A/N: Thanks for the support on the new venture. For those of you still dubious, just bear with me. I think I can get you hooked within a few chapters.
"Hey, boss?" one of Cassie's new employees approached her in the kitchen hesitantly, unsure how she would respond to the request.
Cassie looked up from the chocolate cake she was frosting and tried to recall the name of the unfamiliar woman who now worked for her. "What is it, Amanda?"
The cashier shifted her weight nervously from foot to foot. She pointed vaguely behind her at the telephone, "I just got a call from my kid's school. He threw up all over the classroom."
Her new boss nodded, cutting her off before she could continue in her plea, "Say no more. Go. You can make up the time after he's better."
Amanda heaved a sigh of relief. She smiled at the other woman, "Thank you so much. I think it's just a stomach flu. He should be fine tomorrow."
"Just go," Cassie shooed her out the door. "Help your kid get well again."
"Wow," a male voice commented from Cassie's right. She turned to look at her other employee who was working right then and raised an eyebrow at the ex-con expectantly. His lanky frame was covered in tattoos Cassie didn't want to know the origin of as he looked at her with a hard look on his mulatto skin. "This place ain't never been no picnic to work. Da ol' guy would never let her go after her son like dat." He shook his head ruefully as he got back to forming the bagels he was making. His head shot up again a few seconds later, "Whose gonna run da front?"
Cassie smiled tensely, not liking what she had been hearing all morning about the previous owner. She set down the frosting spatula back in the bowl. "Think you can finish up here, Jason?"
"I ain't never frosted no cake before," he replied dubiously as he mechanically formed the dough in his hands.
"You were watchin' me, right? Just try to make it look smooth and even. Like paving a driveway," Cassie replied, washing her hands off quickly before heading out to the front of the shop. "Only if you mess up, all you gotta do is smooth it out again. I'll show you how to add on the details once Chris gets here."
Without waiting for the darker man to reply, Cassie took off her apron and made her way to see what kind of business she was dealing with at nine o'clock in the morning.
Jason just shook his head as the door swung closed behind her. He smiled slightly as he continued to shape the small mounds of dough before him, "I'll be. Da crazy bitch gonna teach me how da frost a cake. Da ol' guy never taught me nuthin' 'bout no cakes. Jus' roll da bagels and make da bread. Won't Kelly be proud o' me when I make her birthday cake dis year? Dat li'l girl never had nuthin' good from me. We gotta change dat, Jason. We will. Make her proud of her daddy."
"Oooh! Donuts!" Parker bounced with joy as she saw the sugary goodness in the shop that Eliot had taken Hardison and her to.
Hardison looked at the display in open adoration. All of the baked goods looked so ... well, good that he was having trouble deciding which ones he actually wanted to buy. For a moment he forgot why Eliot had brought them to this out of the way bakery called "The Mountain" and how odd he found the name. The cacophony of smells was doing strange things to his head. They were all so good ...
The counter was unmanned as they walked in, but that soon changed as a woman walked out from the back. She smiled pleasantly when she saw them in the near empty shop. "Can I help you?" she asked, her eyes taking in the three as her smile failed to falter.
Eliot looked at her and couldn't help but notice how much more beautiful she looked in the daylight. He coughed into his hand as Parker finally realized it was their turn in line. She turned her wide eyes to the woman and almost choked on her own tongue as she realized who it was.
"Hello, again," Cassie said as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on. "What can I get you?"
Parker tilted her head to one side, trying to figure out if the woman was serious. Finally deciding to go with her gut, the thief replied, "All the chocolate donuts."
At the serious tone, Cassie's smile did crack into a true grin. "That it?" as she looked the other two men over. "No coffee after staying up and following unsuspecting women through town like stalkers?" she asked innocently.
Eliot felt himself smirk against his better judgement. Of course she would know he had been there. "What else is someone supposed to do when said unsuspecting woman is walking alone in a very dangerous part of town? Couldn't very well have you getting mugged."
Cassie chuckled at that as she started boxing up the twenty-four chocolate donuts still in the display case. "I can take care of myself, thanks." Her head tilted to one side, "Although right now I'm feeling a bit off. You guys seem to know quite a bit about me -- including my name. Care to share yours?"
