Wedding For One

4

MARIAH PULLED INTO the parking lot of Cactus Confections precisely an hour and a half late. What better way to prove to Nathan that it was a waste of time to drag her into the business than to show him she had no sense of time? She’d never deliberately goofed up before, but she’d decided it could be fun. A new way to be creative.

The solid sandstone building with Cactus Confections in copper letters across its face brought back complicated memories—love and frustration, comfort and boredom.

She pushed through the glass door and met the delighted smile of Lenore, the receptionist who’d worked there forever.

“Mariah, honey, you’re here! Your daddy said you’d be coming to work, but I didn’t expect you today. Gimme some sugar.”

Lenore wore the same blond beehive with a little curlicue at the top she had always worn, and her nails were as long and sharp and fire-engine red as ever. Mariah’s father hated when she painted them in the office, since the fumes interfered with the candy smell he loved. “It’s so good of you to help the poor man,” she whispered, enveloping Mariah in her soft hug.

“I’m not here to work,” she said, stepping back. “I’m just here to, um, observe, get a feel for the place.”

“Oh, I see,” she said, smiling a your-secret’s-safe-with-me smile, a dimple in her chipmunk cheek. What the devil had Mariah’s father told her?

“Louise, get your hiney in here,” Lenore shouted over her shoulder into the business office. “Mariah’s starting work today.”

“I’m not working. I’m just…never mind.”

Louise, Lenore’s twin, leaned out the business office door, where she served as bookkeeper. “Hi, there,” she said, with a tentative wave of a hand that she swiftly withdrew. She was as shy and thin as her sister was chatty and chubby. “You’ve grown up so, um, pretty,” she said.

“Thanks,” Mariah said, though the woman was obviously just being polite. Mariah’s fingers flew to her curly hair, the tips of which she’d bleached white, and she looked down at her baggy pants, black tank-top and studded bracelet. Pretty, she wasn’t. Arty, maybe. Interesting, but not pretty.

“Is that my girl I hear?” Her father’s booming voice came to her and he marched down the hall toward her. He wore his big green cooking apron, so she knew he’d been in the mixing room. “About time you got here. Ole Nate’s been champing at the bit to put you to work.” He put his arm around her. “Come on, I’ll take you to him. Isn’t it great to see her?” he asked Lenore.

“Just wonderful,” Lenore chirped.

“We’d better get going,” Mariah said, uncomfortable in the Kodak moment of it all. She hurt inside, feeling loved and valued and dead certain she’d disappoint these people. She had the urge to run before she could actually let them down. Instead, she followed her father down the hall past his office to a frosted-glass door, stenciled with Nathan’s name and title.

Nathan looked up, then glanced at his watch and frowned. He’d noted how late she was. She tried to look innocent.

“Here’s your new partner,” her father said to Nathan.

“Dad, I’m not a partner, I’m—”

“Observing, yeah, yeah. Anyway, Mariah, Nate here has been my right hand. He knows everything I know and does half of it better,” her father said, resting a hand affectionately on Nathan’s shoulders.

“I’ve just done what needed doing, Abe. You set up the business and now it practically runs itself.”

Affection passed between the two men and Mariah felt a surprising jolt of loneliness. What would it have been like to share the workday with her father in the family business? To have him describe her as his “right hand.”

Suffocating, that’s what it would have been. She’d have been controlled, bossed, fussed over, and watched every minute. Thank goodness she’d escaped.

“You should be very proud, Abe,” Nathan continued. “You’ve left a tremendous legacy.”

“Hold on. I’m just retiring, not dying. I’m just handing it over to you two.”

“Dad, I’m just—”

“Observing. Right. Well, I’ve got to get back to the gumdrops. I’ll leave you two…all on your own.” He gave Nate a wink.

A wink! Like there was going to be hanky-panky or something. She felt herself blush and fought it down. She was relieved to see that Nate had turned a matching pink. She changed the subject. “I guess I’m a little late.”

“Ninety-two minutes,” he said, his brow dipping. “I thought you’d reneged on our deal.”

