"Terrific!"

Angie banged through the swinging kitchen door to the front of the bakery. Mel watched until the door swung to a stop.

"Damn," she said.

Sixteen.

"Am I interrupting something?" a voice asked from the back door.

Mel turned around and there was Joe. Her shoulders, which had ratcheted up around her ears while tiffing with Angie, sank back down.

"Can I have a hug?" she asked.

Joe opened his arms and Mel scooted across the kitchen, and into his embrace.

"Uncle Stan called me at the office," he said. His hand ran up and down her back. "You okay?"

"Yes," she said. She stepped back and studied him. "Angie is the one who found the body. She could probably use a hug, too."

Joe glanced around the kitchen. "Where is she?"

"She's in the front of the bakery," Mel said. She glanced down at her hands, which were clenched together. "We're fighting."

Joe nodded. As the middle brother of Angie's seven older brothers, he was the one who negotiated the peace treaties within the family. Mel was pretty sure that was how he'd ended up going into law. With six hotheaded Italian brothers, Joe's skills at hammering out a compromise were unparalleled.

He threw an arm around her shoulders and led her toward the door. "Come on. Let's go work this out."

In the front of the bakery, Angie had taken over a booth. She was brushing luster dust onto fondant butterflies and muttering under her breath. Her legendary temper looked ready to erupt.

"Maybe I'll just let you talk to her on your own," Mel said and began to back out of the doorway.

Joe glanced from Mel to Angie and back. "That might be best."

Mel slipped behind Joe and back through the door as he strode forward. Mel heard him say, "Ange! How's my favorite baby sister?"

"I'm your only baby sis-" Angie's voice was cut off as the door closed.

Mel hoped that Joe could work his magic. She really hated fighting with Angie. She opened up another tub of butterflies and picked out an orange one. She brushed it with the pearly dust and the butterfly's wings sparkled and shimmered. Well, at least something in her life was going right.

The back door opened and in walked Tate and Oz. Mel frowned at them.

"I thought everyone went home for the night," she said.

"I did," Tate said. "But I hate my apartment."

He was renting a duplex in the old section of Scottsdale. It was small and cramped and the other half of the duplex was currently being rented by a young couple who made a lot of noise, mostly because they seemed to spend their time together either really, really happy or fighting.

"I did, too, but my family is driving me crazy," Oz said. "My cousins are visiting from Hermosillo and I have to share my room with two of them. Can I sleep here?"

"No."

"Why not?" Oz persisted. "I'll just sleep in the cupcake truck if you won't let me crash in a booth."

"I've got dibs on the cupcake truck," Tate argued.

"No one is sleeping in the truck," Mel said. "Tate was only allowed to do that because he refused to crash with any of us when he gave up his luxury penthouse apartment."

She gave him a dark look, which he returned in full.

"Why did you give it up, T?" Oz asked. "We both could have slept there tonight."

"I gave it up so I could prove to myself that I could make it on my own," Tate said.

Mel and Oz both looked at him as if he were deranged.

"Honestly, I didn't think it was going to take this long," he said. "Of course, it wouldn't be so hard if I could just get some support for my expansion ideas."

"You have support," Mel said. "I just don't want to change the bakery. I like it exactly the way it is. I don't want to go corporate or figure out how to franchise."

Oz looked from one to the other. "So, he wants to expand and you don't."

"Basically," Mel said.

"So, you don't," Oz said to Mel and then he turned to Tate and said, "And you do."

"Yes, Oz, that is the drift," Tate said. He sounded annoyed.

They both frowned at the teen. With his black fringe hanging over his face, Mel couldn't tell if he was mocking them or not.

"T-man, what's our customer base made up of?" Oz asked.

"Sixty percent walk-in tourists, forty percent locals," Tate said. "Although, near holidays our local traffic is much higher."

"What's the one thing our customers always ask?"

"Do we have any other locations," Tate said without hesitation.

"Correct," Oz said. "What is your standard answer, Mel?"

"No, because opening a second location is complicated," she said. "And quality would suffer."

"But it's not and it won't," Tate protested. "I've been doing research and there are several cupcake bakeries that are opening franchises for their product."

"Stop calling it 'product,'" Mel said. Tate rolled his eyes.

"Listen, I know you think you birthed each and every cupcake," Tate said. "But they are 'product' and you're in 'business' and you need to stop acting so artsy-fartsy about the whole thing."

