ashfield. A combination of good genes and good sense resulted in a softly glowing complexion, a still-slim and strong body and golden-brown hair, cut to flatter her classic features and draw attention to her brilliant blue eyes. The fact that the softly layered style was the look of the moment mattered not at all to her mother, who had a remarkable talent for knowing what was right for her…in hairstyles and in life.

Olivia liked to think she’d inherited those gifts. There was no question she had done all right in the looks department. Blond, blue-eyed and willowy, she was aware she could turn heads dressed in baggy sweats. Not that she would ever be caught dead in them. Her style was one she’d dubbed “casual glam,” and she wore it well. She clung to the belief that hidden somewhere inside her—deep inside—she possessed the same instinct for more significant matters. It was just taking her a while to dig it out.

She was convinced that when she at last found whatever it was she was meant to do with her life, she would know it instantly, the way her mother insisted she had known her future the very first time she’d set eyes on Richard Ashfield. She was definitely narrowing the field of possibilities. Through trial and error she had established she was not destined to work with young children or stay cooped up in an office all day or work around chemicals, especially those of a combustible nature. And she’d yet to set sight on a man and know for sure that she’d want to spend a weekend with him, much less “till death did them part.”

Her mother was still voicing her objections. Taking a deep breath, Olivia decided she would try one more time to make her understand what she was about to do. “Mom, the reason I’m going to Danby is precisely because I don’t know a soul there, to prove that I can survive completely on my own. With…how did my dear brother put it? No trust account…”

“No credit cards. No Daddy,” interrupted a masculine voice from behind her.

“Ah, the devil himself,” Olivia drawled, turning.

Brad Ashfield, like all the Ashfield men, was tall and athletic and heartbreakingly handsome. He grinned at his only sister and moved to give his mother a quick kiss on her cheek. “Good morning, Mother. Great day for a drive in the country, wouldn’t you say?”

Rubbing his hands together like the villain in a cartoon, he glanced from Olivia’s unsmiling face to the suitcase beside her and nodded approvingly. “One bag. See? You can follow orders. You’re even ready on time. Hell, Liv, if you keep this up, you just might last more than two days on a real job after all.”

“Oh, I intend to last more than two days. I intend to last the entire eight weeks. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for the pleasure of seeing you shave your head in public.”

“That would be a sight to draw a crowd, all right,” Brad agreed. Looking smug, he added, “Why, I’ll bet it would be nearly as big a crowd as we’re going to have when you shave yours.”

Her mother swung her horrified gaze to Olivia. “Oliv-ia, please tell me you are not going to—”

“I am not going to shave my head in public or anywhere else, Mother. I fully intend to win this bet. This victory will be my swan song, my final participation in anything my brothers dream up, proving once and for all that nothing my conniving, eavesdropping, interfering…”

Brad looked indignant. “I did not eavesdrop. I was simply dancing in close proximity to you and that Taylor guy when I happened to overhear you reeling him in with that old line about how you dreamed of running away from your unbearably tedious life of wealth and privilege and make your own way in the world.” He shook his head with mock dismay. “Really, Liv, I should have thought you’d retired that one years ago.”

“I believe ‘find myself’ was the phrase I used,” she informed him.

“Yes, of course. I remember thinking it was such a charmingly retro expression.”

“Did you think that right before you barged into my private conversation for the sole purpose of taunting me and backing me into a corner in public?”

“That’s not my recollection at all,” he said, stroking his chin with such phony sincerity that Olivia’s lip curled. “I only recall chatting with my sister and her partner after inadvertently bumping into them on the dance floor.”

“Inadvertently, my eye,” she muttered.

“After that I simply did my best to encourage you to follow your dream…you know, that lifelong dream of finding yourself. Hell, a lot of brothers wouldn’t even care that their kid sister was lost, never mind go to all this trouble to help her find herself. Seems to me you should be thanking me, not finding fault with every little—”

“Thanking you?” she snapped, tossing back thick, straight blond hair that fell past her shoulders. “You’re lucky I didn’t—”

“Stop! Both of you.” Their mother silenced them with a look that had shriveled braver souls. “You make me wish I could still send you to your rooms for a timeout.”

Olivia and Brad chuckled at their mother’s exasperation, and even she surrendered to a small smile edged with regret.