“I just lost track of time. I tend to do that. My mind is such a whirly-gig.” Her stomach tightened at the words. She usually fought the airhead impression she sometimes left because of the way she dressed and how her brain spun, kaleidoscope-like. She believed you could be professional without being all linear and uptight. With Nathan, however, her job was to intensify the effect. She needed to be airhead incarnate.

The misrepresentation would be worth it to be done with this and gone. Plus, the more irritated he was with her, the less attractive he’d be. Men who got annoyed with her were complete turnoffs. Which was exactly what she needed to be around Nathan—turned off. “I just can’t help being a butterfly.”

“Right,” he said, rolling his eyes at her. Perfect. She’d already gotten the eye roll. Soon she’d get the heavy sigh, the head-shake, then the lecture. She’d argue, and it would be happily downhill from there.

He looked her over. “I see you’re dressing for success.”

Oooh, even better. He was already insulting her. “So, this is your office,” she said, ignoring the dig.

“It could easily become yours.”

She gave an exaggerated shudder. It was so not her. The place looked like a museum display of an office—practically shellacked into neatness. Perfectly arranged file folders, everything at right angles. There were no stacks of paper, no open books, scattered pens or left-over fast-food meals. If Nathan was as hopelessly anal-retentive as he seemed, frustrating him would be easier than she’d thought.

“I’m just finishing up analyzing the month’s receipts and the profit-loss statement,” Nathan said. “It’s all on computer. I’ll show you if you’ll step over here.”

“Oh, I believe you,” she said, barely glancing his way.

“I had this software customized to suit our process,” he said. “With it, I can track cost per candy, and—”

He looked up as she started the steel-ball perpetual motion pendulum toy clacking on his desk. “Go on,” she said innocently. “You can track…?”

With an irritated sigh, he reached out and stopped the steel balls from knocking together. “Would you come here and look at this?”

“Maybe later. I’m deadly with numbers.” She grinned sweetly at him, then picked up a manipulable desk sculpture made of small metal diamonds shaped around a magnet, and changed its rectilinear shape to a helix.

He did not like that, she could see. This was fun. “Why don’t you show me the plant?” she asked.

“All right.” Nathan pushed away from his desk, stood and came toward her, wearing a long-suffering expression.

At the doorway, she paused to brush her finger on a bad painting on the wall, so that it hung slightly crooked. Then she picked up a huge geode from the top of his bookcase to examine its purple-and-white crystal interior before placing it on a lower shelf before she walked out, watching Nathan as he followed.

Sure enough, he paused to straighten the picture and replace the geode. She smiled. Things were going like clockwork.

At the end of the hall, Nathan pushed open a double door into a wide hallway where the factory began. The hum of human activity, machinery, and steam filled the air, along with the familiar smell of her childhood—candy cooking. Nathan led the way to the first archway. “The mixing room. Where we put it all together.” He led her farther into the room.

“I remember,” she said. “When I was a kid, everything in here seemed so huge.” She’d loved to watch her daddy work with the gigantic mixing bowls with their huge mechanical stirrers.

“Almost all of our products—the jelly, jellied candies, taffy and lollipops—come from the juice of the prickly pear cactus fruit,” he said, sounding like a tour guide. “Summer is prickly pear harvest time. Over just six weeks each summer, we process all the juice we’ll use for a year’s product. We had an exceptional harvest this year. In fact, we’ll be freezing a substantial amount for next year. Here’s where it starts.” He indicated a huge vat where red bulbs of cactus fruit bobbed and bubbled in boiling water.

“Once the fruit is softened, we crush it with this.” He indicated a wooden device.

“The wine press from Italy,” she said. “Dad was always so proud of that.”

“Yep. He got it straight from a vineyard. Anyway, after that, the juice is strained, then sent through these pipes,” he indicated shiny brass tubes overhead, “to the separate areas to create each kind of candy.”

He moved to a stainless-steel tub. “Here is where we make our most popular item—jellied candy squares. Here we add lemon, corn syrup and eventually gelatin,” he said.

The juice bubbled in the drum, cranberry red, giving off a tart steam that filled her nose. She paused to identify the elements. “Lemon, lime, cranberries and cotton candy all rolled into one great smell.”

Nathan took a quick, short sniff. “It’s nice, I guess.”

He walked over to a man who reached up with a pole to switch off a valve, then scooped out some of the red jelly, which he allowed to fall slowly back into the bowl.

