"I can respect that," she said. "Thanks."

"No problem, but now I have to warn you. If the Richards go after Lupe in some misguided attempt to get her bounced from the pageant, they will throw everything they have at her."

Mel glanced over to where the teen stood with Joyce. They were covertly watching Mel and Steve, and she could tell they were wondering what he was saying. She forced a reassuring smile. Instead of looking relieved, her mother looked even more concerned and Mel knew that her mother knew her too well to be fooled.

"Do you think you can beat them?" she asked Steve.

The grin he gave her was pure predator and Mel realized that he loved this. With his client's back against the wall, Steve would have to be very, very good to get Lupe off and he relished the challenge.

"Oh, yeah," he said. "This is going to be fun."

"We have very different ideas of what constitutes fun," Mel said.

Steve met her gaze and his grin deepened. "Oh, I don't know. I think there might be some common ground be-tween us."

His words were as innuendo-laden as a direct proposition. Mel gave him her best quelling look. She was not going to become what Ginny described as "a girl with a pair and a spare." The idea was too mortifying for words.

"No, just no," she said. He grinned and she realized that issuing a challenge was the worst way to handle him. She'd do better to get down on one knee and propose. Then, she was quite certain, the guy would leave skid marks.

"No," she said again. Mel turned away from him and crossed back over to her mother and the rest of their group.

"Steve will represent Lupe, right?" her mother asked.

"If she needs it, yes," Mel said. "I'm really hoping she doesn't."

"Me, too," Joyce said. "I'm going to check with Stan and if he says it's okay, I'm going to get her out of here. I'm not sure if there's even going to be a pageant now."

"Oh, there'll be a pageant," Ginny said. "There's too much money with sponsors and prizes for them to cancel it."

Mel glanced over toward the crime scene. Mariel Mars was dead. Like her or not, it seemed wrong that the pageant would just carry on as if her role as a judge was insignificant and her life replaceable.

Fifteen.

"Mel, I had the most amazing epiphany in the van today!" Tate said as he pushed through her office door and stepped into her inner sanctum.

Mel glanced up from the computer on her desk. She was trying to combine a triple word and triple letter tile in Words with Friends to beat her friend Erika Ona Sanborn, a Canadian cupcake baker who was also an elementary school teacher, bless her heart. Erika had dusted her in their last match and Mel was looking to even the score.

"Can you make a word out of three L's, two P's, a Z, and a Q?" she asked.

"Qlzlplp?" he offered.

Mel growled and slammed the lid on her laptop.

"Back to me now?" Tate asked.

"Yes, you had an epiphany," Mel said just to prove she had sort of been listening.

"So, I was parked down by Patriots Square Park in Phoenix and what did I notice but tons of delivery trucks," he said. "And it hit me-all of those trucks are delivering packages."

"Hence the name delivery truck," Mel said.

He ignored her and took the seat across from her. He looked positively giddy, which was Mel's first clue that she probably wouldn't like what was coming.

"Just think," he said. "What if all those trucks were delivering our cupcakes? Come on, say it with me, Cha-ching."

"Did you hit your head on the service window in the van?" Mel asked.

"No, why?"

"Tate, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but cupcakes are an extremely perishable food item, not to mention they get mushed pretty easily," she said. "Even if there were enough people who wanted us to send cupcakes for them, it would be prohibitively expensive. We'd be better served opening a franchise in downtown Phoenix."

"Hey, now you're talking," he said.

"No."

"I could study up on franchises and do a cost analysis."

"No."

"Aw, come on, Mel, you're killing me," he said.

Tate looked so crestfallen that Mel felt herself weaken. Darn it.

"If I say yes to you writing up a business proposal, will you go away?" she asked.

"I will be nothing but a memory," he promised.

"'Memories are meant to fade. They're designed that way for a reason,'" Mel said.

"Ha!" Tate grinned at her. "From the movie Strange Days."

"Correct," Mel said returning his grin. "Now go away."

Tate raised his hands in surrender and backed out of her office and into the kitchen.

Mel knew that taking the bakery to the next level had become Tate's personal mission. The trouble with that was if they expanded she feared their product-Ack! That was the problem right there. When she started thinking of her cupcakes as product instead of yummies from her own kitchen, well, she was going corporate and she really didn't want to venture down that path.

She rose from her desk and went into the kitchen. The telltale whoosh of the kitchen door clued her in that Tate had gone into the front part of the bakery.

Mel thought about going out front to see what was happening, but she knew she had to finish up tomorrow's cupcakes for the pageant. Ginny had been right. They didn't cancel the pageant or postpone it; they just rolled it back one day. Tomorrow they would finish the swimsuit contest and the girls would submit their cupcake recipes, the day after that would be the talent show and finally the last day would be cupcake tasting and evening gowns and the winner would be crowned. It made Mel tired just to think about it.

She went to the walk-in cooler and pulled out a large tray of butter-flavored cupcakes. She planned to decorate them with vanilla buttercream and then put on the finishing touch. She used her standing mixer to whip up a fresh batch of buttercream. Using a pastry bag with an open tip, she piped a fat dollop of frosting onto the cupcake.

