Free Excerpt from The Runaway Cupcake Queen

CHAPTER ONE

Helen ran into the bathroom stall, snatched a tampon disposal baggie from the dispenser and held it to her face. Oh, sweet mother of sunshine. She swayed as another wave of dizziness hit her and sucked hard on the bag. The outer ladies’ room door creaked open.

“Helen? You okay?”

Ivy’s voice echoed in the tiny bathroom, breathless and concerned. As she should be. Helen leaned dangerously near a full-blown panic attack here. She’d never had one, mind you, but she’d never been this close to near total public humiliation before. How had she gotten herself into this? More to the point, how could she get herself out?

She yanked the baggie away from her face to speak. “A ‘love bus,’ Ivy? Seriously? No. That’s not going to happen. No way.”

“Marcia was brainstorming,” Ivy soothed in that tone of voice you use with timid woodland animals and people perched on the edges of bridges. “You know how she is. Come out so we can talk. I’m sure she’s willing to negotiate the specifics.”

“She brainstormed on live TV!” Helen leaned heavily against the bathroom stall door. The traitorous latch gave way, and she swung out, heels, evening gown, paper bag and all. “She can’t take that back. It’s out there now. My employees have seen that. My banker. My own father!” The bag poofed in and out with each breath.

Ivy petted her hair. “It’s all right. It’s just nerves. You’ll be amazing as the new lead of the show. I know it’s crazy-making and Marcia comes up with things that may be a little out of your comfort zone, but you’ve got this. America loves you. I’m sure she’ll be willing to tweak things. We can make it tasteful. You’ll see.”

Despite Ivy’s reassurances, Helen couldn’t help but feel that Marcia Powers, bless her heart, was talking out of her ass. The host and producer of the hit reality dating show Happily Ever After was high on a cocktail of adrenaline and endorphins and couldn’t be trusted, obviously, to be reasonable.

Meanwhile, Helen’s pageant smile felt permanently frozen in place. She’d dropped everything—her business, her relationships, her gym membership—and put her suffocating but stable existence on hold to take a chance that signing on as a contestant on Happily Ever After was her moment to break free, to breathe, to put the long years of living to please everyone else on the back burner for a change. Instead, she’d just been dumped for a second time in as many months then left alone and freezing on a stupid bandstand in freaking New Hampshire in March which was clearly a stone’s throw from the Arctic Circle and… Dear Jesus, where was she? Right. Forced to smileand pretend the whole hell in a handbasket disaster was fine—just fine!

Well, it wasn’t fine. Not be a longshot.

Helen wanted to believe Ivy. With every cold, miserable, tired fiber of her being, she wanted to believe the rejection and humiliation of this entire experience was well and truly behind her and everything ahead would be sunshine and roses. But, standing on that frigid bandstand watching someone else get the prize she’d worked so hard for sucked as much as being the runner up for Miss Alabama. She wasn’t nineteen anymore, but she still needed a moment of privacy to collect herself.

“It took everything I had to stand out there and pretend everything was okay. But it’s not. I’m not. This whole,” she waved the bag wildly until Ivy grabbed her fist in self-preservation, “thing is too much. You know I put on the brave face, but this is the real me telling you: I. Don’t. Want. This. Anymore.”

Just then the ladies’ room door slammed open. Marcia Powers burst in, her face and clothes smudged with ashes from the garage explosion that had rocked the small downtown of Sugar Falls, making the live finale of the show all the more dramatic. Helen’s head reeled. She would have believed it was all some over-the-top, staged reality-show drama if she hadn’t felt the jolt of the blast, choked on the smoke, and seen the fiery debris with her very own eyes. Thankfully, no one had been injured. It still felt a fitting metaphor for her life, dumped not only in front of a cheering crowd of townspeople but the entire live viewing audience of Happily Ever After. She was a mess, shaken, and in second place, but, hey, she was alive!

Before going off the air, Marcia had teased Helen as the lead for the upcoming season—along with new and outrageous details—and Helen had fled the bandstand, disoriented by the dark, the crowd, and the flashing lights. She’d held it together, smiling and waving at the blur of camera flashes and faces, and run toward the sign promising “hot coffee” like a beacon in a stormy sea.