“How’s the consistency, Jed?” Nathan asked the man.

“Better. That new coil evened the heat like you said it would.”

“Great,” Nathan said, his eyes alight with satisfaction.

He was proud of his work here, she could tell, but she wouldn’t mention it. Not yet. He’d just deny it.

“When I was little, Dad would let me add ingredients sometimes.” She’d loved watching the corn syrup cascade into the mixture, a river of sweetness. “It was like Willy Wonka and his chocolate factory, only for real.”

“Sounds like you loved it here.”

Whoops. She didn’t want him to think she missed the place. “It got old, though. Imagine every day as the day after Halloween. Pretty soon if you see one more piece of candy you want to throw up.”

“Exactly. Imagine eight solid years of Halloween. That’s why I need to move on.”

This was backfiring. She had to point out the good things about the place to encourage Nathan to stay, but not give him the idea she’d ever consider staying herself.

“The problem was me, not the factory, Nathan,” she said. “When I started getting into trouble, Mom grounded me here while she did the bookkeeping and reception work.”

“What did you do that was trouble? When I met you, Nikki and you were doing a lot of ditching.”

“I straightened out once I met you. Nikki and I used to hitch to Tucson or Phoenix, go to art shows and underground dances. Some drinking and carousing. Meredith thought she needed to crack down.”

Chained to the factory, she’d grown to hate the place and the way its false promise of sweet fun hid the sticky grip of duty and routine.

“You were a kid. Kids rebel. I’m sure your mother was just doing what she thought was best.”

“She pay you to say that?”

“I just know Abe and Meredith love you.”

“Yeah. They do. Too much. That’s what makes it hard. I’ve always disappointed them.” Just being who she was seemed to hurt them. Sometimes her uniqueness felt like a badge of honor. Other times, it felt like a scarlet W of weirdness.

“Maybe if you talked to them you’d find out they feel differently.”

“I’m fine, Nathan. My parents are fine. You’re the one on the self-improvement kick, remember?”

“Right,” he said, but he held her gaze, cupped gently, the way you’d hold a fuzzy dandelion. I’m here for you. You’re okay just as you are. There it was—that look of acceptance that had made her say yes to him when he’d proposed. She’d just melted into that look, heart and all.

But she’d grown up and accepted herself now. She didn’t need Nathan or that look. She broke the gaze. “How about the rest of the tour?” she said and shot ahead of him so that he had to gallop to catch up with her.

He showed her where they squirted the jelly into jars, where they stretched the saguaro blossom taffy—its pale orange and green strands looped by the industrial-sized stretcher as if it were skeins of thick, silky yarn—and where they extruded the mesquite-honey meringue buttons, and slow-cooked the syrup that went into the hard candy and novelty lollipops shaped like saguaro cactus, coyotes and cowboy boots.

In the processing room, she watched the sheets of cooled jelly get cut into shapes. As a kid, she’d loved the magical way the designs appeared and the unused jelly paste peeled away to be remolded again. She loved the assembly line with its jerky machinery and geared conveyor belt that had seemed almost alive. “This place looks exactly like when I left.”

“Unfortunately, it is the same as when you left. We need new equipment, but your father doesn’t think the capital investment’s worth it. Luckily, Benny Lopez, our mechanic, has a way with a steam valve you wouldn’t believe. I think he puts a spell on the boilers. They practically purr when he goes by.”

They glanced into the formulation and tasting kitchen, where her father experimented with new creations or brought clients to impress them. It was empty. “Abe hasn’t tried anything new in a while,” Nathan said.

That fact struck her as sad. On the other hand, he was about to retire, so maybe it made sense. Who would come up with new formulas after her father was gone?

“I think there was a jalapeño jelly he was working on, though,” Nathan said and went to the refrigerator. He pulled out a sample jar. “Want to try it?”

“Why not?”

Nathan spread a bit of the bright jelly on a tasting biscuit. Mariah opened her mouth and he held the cracker for her to taste. The air grew tense with the intimacy of the moment. She extended her tongue to accept the cracker. Her lips closed, brushing his finger and he made a sound.