The door swung open and she was about to give Tate a hairy eyeball for interrupting her again. Instead it was Angie who joined her.

"The bakery is closed for the night. The boys have all been booted," she said. "I figured you could use some help prepping the goods for tomorrow's cupcake tower."

"Thanks," Mel said. She gestured to the other side of the table and said, "Grab a seat."

"What are we making?" Angie asked.

Mel put down her pastry bag and opened one of her tubs of yellow and orange fondant butterflies.

"I cut out and molded the fondant butterflies last night," Mel said. "We just need to brush them with luster dust to make them sparkly and plant them in the vanilla buttercream."

Mel opened one of the three containers of luster dust and, using a paintbrush, she swept an edible coating of glitter onto a butterfly's wings.

"Oh, wow, these are too pretty to eat," Angie said as she examined the tub of butterflies.

Mel gave her a look and Angie laughed. "Okay, yeah, I could totally bite the wings off of these buggers."

Mel laughed. "I wish we could bite the wings off of Tate."

Angie frowned. "What do you mean?"

"He's just so into taking the business to the next level," Mel said. "He's driving me bananas."

"He's just an overachiever," Angie said. "Since he left the world of high finance, he's struggling to find a place to put his financial prowess."

"Well, he needs to find something other than my bakery," Mel said.

"It's not your bakery," Angie corrected her.

Mel frowned. She did not appreciate the tone Angie was taking with her.

"Well, excuse me," Mel said.

"No, I won't," Angie said.

There was a fire in Angie's eyes, which should have warned Mel off. But she'd had a rough day, too, and wasn't really in the mood for attitude, even from her best friend.

"It belongs to all of us and frankly your fear of commitment is holding us back," Angie said.

"Hey, what happened to liking our operation as it is and 'Tate needs a kick in the pants'?" Mel asked.

Angie blew out a breath. "Tate and I have been talking, and I've reconsidered. Also, I think my words might have come out more harshly than I intended."

"You think? How can you say I have a fear of commitment?" Mel asked. She slammed her little paintbrush with the luster dust on it onto the steel table. "That's rich, coming from you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Angie asked.

"You gave up a career in teaching to work in a bakery," Mel said.

"I wanted to help you," Angie said.

"Oh, please," Mel shook her head. "You were just avoiding a commitment to a career. Just like pining after Tate keeps you from having a real relationship."

"What?" Angie snapped.

"You heard me," Mel retorted. "Look at you, you dumped a rock star who was in love with you for a childhood friend who is still holding you at arm's length. And you say I have a fear of commitment? Look in the mirror, sweetie."

Mel knew she had gone too far when Angie's face turned a mottled shade of red and she started breathing through her nose like a bull about to charge.

"I don't have to," Angie growled. "I'm looking at the poster child for commitment phobia and low self-esteem right now. You're terrified of making a commitment because you don't believe in your own self-worth and you're afraid you might get hurt. That's why you broke up with my brother and broke his heart, because you're a big chicken."

"That is not-You are so off base-So you are mad at me!" Mel shouted. "I knew it!"

"Of course I'm mad at you!" Angie shouted in return. "Joe is my brother and you're my best friend. Did you even stop to think about how your breakup would tear me up? No!"

"You got one part of that sentence right. It was my breakup, not yours! It has nothing to do with you!"

"It has everything to do with me! You're two of the people I love the most!"

"It's still none of your business. Just like when you and Tate were doing your ridiculous little dance around each other, it was none of my business and I butted out. Do you think that was easy for me?"

"Oh, yeah, you butted out," Angie scoffed. "You told him he'd had everything handed to him all of his life and that he didn't know how to go after what he wanted. So he up and quit his investment job, you know, where he was making oodles of money, so he could come and work here. If it's anyone's fault that he's keeping me at arm's length, it's yours! Well played, Mel."

"How was I supposed to know the numb-nut was going to quit his job?" Mel asked. "You can't blame me because he's an idiot."

They stared at each other over the steel worktable. Both were red-faced and breathing heavy.

"This is ridiculous! I don't know how talking about the business turned into a fight over our personal lives," Angie said. She looked as if she was visibly trying to calm herself with deep breathing exercises. Mel wasn't there yet.

"It's your fault," Mel said, still peeved. "You brought commitment issues and low self-esteem into it."

"Well, it was overdue," Angie snapped. Obviously, the breathing hadn't worked. "You're not the fat girl anymore. You're a beautiful, brilliant small businesswoman and shoving away the guy you love to flirt with someone else just because you're a scaredy-cat is just stupid."

"Oh, so now I'm stupid?" Mel asked.

Angie growled. "Fine, don't listen to the important stuff I'm saying, just hear the insults you're looking for."

"Hard not to hear them when you're shouting them at me, Miss Temper Tantrum," Mel snapped.

"Fine! I'll stop talking to you altogether," Angie snapped. "In fact, I'll just go work in the other room."

"Good!" Mel said as Angie packed up a tray full of butterflies and luster dust.

"Great!" Angie agreed.

"Fantastic!"