Her teeth chattered, and she rubbed her hand over the bare skin exposed above the sling holding her left arm. She would never, ever, be warm again. Ever.

“For the love of God,” Marcia said, smoothing Helen’s flyaway hair. “You’re a mess. Ivy, go get her some water or that sweet tea crap she’s always asking for. Sweetheart, pull yourself together. What’s happened to you? There are a hundred cell phone cameras on the other side of that door waiting to capture the excited face of the next lead and you’re hiding? You’ve got to bring back my southern belle.”

Helen grabbed the bag from Ivy’s hand and held it to her face again.

“I just need a moment,” she said into the bag.

Marcia squeezed her fist around the bag and yanked it away. “We are standing in the crapper of the Gas & Go, Helen. You can have all the ‘moments,’” she air-quoted this, “you want as soon as we get back to the hotel. This place stinks. Literally.”

The door opened a crack, and Nick, Marcia’s lead cameraman and new fiancé, poked his head in. “Everything all right in here?”

Marcia grabbed his elbow and yanked him into their improvised office space. “Tell her, Nick. Tell her America is going to eat her up with a spoon. Tell her that whatever has her spooked is just hunger or fatigue or smoke inhalation…”

“You’re a fan favorite,” he said. “And the camera loves you.”

Marcia smacked his shoulder. “Of course, it loves her! She’s a goddess! That hair. That body. That accent. Hell, you blink at a man, Helen, and he’s got a hard-on. Isn’t that right, Nick?” Marcia turned to be sure he was listening. “Be honest. Doesn’t Helen here make you tent your pants?”

“Um.” Nick stared at Helen, surely in a mirror of her own horrified expression.

Marcia smacked him in the shoulder again. “Oh, he won’t say on account of being so loyal and in love with me, but he would totally admit it if he weren’t. I mean, look at you! Freakin’ sex appeal on a stick! And the sympathy you’ll get after the way you handled yourself tonight, all gracious and shit. Our ratings will go through the roof!” She punctuated each of these last words with the stab of a scarlet fingernail to Helen’s chest. “America wants to see you get your own happy ending, Helen from Heaven, Alabama, and I intend to deliver.”

Helen looked Marcia in the eye. “You promised them a sex bus.”

“I did no such thing. I gave them a vision. Viewers need something to latch onto, and they’ll love the whole female empowerment thing of you hand-picking your own men. We’ve never done that before.”

“You’re the match-maker. Shouldn’t you do the picking?”

Marcia waved away this technicality. “I narrow things down, but you’re in control, Helen. I can’t make love happen. I can only set the stage. Give it an opportunity to happen.”

She didn’t feel in control. Of any of this. “But a sex bus?”

“You keep saying that. I don’t think you understand the vision.” Marcia wrapped an arm over Helen’s shoulders. “Picture this: A glittering, golden tour bus traveling from city to city all the way from New Hampshire to Alabama. We’ll hold a casting call in every major city down the East Coast, and you, Helen Walker, will get to personally hand-pick men to fill your very own Trojan Bus of Love!” She spread her hands in the air as if she could conjure the horrifying image. It worked. “Get it? Helen of Troy? Trojan? Oh God!” Marcia swung around. “I just thought of a brilliant endorsement opportunity here. Ivy! Make a note to see if we can get a sponsor for our Trojan bus tour, will you? You know what I’m talking about.” Marcia winked as if she’d been subtle. Helen felt the blood rush from her head again.

“It’s the bus, isn’t it? You think it’s too much. A bit obvious.” Marcia glanced at her reflection in the tiny warped restroom mirror and smoothed a silken black hair back into place while ignoring the ash smudge on her cheek.

“Yes.”

“Fine. Maybe gold is a little… blingy. We’ll make it more feminine. How about soft pink? Is that better?”

“Pink?” Helen wheezed. “As in flesh-colored?”