She could almost see the electricity pass through him. Then it hit her, jolting her to her toes. The jelly’s tartness and the chili’s burn seeped into her mouth, which filled with saliva. She wanted to taste Nathan, too.

She could see he wanted to kiss her, was about to move forward. She remembered those lips—they knew when to be rough and demanding, and when to be soft and teasing. She licked her lips, waited…

“There you two are!” Her father’s deep voice bellowed out.

They jerked apart as if stung.

“Mariah, I want you to meet Dave Wood. He’s the floor manager and my chief cook. He’s the wizard who keeps things rolling around here.”

“Miss Monroe,” Wood said, bending slightly in greeting. “You should be wearing gloves and a hair net in this room. As should you, Mr. Goodman.” He looked at them the way a disapproving valet would look at the profligate playboy he served.

“Dave runs a tight ship,” Nathan said.

“Aye, aye, Captain,” she said, saluting him as she clicked her heels together. Woods nailed her with a look. The boss’s airhead daughter. Even though it was what she wanted him to think, she felt wounded. He hadn’t even given her a chance to prove it.

“Dave could take over this place if he wanted to,” Nathan said to her.

“My job is fine as is,” Dave said.

“You’ll want to shadow Dave,” Nathan said. The idea seemed to annoy Dave, so she knew getting on his wrong side would be an easy way to make herself unwelcome around here. Hair nets, huh?

Their last stop was the packaging room, where Nathan described the shipping process. She could hear pride in his every word. Her task was to reinforce that pride, while helping him work through this strange spell of dissatisfaction.

“It’s obvious you love this place,” she said. “Maybe all that’s wrong is you’ve been taking it for granted.”

“You think that’s what’s wrong?”

“Maybe. I just don’t think Cactus Confections is what’s bugging you.” And a man who couldn’t stand a decorative rock being moved didn’t seem a likely candidate for running off to find himself. There was a sadness in his face, a disappointment almost, that she couldn’t figure out. “We’ll know more once we’ve tried a few more exercises.”

“Exercises? That sounds scary.” She could see he was trying to lighten the moment. “Will there be a rack involved? ‘You vill work in ze vactory and you vill like it.”’

“I was thinking some counselling,” she said.

“Counselling?” He pretended to shudder. “I’d rather have the rack.”

“Relax. I’ll go easy on you. We won’t get to the primal screaming until the third day.”

His eyebrows lifted. “What will the neighbors think?”

“That you’re finally getting laid right.”

“What makes you think I need that?”

“Look at you.” She gripped the muscles below his neck, trying to ignore how terrific he felt. “You’re tight as a coiled spring. If you were getting what you need, you’d be more loose.”

“Sounds good. Maybe you could help me, um, loosen up?”

Her mouth went dry. “Sex isn’t the only way, you know.”

He stepped toward her, close enough to kiss. “Just the best,” he murmured. Was he serious or teasing? Why on earth had she brought up sex again? It was her traitorous subconscious that wouldn’t let her forget how much better Nathan had been at making out than the frantic high school boys she’d gone all the way with. He knew how to take his time, how to give her pleasure….

“Where’s the harm?” Nathan whispered. “We can start with just a kiss.” His lips met hers.

The word just didn’t belong anywhere near that kiss. She felt lit up inside. His lips were firm against hers. His tongue pushed its way in, and he shifted his mouth to reach more of her. She made a sound and her knees gave a little. His arms went around her, tight and secure.

She remembered him holding her this way all those years ago—making her feel safe, protected and so desired. But this was even better because this Nathan was more mature, more sure of what he wanted than the Nathan of eight years ago.

She just wanted to let go in his arms, keep kissing him and being kissed by him. She knew Nathan would never let her fall.

A fist of rational thought muscled into her dazed brain. She was letting one kiss turn her back into the needy teenager she had been once. This was absolutely not part of the plan. She broke off the kiss and shoved at his chest. “Enough!”

“But I don’t feel loose yet,” Nathan said, reaching for her.

“Then take a hot bath,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “I came here to work, so let’s work. Show me a spreadsheet or something.”

What in the world was she saying? She made a wobbly turn toward the corridor that led to the offices, gratified at the shocked look on Nathan’s face. Good. He had no idea what she’d do next.

The problem was neither did she.