Read Online Jacob's Ladder by Z. A. Maxfield - Free Book Online

some guy—”
    “I"m stuck here in St. Nacho's for a few days,” I told him. “I"ll use the time to think, all right?”
    JT nodded. “What are you doing for breakfast? If you stop by the firehouse at around seven, we can eat together as long as there"s no call.” At last I was on safe ground again. “My friend, by that time I"ll have been working for nearly three hours.”
    “You what?”
    “It seems that my unplanned arrival in St. Nacho"s is good for something.
    You"re looking at the newest employee of Miss Independence Pies.” JT snorted through his nose. “Ms. Jensen"s?”
    “Yes, she followed me from the meeting, and we had coffee.”
    “I see.”
    “I told her why I didn"t want to go to the group. She was very nice. It turns out that she could use some help at the bakery, and I—”
    “That will be good.” He laughed. “I"m sorry. I have to go back to work.”
    “What"s so funny?”
    “Nothing.” JT appeared to get a grip. “I guess nothing.”
    “Look…” I opened the door to let him out. I felt like I needed to say something further but didn"t know exactly what. “Thanks. You"re a nice guy for trying to help.” Something flickered in his eyes. It looked like sadness, but it was gone in a second. “That"s me, Mr. Nice Guy.”
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    Z. A. Maxfield
    Chapter Six
    The moment I entered Miss Independence Pies at three a.m., I realized I"d been played. Not in the nyah-nyah-now-I-gotcha way or anything, but as sure as I was standing there, so were five damn women from the domestic-violence support group, everyone except Alice, and they all waited in silence as I walked through the door. They watched me with wary eyes, and I had the uncomfortable feeling it wasn"t me they were monitoring, but my Y chromosome—as if they thought at any moment it would cause me to leap at one of them and tug out her hair.
    “I guess I should introduce myself to the group .” I folded my arms. “My name is Jacob Livingston, and I"m a pastry chef.”
    A young woman, really no more than a girl, laughed from behind a wall formed by two taller women.
    “Welcome, Jacob ,” she said in a tone of voice that left no doubt she was teasing me. Shoulders parted as she pushed her way forward. She had black hair that hung in her lined eyes and several piercings, including two prominent ones on her lower lip and a nasal septum piercing. Ordinarily I didn"t find piercings attractive, but on her they looked perfect; they made her look like a marmoset with a spiked collar. I tried not to laugh.
    “You"re the one who called us victims last night.” I cleared my throat. “Well, technically all I said was that I wasn"t—”
    “ Muse .” Miss Independence herself, Mary Catherine, walked toward me from where she"d been standing by the walk-in freezer. “I thought we talked about letting Yasha get a foot in the door before we alienate him.”
    “What kind of a name is Yasha?” One woman frowned. “That"s not a name. It"s a cartoon show.”
    I laughed. “I may have given the impression yesterday that I didn"t have a great deal of respect for the—”
    “Damn right you did.” A tall blonde woman edged forward. “I, for one, found your insinuation very insulting. Unlike some of the people in that group—”
    “Oh, here we go,” said the woman next to the girl called Muse. She had lovely dark hair, and she rippled with indignation. She stood poised with her hands on her hips and her head cocked to the side, an elegant, dark-eyed beauty with a great face and a body that, if I swung that way, would have made my dick hard.
    The blonde woman turned on her. “What did you just say?” St. Nacho’s 3: Jacob’s Ladder
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    “ Candace , I know we don"t gotta hear all about you being married to an above-it-all physician again, "cause I know for a fact that your nose was reengineered three times, first by your med-school boyfriend and twice by that worthless, wife-beating psycho plastic surgeon you married, and only once in the