“But I can’t,” she continued, all business once again. “I can still threaten and nag, however, and I shall. Olivia, are you determined to go through with this?”

“Very,” she replied.

“In that case, Bradford, carry your sister’s suitcase to the car.”

He lifted it with some effort. “What do you have in here?” he grumbled. “Cement blocks?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” she retorted. “You said one bag. That’s one bag. What’s in it is none of your business.”

“I’ll go along with that. And to prove what a good sport I am, I won’t even ask whether you packed on a few pounds overnight or you’re wearing enough to clothe an entire softball team.”

Olivia smiled at him. “Have I told you how much I’m going to miss you?”

“Actually, you haven’t,” countered her brother.

“This much,” she snapped, pressing the tip of her thumb and forefinger tightly together.

He laughed all the way out the door. Olivia linked arms with her mother as they followed.

“You have to promise to call,” said her mother.

“I will, Mom, I promise.”

“Every day.”

“Probably not every day. It’s long-distance and I’ll be paying my own phone bill. But I will definitely call as often as I can.”

Accepting that reluctantly, her mother continued. “And I want you to promise me you will be careful and not take risks of any nature.”

“No risks. You have my word. Trust me, if it was adventure I was looking for I wouldn’t be going to Danby.”

“And I also want your word that no matter what the final outcome of this, you will not, under any circumstances—”

“Shave my head? Trust me, Mom, do you think I’d have agreed to this if I thought there was the slightest possibility I could lose?”

Helen Ashfield searched her daughter’s eyes. “You wouldn’t have?”

Olivia shook her head, slipped on her sunglasses and grinned. “Not a chance. Think about it, Mom, all I have to do is find a job and support myself for eight weeks.”

The color seemed to drain from her mother’s face. “Oh, dear.”

“Don’t worry,” she said, hiding a trace of annoyance as she hugged her mother. “It’ll be a piece of cake.”

Maybe Brad was doing her a favor, she thought as she started down the brick steps to the wide circular drive. She was pretty tired of being the family “joke.” Good old Olivia, beautiful, but…basically useless. An intelligent woman but a pretty ornament. Well, they were all wrong. Just because she hadn’t discovered what she wanted to do with her life didn’t mean she was destined to do nothing. She was perfectly capable of doing anything she set her mind to, and she was about to prove it.

“Whoa. That’s not my car,” she told Brad as he swung her bag into the trunk of a white sedan parked behind her car.

“Of course it’s not,” he agreed cheerfully, closing the trunk. “You can’t use your car for the next eight weeks.”

“Why not?”

“Because it would violate the terms of our agreement.”

“There was no mention of cars in our agreement.”

“Sure there was,” he countered. “It falls under ‘trappings.’ We agreed you would not take with you any outward trappings of your true identity that might raise questions. That,” he continued, pointing at her beloved silver Jaguar, “is definitely an outward trapping.”

“And you,” retorted Olivia as she snatched the keys he was dangling before her, “are definitely a petty, devious jerk.”

Enduring the dents and scrapes and mismatched wheel covers, she slid behind the wheel of the used sedan and slammed the door. The seat felt too big for her. The whole car felt too big for her. Compared to her sleek, low-slung Jag it was like driving a bus. When the engine sputtered, she said a prayer that it wouldn’t start, but it did, and after only a few jerky stops as she experimented with the unfamiliar brakes, she was on her way…with Brad’s final words ringing in her ears.

“Don’t forget your weekly check-ins, sweetheart.”

Chapter Two

“I ’m so glad you called, Olivia. It’s a relief just to hear your voice.”

“Yours, too,” Olivia replied, surprised just how good it was to hear a familiar voice. Had it really been only a little more than a week?

“I can’t talk long,” she explained to her mother. “I splurged on one of those prepaid phone cards and I don’t want to use all thirty minutes on one call.”

Helen Ashfield sighed. “Really, Olivia. I can send you more phone cards. For that matter, why don’t I just drop a check in—”

“Mom…”

“Discreetly, of course.”

“Don’t you dare! I vowed to do this on my own and I intend to.” She kept the “or die trying” part to herself. “Which brings me to the other reason I can’t talk long. I’m calling you from work.”

“Work? Are you sure?”

