All Fired Up (Kate Meader) Read Free Page B

those killer gams. She’d been avoiding him since Vegas, click-clacking in to pick up something from her office and click-clacking right out again before he could catch her. And now Miss Perfect had the nerve to look down her nose from her seat and make him feel like rubbish? Hell, he had enjoyed wiping that sour look off her face when he’d asked Lili to dance. Let her stew a while.
    Which would give Shane time to stew on Jack giving him the royal nod on his wedding cake. Shane was a great pastry chef—a stellar, award-winning pastry chef—and there was no doubt he could create something jaw dropping with both hands tied to his feet, but he had still felt blindsided by Jack’s request. This was what he wanted, wasn’t it? To prove himself, to show the arrogant, limey prick that he was worthy. A woman’s fury might have no expiration date but this job at Sarriette did. Two months max, then on to London to open his own pastry shop and start his life proper.
    More than enough time to satisfy his curiosity about the great Jack Kilroy. There was no room in the plan to take pleasure in Jack’s compliment. There was no room for any pleasant thoughts where the man was concerned at all.
    He needed to stop thinking so much. Stop being so maudlin, so melancholy. So Irish. Time to hit the head for a slash.
    A strong hand on his shoulder arrested his progress.
    “You’re going to miss the best bit,” Jack said, bowing to an all-female congregation now forming in the middle of the ballroom. Shane had attended and catered enough weddings to be well attuned to the signs, and today the ramp-up was as quick as he’d ever seen. Gentle nudges swiftly turned to less-than-subtle jabs as the ladies jockeyed for position.
    “Now, girls, no need for violence,” Cara said in a firm yet seductive cajole that sent a ripple to every nerve ending in Shane’s body. Silky with hints of bossy. Bet she used it in bed, or she would if she wasn’t passed out in a drunken stupor.
    “But if you really hope to be next in line down the aisle at St. Jude’s,” she continued, “remember your weapons. Nails, elbows, and, of course, heels.”
    She turned to her cousin Gina, or the munchkin bride as Jack called her, usually to her face. Gina clutched the purple and white posy bouquet, a remarkably elegant floral arrangement considering the bride’s proclivities toward the tacky. Shane’s mind scooted back to that night and recalled sharing several laughs about Gina’s “special requirements.” Cara must have slipped the sophisticated bouquet past her during a drunken moment of weakness.
    “Ready, bitches?” Gina called out and twisted away from the madding crowd, whose nostrils flared and feet pawed the hardwood floor like the bulls behind the gate at Pamplona. The dark-haired throng of Italian women was broken by Jack’s blonde half sister, Jules, who had wisely elected to hover on the edges with one eye on her six-month-old, Evan, now cradled in the arms of Cara’s mother. But like all women in thrall to the marriage scent, she inclined her body in readiness for the prize. Even cute-as-a-button Maisey with her purple-streaked hair was getting in on the act. Serious business, this.
    An amused snort from Jack let it be known the fun was only beginning. Cara’s aunt, the one with the bouffant that added a foot and change to her height, manhandled Cara from her role on the sidelines and placed her directly in the line of fire. Just as Gina’s bouquet arced over her head and landed in a shocked Cara’s hands.
    “Oh, that’s not good,” Jack said, and for not the first time in the last couple of weeks, Shane wanted to work over that GQ magazine cover face of his. Because he agreed and Shane loathed being in agreement with Jack Kilroy on anything.
    There was no way Cara could have known Shane’s position about thirty feet kitty-corner from the main action, but somehow her ice-blue gaze found him like a heat-seeking missile, binding his