Series: Little Cakes Series by Pepper North
Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 45218 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 226(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45218 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 226(@200wpm)___ 181(@250wpm)___ 151(@300wpm)
The four men looked at each other and grinned. One stepped toward her. Ellie backed up a few paces. Why hadn’t she grabbed her phone?
“No, we’re more the pick-up type of crew. This is a cupcake store, huh? We’d be willing to take some off your hands,” a grubby man with shifting eyes suggested.
“Sorry, I’m not open yet. Just getting set up. You’ll have to come back another day,” Ellie suggested as her mind raced, trying to figure out a way to handle this situation.
The store was in a perfectly safe location. She’d never seen anything sketchy happening as she’d worked in the store late at night or during the day. What was she going to do if they threatened her? Gripping the screwdriver tightly in her hand, Ellie was determined to protect her new business.
When the obvious leader of the pack took another step toward her, Ellie bristled. She wasn’t going to let anyone take this dream from her. “Look, I don’t know who you are and I don’t care. The store isn’t open and you’ll have to leave.”
“Isn’t that cute, Ben? She wants us to leave,” one of the other three joked, talking to the guy in charge.
“Yes. You need to go now.” Ellie tried to control the warble of fright from her voice and failed.
“Just what are you going to do if we refuse?” Ben asked.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Ellie whirled to see Garrett’s muscular form filling the doorway as he struck the metal frame.
As the unwelcome visitors turned, Garrett took several photos of their surprised faces before addressing them, “You have been asked to leave the store. I’m telling you as the property owner that you need to move on. I now have your photos and will share them with my contacts at the police station.”
“They can’t pick us up for anything. The door was open. We just came in to see if anything was for sale,” Ben argued as he backed toward the other men.
Garrett walked to Ellie’s side. “You picked the wrong place to visit. Nothing will happen to this woman or her business. Do you understand?”
With nods, the men slinked through the open door. Ellie turned and threw herself against Garrett’s broad chest. “Thank you for coming!”
“You are in so much trouble, Rainbow,” Garrett lectured.
“Hey! I’ve got a delivery for Little Cakes. Are you Ellie Willmoth?” A man called from the door.
Ellie sprang away from Garrett to see a man dressed in a blue uniform with a tablet in his hand in her doorway. “Yes! I’m Ellie.”
“Sign here, ma’am, and we’ll start bringing in the boxes.”
“Of course.” Ellie walked quickly toward him to sign her name with the stylus he offered. She watched the man prop open the door with a rubber wedge from his pocket before returning to the large truck parked at the curb out front. A shaky breath escaped her lungs as she tried to dispel the scare.
“You’ve earned your first punishment, Ellie.”
“What? You can’t punish me,” she argued.
The return of the delivery guys pushing two dollies filled with large boxes interrupted his answer. Ellie gestured with the screwdriver toward an empty corner of the store. When they dropped off the first round of boxes, she ran over eagerly to open the top of one box, using the screwdriver to punch through the tape. Peering inside, she saw a bunch of parts filling the cardboard container.
“I don’t suppose you paid for these to be assembled?” Garrett asked from behind her.
“I thought they’d come out of the box with maybe just the screws to hold the top on the tables. This looks a bit more involved,” she observed.
Garrett held his hand out for the screwdriver she still held tightly.
“You don’t have to help,” she assured him quickly. “I can do it.”
“I have this morning free. Some of those parts look heavy. Besides, we need to talk after they leave.”
Ellie nodded, accepting her fate. She knew she’d messed up. “Those guys scared me,” she admitted.
“They frightened me, too.”
“You were scared?” she gasped.
“I don’t want you to be hurt. There are bad people in the world. Hopefully, I got through to those men and they won’t come back. I’ll hire a security force to patrol for a few weeks.”
When she opened her mouth to protest, he held a hand up to stop her. “Not only to take care of you, but the other tenants as well.”
That did make her feel better to think someone would watch over the whole strip center. Ellie watched Garrett settle on the floor with her screwdriver and a set of instructions. He joked with the delivery people as they continued to bring in boxes of tables and chairs. By the time the men had unloaded her order, Garrett already had two tables put together.
He stood as the men brought in the last load. “Count the boxes, Ellie. Let’s make sure you have everything.”