“Oh ye of little faith,” she retorted, not entirely joking. “Of course I’m sure. You happen to be speaking with the receptionist for one of the busiest doctors in Danby.”

“A doctor.” Pause. “Do you really think that’s wise? With your limited experience, I mean.”

“Relax, Mom. Dr. Allison Black, better known around here as Doc Allison, is a vet. I’m working at the Danby Animal Hospital.”

“I suppose that’s not quite as risky,” her mother said. “Just the same, be careful in what have been your problem areas in the past, relaying messages, showing up on the right day, that sort of thing.”

“I’ll be sure to do that, Mother,” she said, drumming her fingers on the desktop calendar advertising heart worm medication. “But so far everything is going pretty smoothly.”

“Is today your first day?”

Her grip tightened on the receiver. “Actually I’ve worked nearly every day since I arrived.” That was almost true. Just not on the same job.

“I can’t wait to tell your father. He’ll be amazed.”

“Just don’t tell Brad. I want that pleasure so I can hear him start to sweat.”

Her mother chuckled. “All right. Not a word to your brother. Now tell me all about your job.”

“There’s not a lot to tell. I answer the phone, schedule appointments, check in patients, that sort of thing.”

“It sounds very…busy,” her mother said brightly.

“It’s busy, all right, but repetitive. If you don’t hear from me again you can assume I’ve died of boredom…or else run off with a veterinary pharmaceutical salesman. Don’t laugh. That’s what the last receptionist did and I’m beginning to understand why. It was a lucky break for me, though, since Doc Allison was desperate and I was the only applicant.”

“I see. Well, your father always says you have to start somewhere.”

“He also says things like ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.’”

“True.” She paused a few seconds. “Olivia?”

“Yes?”

“Now that we have the forced good cheer out of the way, how are you really?”

Olivia sighed. “You’re good, you know, very, very good…even over long distances.”

“I know. I’ve had considerable practice. Let’s hear it.”

“Off the record?”

“Of course.”

“I’m miserable, that’s how I am. First I couldn’t find a job, then when I finally found one—waiting tables at the local diner—they made me wear this hideous uniform with a pink ruffled apron—you know how I feel about pink—and I ended up pouring a pot of hot coffee on some guy’s head and getting fired my very first day.”

“Why on earth did you pour coffee on the man?”

“Because he grabbed my butt, that’s why, and then all the other men at the table started hooting and laughing and I saw red. Before I knew it, I was standing there holding an empty pot. Actually it was only half-full to start with, and it wasn’t all that hot, either.”

“And those meanies fired you, anyway? Imagine that.”

“Very funny.”

“Olivia, sweetheart, I could have told you that you’re not cut out to be a waitress.”

“I wasn’t looking at it as a career move. Besides, when you don’t know what you are cut out for, one job looks as good as another.”

“Mmm. That must explain how someone who’s never been, shall we say, overly fond of animals finds herself working for a veterinarian.”

“I don’t dislike animals,” she protested. “Not completely anyway. Only the shedding, smelling, drooling stuff. I give to the SPCA and I wouldn’t be caught dead in real fur. Heck, I was even a vegetarian once. Remember the summer I turned fifteen?”

“Vividly. Did you tell them all that to get the job?”

“More or less.” Silence. “All right, I lied through my teeth and said I adored animals and that I have extensive office experience working for my dear departed veterinarian uncle whose records were destroyed in a fire.”

“Olivia, when are you going to learn…?”

“Soon. Word of honor. Right now I have to focus on surviving the next six and a half weeks.”

“Is this job really going smoothly or was that bravado, as well?”

“Half and half. Yesterday was pretty rough. I accidentally left this Doberman with an infected tear duct parked in the waiting room for more than an hour. Of course, I didn’t know it was infected, much less that it was so serious he had to be rushed to a veterinary ophthalmologist.”

“I gather your late uncle didn’t treat too many infected tear ducts,” her mother remarked in a dry tone.

“That’s not helpful, Mom. Do you want to hear this or not?”

“Of course.”

“Well, the good news is old Bozo isn’t going to lose his eye after all. That’s the dog’s name. Bozo.”

“I see. And the bad news?”

“Doc Allison was furious and made me promise to actually look at the patients at check-in and alert her to any glaring abnormalities. And she put me on notice that another incident will force her to let me go.”