They all paused to imagine it. Nick snorted. “Sweetheart, I think you might want to stick with gold,” he said.

“Ya think?” Marcia said, clearly annoyed she wasn’t getting anywhere. “Helen, honey. Relax. You’ve got this.”

Helen pulled back from the trio, the paper bag falling from her fingertips to the dingy vinyl floor. Her head seemed to be shaking of its own volition. The scents of unventilated toilet stalls and chemical cleaner slammed into her.

She flattened her back against the cold concrete block wall, a fitting place to rest her crushed romantic dreams and weary idealism.

All she’d wanted was to see a few things in this world before settling down in life like everyone expected. And, yes, she was well aware that going on a reality show came with its own financial benefits and social media attention, but that’s how the world worked. It wasn’t like she was asking to be made a fool of in the Liberace Bus of Bad Taste. All she wanted was to do her part to take the bakeries to the next level of success. Then, who knows? Maybe she’d finally get the chance to leave Heaven, if not forever, at least for a little while. Not that Travis, her business partner, knew any of that, but he had to know she’d been pushing at the seams of life for a while. What woman put her life on hold to go on reality TV if she didn’t want something to change? But if she couldn’t find happiness and freedom, precisely, she at least wanted to retain a sliver of self-respect.

And zero-calorie sweet tea, of course, because who wouldn’t?

“I’m not going back out there tonight,” she said. “I’ll just stay here,” her gaze bounced around the cramped restroom, “until everyone goes home, and then I’ll slip out. Y’all can go back to the hotel. I’ll be fine.”

They all looked at one another as if telepathically debating the feasibility of the plan.

Marcia sucked in a long breath and let it out slowly. “I hate to be harsh, sweetheart, but you signed a contract. You can’t hide in here forever. You have obligations. Also, we have to do your ITM before we can call it a night.” Marcia was referring to the ‘In The Moment’ interviews meant to reflect the emotions and state of mind of the cast members as they reacted to the events of the show. This could take hours.

Helen looked longingly up at the small window high on the concrete wall. A tiny, unreachable portal to freedom.

She caught her reflection in the warped mirror, barely recognizing herself. The Happily Ever After makeup team had done her up tonight—her left arm still trapped in a sling following her harrowing rescue of a puppy from the path of a speeding car just days before. Her dark hair piled elegantly on top of her head in a sweeping up-do that might have been lovely in other circumstances but here… her eyelids were too glittery. Her lips too red. Everything about her looked desperate and forced.

It revealed far too much.

The hard truth of the matter was she had chosen this path. She’d made the decisions and signed on the dotted lines every step of the way. This was her bed, so to speak, and she must lay in it. Or, heaven help her, ride in it.

She spun away from the mirror and sucked in a long, shuddering breath then flashed a smile to prove she was all right. “I apologize. I’m just overwhelmed. It’s been a long day. Forgive me?”

Ivy inched toward Helen. “Let me just call makeup. You’re still looking a little manic. We’ll clean you up and get you over to the inn as soon as we can.”

Helen nodded.

“That’s a good girl,” Marcia said.

Helen side-eyed Marcia. She hated when folks called her a girl.

Hell, a girl wouldn’t already be making plans to chug the bottle of champagne she knew would be waiting in her hotel room, because that’s exactly what she planned, thankyouverymuch. She was a woman. An overwhelmed, tired, frustrated, pissed off woman who had reached the end of her proverbial rope.

Ten minutes later, she stepped into the blinding light of dozens of camera flashes as she made the short walk of shame across the snowy town common to the Inn at Sugar Falls.

Helen crossed the lobby, passed a handful of lingering crew members, and silently climbed the stairwell that led to the second floor.

Ivy trailed her as if she might bolt.

Wise woman.

Hellen allowed Ivy to open the door to her suite. See? She could do this after all. She’d had years of practice sublimating her true feelings and holding her head so high and steady a cup of tea in a saucer wouldn’t spill, and she had the pictures to prove it.

“Can I get you anything before we start ITMs?” Ivy asked.

Helen shook her head. She eyed the champagne on the small table by the window. “I’m fine. Thank you.”

