Make Your Move - By Samantha Hunter Page 0,3

the best way to get into her pants, Dan had just enjoyed her company and never asked for more. When she’d been turned down by one bank after another to start her business, having a weak credit history and no rich parents to back her up, Dan had stepped up and loaned her the money. He’d had plenty saved and had been collecting money from patents and other work for years.

It paid to be a child genius, and he was more than generous in sharing with Jodie, no questions asked. Later, when he developed the icing formula, she signed him on as partner. Even though she had been paying back his loan, it was only fair that he share in her profits.

She’d been a little surprised, but pleased, when he accepted.

“You haven’t eaten, have you?” she said, knowing.

“I’ll call room service, promise. Listen, you have someone waiting—you have fun,” he said, starting to hang up.

“Wait. This guy, you know, it isn’t important. I don’t think we were clicking anyway,” she said, with her fingers crossed, just in case. “I haven’t seen you in forever. I’ll be there in an hour with a pizza. Where are you?”

He told her, and she called in the order for their favorite deep dish, wondering how she’d let Jason down easily. It wasn’t fair, getting the guy all worked up and then fleeing the scene, but she wasn’t in the mood anymore. She’d make it up to him another time.

2

“JODIE, DEAR, I must have more of those cookies!”

“Coming, Mrs. Mitchell!” Jodie grabbed the tray of cookies, just frosted, and headed back out to the counter. Outside the window, people bustled by on Wells St. in Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood.

She’d been up late the night before catching up with Dan and didn’t expect to be handling the bakery alone this Saturday morning. Ginger’s babysitter had let her down, so she had to make other arrangements and wasn’t here yet.

“Oh! And they’re fresh!” Mrs. Mitchell exclaimed as she eyed the new sugar cookies, shaped as hearts and decorated red with the secret frosting recipe that Jodie couldn’t make fast enough.

There’d been some question in local blogs and food columns if the cookies were just a marketing gimmick or the real deal, and Jodie let the conversation flourish. Everyone liked to speculate about her “special formula” or whether it was simply a self-fulfilling prophecy. After all, who had ever heard of pastry that attracted the attention of the opposite sex? But the doubting Thomases just drove more business in her direction, more people wanting to see if they were for real.

In Jodie’s experience, she knew that the effect—for adult women, anyway—was very real.

Dan had explained that the pheromone extract that he used, a harmless celery derivative, reacted only with adult women’s body chemistry. The woman had to be attracted to someone in the first place, for the “boosters” in the cookie icing to even take effect. So it wasn’t as if strange men would be lusting after anyone.

After much testing and licensing she was confident about serving it, and had received no complaints from customers. Men and young people would only get a sugar rush from the frosting, but Jodie found that keeping the cookies in a special “adult only” case behind the counter increased the mystique, and the sales.

“They are. How many would you like?”

“I’ll take all of them.”

Jodie gaped for a moment. Her special cookies weren’t inexpensive. If Mrs. Mitchell bought all of these, Jodie would be out of cookies for the day. She’d have to rush to bake more, or turn away unhappy customers later.

“All of them? They don’t freeze well, Mrs. Mitchell,” she said. It was hard to imagine turning down a sale, but still…

“Oh, they don’t?” her customer asked with some disappointment.

“Well, they would taste fine, but the freezing will reduce their effect,” Jodie said with a wink, though she had no idea if that was true.

“Oh, then, we can’t have that. What would be the point? Just give me a half-dozen then. I sneak two every afternoon with coffee. Rupert hasn’t been this attentive in years.”

“Glad to hear it,” Jodie said, smiling, relieved.

Working the morning shift alone had been hectic enough as it was without worrying about having to do extra baking. Jason had been leaving messages, and she meant to call him back, but the coffee delivery had been late and between covering the counter and working in the kitchen, she’d been running around like a chicken with its head cut