Parker held her hand out, "Regina Howard. Pleasure to meet you, Cassie Fraiser."
Eliot nodded once toward the woman as she shook "Regina's" hand, "Eric Smith. This here is Patrick Lance."
Cassie raised her eyebrows, "Didn't your mother ever teach you not to bite the hand that feeds you? Let's revise that to don't lie to the woman you're buying food from."
Parker grinned, "I like you. Name's Parker." She motioned with her head toward the other two men, "That's Eliot and Hardison. He thinks you're cute, that's why he can't talk right now."
Hardison glared at the little blonde thief as he blushed crimson on his dark skin.
Cassie smiled again, this time with a more honest amusement that before, "Nice to meet you, Parker. Anything else I can get you?"
The thief thought about that seriously for a moment before she asked, "Can you make specialty cakes?"
The chef nodded once, grabbing a form from behind her that she had run off the day before. "Just fill it out. What kind of cake do you want?"
Parker's eyes glinted with a hint of the insanity that lurked beneath the surface, "One that looks like a big pile of money. With mint chocolate chip cake on the inside and buttercream frosting."
Cassie filled out the parts of the form that she could before turning it to Parker, "Just fill out the rest and I'll make you a cake that looks so much like a pile of money you'll have to look twice before you realize it's a cake."
"You can do that?" Eliot asked at the same time as Parker and Hardison.
Cassie just gave them all a smirk that dared them to argue with her skills. "Will that be all today?"
Hardison looked at the reduced selection of pastries and added, "Half a dozen bear claws and half a dozen onion bagels, please."
The young woman -- Eliot pegged her being no more than 25 years old -- didn't seemed phased at all by their order and quickly got everything set into three boxes.
"The total's going to be $30.50, including a deposit on the cake. Considering it's my first order, I should have it done by Tuesday," Cassie relayed to them from the cash register. Eliot handed her twenty five dollars and put the change in the tip jar that sat on the counter.
"Thank you," Parker said with a wide grin on her face as she took the two boxes of chocolate donuts in her arms.
"No problem," Cassie replied. They turned to leave but she called out to them, "Oh, and Mr. Hardison?"
Alec turned his head at her voice, unsure he wanted to stay and find out what she was going to tell him.
"The next time you want to know something about me, try asking me instead of looking it up."
Eliot snorted as the trio left. None of them particularly wanted to know how she knew about the illegal search. However, they all had their theories.
Cassie got Sam's call about fifteen minutes after she left the shop for lunch. She knew damn well that the people on her payroll were good, honest workers despite their somewhat shady pasts. They could handle the shop for a while so she could eat something not made from flour and shortening. Not to mention she'd been there since 4:15 that morning and it was now nearing 1:00. At the very least she had to get out of the damn place so it didn't start to consume her life.
"How would you feel about all of us coming up to visit you next week?" Sam asked through the phone, her voice sounding excited at the prospect of seeing how Cassie was settling in.
The younger woman grinned at the prospect, "Are you bringing Vala with you?"
"Of course. She's been really eager to see more of the U.S. and I think she might cry if we didn't bring her with us."
Cassie chuckled at that, "I guess that's true. When should I expect you all?"
"Monday afternoon. Around 15:00 hours, but you know how airplanes can be."
"Don't I ever. Hey, do you want me to make you guys a cake?" Cassie walked into an Italian style restaurant and waited in the line for the hostess to get to her.
Sam sounded dubious, "Like the one you made for that off-world celebration when Jack and I got married?"
Cassie grinned at the memory of the double cakes: replicas of the Asgard ships The O'Neill and The Samantha Carter. "Nothing quite that ... in depth, Sam," Cassie assured her. "I was actually just thinking of the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy and the Scarecrow skipping down the yellow brick road with Toto by their sides and some rain falling on the Wicked Witch."
Sam outright laughed at the idea. "Sound great, Cas. Maybe you can fit in a little baby Scarecrow in there somewhere. See you Monday."