Ivy’s eyes skimmed her ever-present clipboard. “Ten minutes.”

Helen pressed the door shut and closed her eyes. Ten minutes wasn’t a lot of time to regain one’s dignity.

She wiggled her foot to ease the ache in her arches. She would have loved to kick off the ridiculous strappy heels she was wearing, but then she’d have to struggle to put them back on again, and this dress wasn’t exactly designed for flexibility. She grabbed the cushy white robe with the inn’s logo on the pocket, wrapped it over her shoulders for warmth, and crossed to the window.

Her room overlooked the small, quaint town common of Sugar Falls. Normally it looked like a throwback to some Norman Rockwell painting. Tonight, the detritus of television production littered the common and blocked the streets with vehicles, reporters, and equipment. The lights of Lucky’s Pub down the way glowed along with the rhythmic pulsing of emergency lights. She wondered how long before the rescue and clean-up crews were done containing the site of the explosion that had flattened the old mechanic’s garage earlier that evening.

As wild as it had all been, none of that had stopped the Happily Ever After live finale. Helen stared at the now-empty bandstand where Ian and Bailey had declared their love for one another. Helen had been forced to stand and watch like the ex-girlfriend everyone worried—and secretly hoped—would cause a scene.

She turned her back to the window. The bottle of champagne sat in a silver ice bucket, a pair of crystal flutes beside it as if anyone else were going to be celebrating this ridiculous night with her. She tucked the bottle under her sling, unscrewed the cap and poured herself a glass.

Bubbles bounced around on her tongue. For cheap champagne it went down surprisingly easy. She refilled her glass.

All too soon, Ivy knocked on the door to collect her.

Helen emptied her glass. “Let’s get this over with.”

Her stomach growled as she made her way through the darkened hallways of the inn to the room they’d set up for the ITMs. They had a pair of wing chairs set together. Behind that stood dark bookshelves pulled into the room to make it look like a gentleman’s library instead of the storage area it clearly was under other circumstances. Helen glanced at the cases of toilet paper the crew had tucked just out of view. Fitting. They put a nice veneer on it, but the crap was always just out of view.

Helen closed her eyes, and the room went pleasantly dark. She waited for everyone to get organized and take their place. Lordy, she was tired. Tired of everything, of course, but being on reality TV meant a whole ‘nother level of tired. You were always ‘on,’ always conscious of the cameras lying in wait like eager paparazzi, hoping to take an unflattering photo or clip of unguarded dialogue to exploit out of context.

It was no accident that Helen Walker of Heaven, Alabama, was still America’s sweetheart southern belle. That kind of image took work. Faux serenity and 24/7 charm didn’t just come out of nowhere. You had to store that crap up and let it ooze out slowly, like honey on a cold day.

Helen snapped to attention as Ivy clicked her pen repeatedly.

“Okay. Single camera tonight. No wardrobe changes. We’ve got a few things to cover, but once we’ve got it all, we can call it a wrap and get to bed.”

Helen slipped off her robe, lay it on a side table out of view of the camera, and waited for the stylist to fix her hair just so. She hoped they’d blot her lips. They didn’t. The camera guys adjusted the lighting, asked her to sit closer to the edge of her seat, as if she needed prompting to be ready to flee. She straightened her shoulders. Marcia stood just behind the camera motioning with her hand.

“Okay, I need you to tell us what you were feeling when you realized Ian was proposing to Bailey.”

Helen nodded. She’d expected this. She smiled with an air of bittersweet tragedy at the camera. At least in this, it was real. As much as the outward setting and backdrops were orchestrated and manufactured, the emotions were genuine. “I’m sure y’all can understand, it’s not easy seeing you’re the runner up for someone’s affection, and to be honest. It hurt. I thought Ian and I had a connection. No, I know we did, but I’m looking for more than a connection in a partner. I feel like we were good friends, but I want more than that. I deserve more than that.” She shrugged, and it hurt. Her injured shoulder and her heart. “I deserve someone who nurtures me, body and soul, you know? Somebody who will fight for me. Sacrifice for me.” She glanced at the ceiling as tears threatened which had nothing at all to do with Ian or Bailey or this blasted show. Why wouldn’t they ever allow her to hold a tissue? “I want to be someone’s number one.”