"Ah!" Mel gasped. She turned to Oz and he nodded.

"Sorry, boss," Oz said. "As a student of the culinary arts myself, I totally get how you feel, but T-man is right. It's a business."

"Well, I-" Mel stammered. "I'm not ready to-"

The kitchen door swung open and Joe and Angie walked into the room. Joe was carrying Angie's tray and she looked distinctly less pissed than she had a few minutes ago.

"What's going on?" Angie asked, glancing at the three of them as if she thought they'd decided to hold a meeting and had not invited her.

"Why don't we call Marty?" Mel asked. "Surely, he'll want to weigh in on this decision."

"Texting him now," Oz said. Sure enough, his thumbs were flying across the front of his phone.

"Marty texts?" Tate asked.

"Olivia's been getting him up to speed," Oz said. "I think they text each other some pretty kinky stuff."

Everyone blanched.

"Really?" Tate asked. "You had to share that?"

Oz raised his hands, including the one still holding the phone, in a sign of surrender. "Why should I suffer alone?"

"Point taken," Mel said. "Why do you think it's suggestive stuff?"

"Because his head lights up like a stop light," Oz laughed. "The other day I was afraid he was going to stroke out on me."

"See?" Angie cried. "This is why we need an intervention."

"You can't break them up," Joe protested. "The heart wants what the heart wants. No intervention is going to stop it."

"Agreed," Mel said. She and Joe met each other's eyes and he smiled.

"Oh, good grief," Angie muttered. "Are they having a moment?"

"I think so," Tate said. Then he grinned at her. "Here, let's try it." He took her hand in his and gazed at her and said, "The heart wants what the heart wants."

Mel glanced over at them to see Angie look all melty at Tate.

"Did I look at you like that?" she asked Joe.

"Yes," he said. Then he grinned.

Oz started texting furiously into his phone.

"Are you texting this to Marty?" Tate asked.

"No, I'm putting it in my notepad for future reference," Oz said. "A guy can use all the chick advice he can get when he's just starting out."

His phone beeped and he checked the screen. "Incoming from Marty. It says, 'Why are you bugging me? You people need lives. Tell Tate to get off his keister and make it happen and for Mel to butt out of his business plan and it'll work just fine.'"

"Wow, it's like he's right here with us," Angie said.

"Classic Marty," Mel agreed.

"So, do we have a deal?" Tate asked.

"My reputation is to be scrupulously maintained," Mel said. "If you do this franchise thingy the name of Fairy Tale Cupcakes must never be sullied by dry cupcakes, sloppy cupcakes, or, heaven forbid"-she paused to clutch her chest and take a steadying breath-"a bad frosting-to-cake ratio."

Tate put his hand over his heart. "I promise. It is going to be epic."

Angie clapped her hands in front of her and stood up on her toes. "So, it's a go?"

Mel held out her hand to Tate and he grabbed it, shook it hard twice, and then pulled her in for a hug. Mel squeezed him back and then opened her arms for Angie, Oz, and then Joe to join in.

Oz texted furiously from the huddle before he squeezed everyone back. When they broke apart and stepped back, Oz glanced at his phone and burst out laughing.

"What?" Mel asked.

"I told Marty we were having a group hug and he said he's glad he isn't here because he would have vomited."

Mel started laughing, and then she looked at Angie. "So we ambush him tomorrow?"

"And hug the stuffing out of him? Hell, yeah!" They high-fived each other and then Angie pulled her aside and said, "Sorry about before. Joe talked some sense into me and I was going to apologize even before you agreed to let Tate try his new idea. I want you to know that."

"I'm sorry, too," Mel said. "I know I'm working through some stuff. And I know it hasn't been easy for you, but I'm trying to figure it out. I really am. And maybe this expansion plan will work out for us."

Angie gazed at Tate with her heart in her eyes, "I hope so."

"Let's celebrate," Tate said. "Cupcakes all around!"

He and Angie headed to the walk-in cooler while Mel, Joe, and Oz took seats at the table.

"Now that the business is all settled," Oz said. "I was hoping to talk to you about Lupe."

"What about her?" Mel asked.

"Um, well, that is to say-" Oz glanced through his fringe at Joe.

"Earmuffs?" Mel asked.

Oz nodded.