"See you Monday." She ended the call with a smile as she put her phone back in her purse. It wasn't until her hands completely dropped the phone that she realized exactly what Sam had said at the end. Her eyes went wide and her mouth opened in an "Oh" of shock as she realized that Sam had just told her that she was pregnant. A wide grin broke out on her face as she debated calling her back to squeal in delight over the news.
"Who are you seeing on Monday?" a man asked from her side, leaning in a little bit so it was clear whom he was talking to. She wasn't very surprised to see Eliot standing there, waiting next to her in line and nixed the idea of calling Sam back just then.
Cassie smirked, in too good a mood to let someone with apparent boundary issues ruin it. "Some friends from Colorado. They're coming for a visit."
Eliot nodded, motioning his head toward the decreasing line. "Wanna eat together? It'd save some time."
She bit her lip, unsure she liked the idea of the unknown man eating with her ... but he wasn't Goa'uld or some sort of unmarked Jaffa, and he wasn't the type to be working for the NID or the Trust. From the information Jack had sent her on him, it would be relatively safe. And he was, after all, treating her more like a woman that he was interested in rather than a possible meal ticket. Not entirely in control of her own actions, Cassie nodded acceptance to his invitation, still on cloud nine from Sam's news.
"On one condition," she added at his self-satisfied smirk. He tilted his head curiously as she asked, "What's your real last name?"
Eliot's smirk changed to one that was approving of her candor. "Spencer," he replied as the hostess came back to her post and asked if they had a reservation.
"Reservation for two under Ford. Nathan Ford," Eliot replied with a smile as the woman found the reservation and took them to a booth that gave them a great view of the door and the rest of the room.
Cassie took a sip of the water in front of her after their waitress came to take their drink order. "What'd Mr. Ford do to piss you off? Or is that just another one of your names?"
Eliot smiled and Cassie decided that she liked his smile ... and his southern drawl. "Ford's my boss. Made the reservation for me after the last job we did. As a 'thank you.'"
"Must've done quite a job," Cassie replied. She was about to say something else when their waitress returned with their drinks and took their food order.
Eliot's grin was a note too feral as the waitress walked away. "I'm very good at what I do."
Her eyes were honest and true as she looked back at him, "I know. Hardison must be very good at what he does, too. Otherwise he wouldn't have looked nearly that frightened when you all walked into the shop this morning."
The retrieval specialist frowned, unsure how she was making the connections she was. "What do you mean?" he asked, not wanting to give anything away.
Cassie took out her cell phone and played with it for a moment before answering, "I was alerted when he first opened the search on me."
"Why? How?" Computers were never Eliot's thing, but this sounded a little paranoid to him.
"I can tell you 'why' but the 'how' is way beyond my computer abilities," Cassie replied with a slight smirk.
"Glad to know I'm not the only one who finds 'em confusin'."
Cassie smiled sadly this time as she looked down at her cellphone. "Part of it is paranoia. I have some friends in very high places that want to keep me safe without stifling me. They want to watch over me while still letting me ... spread my wings, if you will."
Her lunch companion could understand that. There was nothing more important to him than keeping his loved ones safe. Knowing that they would be safe is what helped him keep control. It helped him take the punishment. "And the other part?"
She looked up at him with a hard look in her hazel eyes that he knew well. Her jaw was set firmly as she said, "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't watching."
"How do you know I'm not one of them?" he prodded, finding himself curious and drawn into something that could quite probably end badly. For both of them.
Her face broke out of its gloom and doom attitude as her eyes twinkled at him. A smirk played on her lips as she said, "Because if you were one of them, Sam would have been on a plane last night and whisked me back to Colorado or Nevada. Jack would have told me." She shrugged as she thought about it, "And you'd probably be in a coma or dead by now."
He raised his eyebrows, "You sound mighty sure of your protectors there, darlin'."
She truly smiled then as she put her cell back in her purse and twirled her half full glass of ice water. "There are so few things in life we can be sure of. Teal'c is one of mine."
"Teal'c?" Of course he couldn't help but find the name a tad amusing. "What's that mean, anyway?"