A tear escaped and slid down her face and she reflexively swallowed trying to stem the tide.

“Brilliant!” Marcia cut in, swearing enthusiastically. “That’s fantastic. Can you do that again, but this time tell me whether you ever saw Ian as your future husband. And… go.”

Helen nodded and began again. “It’s not easy knowing you’re the runner up for someone’s—”

Marcia cut her off. “Throw in that y’all again. Didn’t she say y’all the first time? Show your southern. People love that shit.”

Helen held her shoulders rigid, sucked in a breath, and started again, “Y’all can probably understand how hard it is seeing you’re the runner up for someone’s affections…”

After what felt like an eternity but had probably been no more than twenty minutes, Marcia decided to take things in a new direction. “I want you to talk about how we plan to cast this season. Give them a teaser for it.”

Helen turned toward the camera. “This season I will be made to ride in a golden penis-mobile from—”

“Cut! Time out. Penis-mobile? That’s what you think of it?”

“I would say that’s fairly accurate.”

Marcia threw her hands up. She did that a lot. “I cannot believe you’re still freaking out over this.”

“I cannot believe you can’t see how embarrassing it is to parade around in a giant bus promoting condoms.”

Marcia ignored the semi-shocked gasps of the crew. Frankly, Helen was surprised they had any reaction after all they’d seen over the years.

“Our viewership is 63 percent comprised of the 18-34-year-old demographic, and let me tell you, those folks are having sex. Lots of it. Promoting condom use is being a responsible role model. Did you think of that?”

“My widowed father will be watching this. Did you think of that?”

Helen’s skin hummed with frustration. How could no one else see how outrageous this was? She glanced to Ivy for support only to have her avert her eyes and click her pen.

Marcia clapped her hands. “We’re taking a fifteen-minute break, people. Helen? A word in the hallway?”

Helen mutinously grabbed her robe and followed Marcia into the dark paneled hallway. Marcia shut the door.

She didn’t even wait for Marcia to start. “I agreed to be the lead, because you told me, no, you promised me you wouldn’t force me to do anything I truly objected to doing. Well, I object. This is me objecting.”

“I announced it on live TV. I can’t exactly take it back.”

Helen paced down the hall, her heels clicking on the hardwood floor. “That’s not my problem. Go ahead and do your bus tour, but leave me out of it!”

When Marcia’s casting director had reached out to her all those months ago, Helen had grabbed the opportunity with both hands and taken a bite like it was the apple in the garden and she was starved. But while tasty at first, tonight it had damn near choked her. The show wasn’t an escape. It was a very public and humiliating boomerang poised to send her right back to where she started. She was prepared to walk home to Alabama, impractical footwear and all, to avoid going down this road any further.

“Do I need to remind you you signed a contract?”

“I’ll hire a lawyer. I’ll find a loophole.”

“You don’t think the show has lawyers? Oh, sweetheart, don’t threaten. It’s not an attractive color on you.”

Helen stopped and stared at Marcia. She thought hard about the reasons she’d initially agreed to do the show. She reminded herself of Travis’ excitement over getting national PR for the bakeries, Aunt Iris’ horror at the idea of Helen’s “prostituting herself for profit” (which, frankly, was a checkmark in the pro column,) and the outside possibility that she might actually make a connection with someone.

But, she wanted a man who wanted her for herself—not someone who saw her as a trophy or, as in Travis’s case, a foregone conclusion in the inevitable march toward death.

“I do not want the kind of man that would willingly ride in a bus like that,” she said, hands on hips.

“Helen, I hate to break it to you, but most men would find it an honor to travel in a—what did you call it?—penis-mobile.”

“This is not a joke.”

“I’m not joking.”

Helen stared, aghast. How could she reason with people like this? “I need some air,” she declared.

“You know I’m right,” Marcia said.