"It means 'strength' in his native tongue," Cassie replied quite truthfully. Of course she didn't bother to mention that his native tongue was an alien language that she knew quite well from her childhood on Hanka. There were some things he just didn't need to know yet. "I dare you to tease him about it to his face."
"Judging by the gleeful look in your eye, I'm going to have to pass." He thought over what she had just said and asked a different question, "Was that just an invitation to meet your friends from Colorado?"
Cassie grinned, not having planned that course of action, but liking the flirtatious banter too much to put a stop to it. "Perhaps. If you're as good a cook as you are at evading capture."
Eliot couldn't help the grin that encompassed his face. "You're on. Tomorrow night I'll pick you up from the bakery and show you what a good chef's really all about."
Eliot banged his head against the wall when he got back to the office after a very stimulating lunch with Cassie Fraiser. She knew things about him that she shouldn't know. She hadn't said anything to insinuate that she was afraid of him in any way, but she knew. God damn it. She knew.
"What's eatin' you, man?" Hardison asked as he walked into Eliot's office after hearing the noise.
The hitter growled at him before moving to the punching bag they had installed the previous week for him to use. "What do you know about the business this Fraiser chick grew up with? Who is it puttin' the lock on her files?"
Hardison's eyes went wide as he realized what Eliot was asking him to tell him. "Naw, man. You don't wanna be drawn into that shit."
Eliot hit the punching bag so hard that the canvas bag split in two where the force of his hand hit. His brown eyes turned a deadly glare on the hacker as he said, "Pretend for a moment that I do, Hardison. Tell me what the fuck this chick is in to!"
"What happened, man?" Hardison asked as he took a step back closer to the door.
Eliot's glare intensified as he punched the punching hanging bag again, causing a puff of dust to shoot out into the air. "Nothin' happened, Hardison. Just tell me what the hell kind of shit she's involved in!"
Hardison didn't know what to do other than tell Eliot what he wanted to know. "Have you ever heard of the Stargate Program?" his voice broke a little as he said the name of the top secret military organization that he shouldn't even know existed.
Eliot frowned at that, his anger being replaced a little by confusion and curiosity, "The what?"
"The Stargate Program," Hardison repeated, stepping one step forward. "Or Stargate Command. It's a top secret military program. There are theories about what they do but no one knows for sure." His eyes flickered in fear toward the window. "But you hear things, man. Of people getting too close. Disappearing."
Eliot stood up straight and stepped back from his punching bag. "U.S. military?" he asked without expecting a response. "What is she then? A superhuman? A weapon?"
Hardison gave him a look that clearly said he was overlooking the obvious, "What kind of superhuman would she be if they're letting her run a bakery for a living?"
"Maybe she's going to take over the world one chocolate donut at a time," Parker said as she came up to them, munching on one of her chocolate snacks. "These are good."
Eliot scowled again as he crossed his arms and leaned against his usually unused desk.
"What's got your nickers in a twist, Eliot?" Sophie asked as she walked into his office, clearly intending to see what all the fuss was about. In her hand was another one of the pastries that the other three had purchased that morning from Cassie's shop.
"He likes Cassie Fraiser," Parker said simply. She held up what was left of her donut, "I do too. She makes good chocolate donuts -- and she let me buy all of them."
Eliot wanted to beat something up, "I do not like her, Parker. I'm just wondering why I'm the only one worried about how much she knows about us."
"What do you mean?" Sophie asked, not having been there when Cassie had called Hardison on the search he ran on her.
"She practically told me that she knows what I do, god damn it!" Eliot raged as he started to pace in front of his desk. "And now Hardison's spouting off about something called the Stargate Program but he won't tell me anything about it!"
"I stole something for them once," Parker piped in after finishing her donut. She looked between the three pairs of shocked eyes and shrugged, "What? They needed something back and I was right there. They paid really well for it, too."
"What'd you get?" Sophie asked, her eyes curious.
Parker grinned back at her before sauntering out of the room. "It's a secret."
Eliot just growled again and went to go occupy his time in the kitchen. Might as well practice for tomorrow.
A/N: So? Can you smell the brewing romance? The chocolate donuts? The inevidable sparring match? The freakin' awesome cake Cassie gets to make?