Helen pulled her robe tight around herself and stalked toward the back door. The last thing she heard was Marcia yelling, “twelve minutes!” to anyone within earshot as the heavy door to the service entrance slammed in her wake.

She sucked in the cold night air. Twelve minutes? Marcia could take her twelve minutes and shove it.

Helen stomped down the short set of metal stairs, nearly falling on her backside in the process. She skittered across the pavement covered in half-melted patches of ice and compacted snow with choppy steps, muttering her frustration to the empty, frozen space between the river, a dumpster, and the inn’s poorly-lit parking lot.

As if she were the one being unreasonable! Her eyes ached from lack of sleep and too many tears, and she felt raw and exposed and, frankly, used. She could already see the kind of tabloid headlines Marcia’s ridiculous idea would inspire. Pageant Girl Turns Porn Star. Or, Beauty’s Busload of Bachelors. Tabloids were big on alliteration and hyperbole, as the Rejected but Returning Reality Star knew all too well.

The opportunity to vent and mumble expletives in private felt good, but it was still too cold to linger. Helen made her way back up the little metal steps to the door and pulled.

She pulled again.

“Y’all have got to be kidding.”

She yanked a third time, then knocked. Given its location in the building, she realized no one could hear her, and she had zero interest cooling her heels, literally, waiting for someone to eventually find her.

She descended to the parking lot. Well, she could march to the main entrance up the left-hand alley crowded with news vans orhope there was another entrance on the far right of the building.

Far right of the building won. Helen’s heels slipped on the patches of ice again as she grumbled over insufficient lighting. She reached the corner. Peering through a scramble of bushes, she could just make out a hotel employee putting out a cigarette, opening a door, and entering the inn. Perfect.

Helen picked her way through branches that snatched at her hair and caught the hem of her dress. Hopefully makeup and wardrobe wouldn’t have a fit about her appearance. She broke free of the hedge, retying her robe when a flash of light temporarily blinded her.

“Helen! Helen Walker! Look here!” Another flash, and then shouts. Oh, sweet mother of sunshine. You have got to be kidding.

Helen turned toward the bushes again, but the sound of footsteps had her rethinking that escape route. Instead, she dashed toward a parking lot which was also dimly lit—thank you, Jesus, for small favors—and zig-zagged through the cars, grabbing onto side mirrors and the occasional door handle to keep herself upright. She huddled, crouched, beside a car when a faint light flashed across the hood light a searchlight.

Helen rolled her eyes. Really? They were using their cellphones to find her? Could they not leave her in peace?

She heard the crunch of footsteps on the edge of the lot, new voices intermingling with the first ones. She picked a stick out of her hair before it impaled her eyeball and considered her options. One, she could show herself in all her disheveled glory and let the tabloids say what they may, or, two, she could wait the suckers out.

They’d fanned out on the far side of the lot, and she crept along the car she was hiding beside as mulled over what to do. She grasped the handle of the next car, but instead of steadying her, it gave way and swung open.

“Son of a peacock!” Helen hissed to herself as her feet shot out from under her, and she slammed onto her back, sliding half under the now open door, staring in shocked surprise at the night sky.

It took a moment for her to take stock of the situation. The icy, gritty ground pressed against her neck and right forearm, and melting snow chilled her bum. Perfect. Just. Flippin’. Perfect.

Who doesn’t lock their doors in this day and age?

The open door, though, gave Helen an idea.

As new voices joined those of the paparazzi, Helen made a split-second decision. She scrambled into the open car, snicked the door shut, and crouched low in the back seat. She’d just wait for them to give up then slink back to the inn and put this whole night behind her.

She crouched lower as footsteps neared the car and prayed she was enough out of sight. They wouldn’t look in the car, would they? Oh, Lordy, they were close though. The driver’s door opened, a backpack landed on the seat inches from her face, and a man sat down with a heavy sigh. He slammed the door shut.

Purchase The Runaway Cupcake Queen in print or e-book today!

Apple Books
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Amazon AU
Amazon CA
Barnes & Noble
Kobo
Google Play