Cooking Up Trouble (10 page)

O
n Monday, Tessa woke to the sound of rain, dancing on her roof. She stretched under her blankets. She couldn't work outside, so she burrowed deeper into her pillow, letting herself enjoy an extra few minutes before getting out of bed.

It was May, the first day she'd open the farm stand, but she doubted there'd be much business. Who'd come to buy fresh lettuce or spinach in this weather? She padded down the oak steps to the kitchen and poured herself a cup of coffee. Carrying it to the kitchen window, she watched the steady drizzle water her flowerbeds. Luther and Kayla's cabin would be empty right now while they were in school. Had Luther told Kayla she didn't need to show up for work on rainy days? Tessa would have to mention it. She spent six days a week in the barn during the busy season and could cover the stand on days when there wouldn't be many customers. Either that, or Kayla could work inside with her when the stand was slow. That might be a better idea.

By the end of the month, Luther and Kayla would graduate. Thank goodness. Tessa would need help by then. Strawberries would be ripe enough to pick. There'd be pies and jams to make. Raspberries, blackberries, and blueberries . . . she sighed. Spring and summer meant long days.

She poured a second cup of coffee and carried it to her bedroom to drink. She pulled on her old, faded jeans and her yellow T-shirt, spotted with food stains—her cooking clothes. She never bothered with an apron when she wore these.

She rinsed out her coffee cup, then flipped open her umbrella, and started to the barn. She'd spend the day mixing cookie dough to freeze. It would be ready when she needed it. She might as well make a few batches of pie dough, too.

She slowed her steps as rain drops bounced off her umbrella. Aah, the smell of spring showers. The air she breathed invigorated. In the summer, she and Darinda used to run wild in the warm rain, but it was too early in the year for that. Still too cold.

Once she reached the barn's back door, her gym shoes squished as she walked. She popped them off and put them on a newspaper by the door, then went barefoot as she gathered the ingredients she needed. When she passed the stainless steel refrigerator, she caught a glimpse of her hair. Holy, Medusa! It was sticking out everywhere. She sliced off a piece of cooking twine and wrestled the curls back in a ponytail.

An hour later, she had three mixers going when someone pounded on the door. She'd hung a sign at the farm stand, I
F
Y
OU
N
EED
S
OMETHING
, K
NOCK
A
ROUND
B
ACK.
Everyone in the area knew her routine. She hurried to meet a customer. Ian stood there, soaking wet.

She stared at him. “Didn't you bring an umbrella?”

“If I had, don't you think I'd use it?” He pushed past her into the warm room. She had pie shells baking in the ovens for future use, and he rubbed his arms, clearly enjoying the heat. “I went to your house first and figured you weren't home, but I saw your pickup in the garage, so thought you were probably out here. I knocked on the shop door for forever, but you didn't answer, so I finally came back here.”

“You didn't see my sign?” But then, it was hung at the stand, not the bakery. She motioned to the mixers. “I couldn't hear you over the noise.”

“I noticed.” His tone was a bit snippy. His dark hair was plastered to his head, and his white T-shirt was glued to his body. He glanced at her wet shoes, sitting on a newspaper by the door, and stepped out of his shoes, too, leaving them on the paper beside hers. “We need to talk.”

He didn't come any farther into the room. A puddle formed where he was standing. She took pity on him, looked under the island's counter, and handed him a roll of paper towels. “Dry yourself off.” She went to the bathroom and tossed him a hand towel to stand on.

He dabbed and rubbed until he didn't drip anymore. His shirt still clung to him, though. He gave her a questioning look.
Oh, hell, why not?
The wet shirt was just as sexy as his bare abs. When she shrugged, he pulled it over his head and tossed it on top of his shoes.

Oh, crap, you'd think she'd get used to seeing him, half-naked, that maybe she'd grow immune to it.
Seen one set of great abs, you've seen them all
. Except his were wonderful.

The heavens were mocking her. That had to be it. They were testing her resolve. Well, she'd show them. Bare chested men didn't interest her.

Ian walked closer to the oven. His jeans clung to his legs, too. When he looked at her, she scowled. She had her limits. If his underwear was as wet as his pants, she didn't want to see what it clung to. His lips curved in a smile, as though he'd read her thoughts. But the poor man was soaked.

She held up a finger and went to the bathroom again. This time, she returned with a beach towel. After all, the lake was only a short distance away. In the summer, she zipped outside after a few hours of baking and jumped in the water to cool off.

He wrapped it around his waist, knotted it, then unzipped his jeans. They dropped on top of his T-shirt. The towel sagged lower on his torso, and Tessa handed him a long apron. Grinning, he slid the ties over his head.

She grimaced at his wet clothes. They'd never dry in a soggy pile. She pulled chairs behind the ovens and draped them there.

She shook her head at Ian. What a sight! A flowered apron and a bright-colored beach towel. She'd take a picture, but if she posted it online, women would probably send Ian all sorts of indecent proposals.

She flipped off her mixers, one by one, and the kitchen suddenly grew too quiet. She raised her eyebrows at him. “You braved the rain. Is everything okay?”

“It's too wet to get any outside work done today,” he told her. “We need to talk. I saw the look on your face before you left the ice cream social. Lily told me what she said to you.”

Tessa chewed on her bottom lip. “I asked her not to.”

“Lily's not the type to keep secrets, spills whatever she knows, but that's the dumbest idea she's come up with yet.” He shook his head. His hair was drying in soft waves. “I don't know what the hell she was thinking.”

Neither did Tessa. If she had Ian, she wouldn't share. But Tessa didn't want to think about that. She waved the whole idea away. “Maybe it was a test, to see if either of us would take her up on it.”

He scowled. “Lily likes her freedom. She travels from place to place, and she spent time with a lot of different men before she met me. When we started getting serious, we argued about that, and I was ready to walk.”

“So she changed?”

“I can do the dating scene or the monogamous. But I'm not into monogamous with free passes on the side. Lily thought you might tempt me enough to rethink that.”

Tessa frowned. “She still wants other guys on the side? That's still her preference?”

“Yeah, makes me sound special, doesn't it?”

“And you're okay with that?”

“Hell, no. She knows if she sees someone else, I'm done. She swears I'm worth hanging onto, but that doesn't mean she's above trying to maneuver things to get her own way.”

Tessa's thoughts whirled in a jumble. At least Gary didn't want to have both her
and
Sadie. Why didn't it bother Ian that he wasn't enough, on his own, to satisfy Lily?

He shrugged. “I'm not thrilled with it, okay? But so far, Lily's kept her end of the bargain, and the longer we're together, the more I think she's going to settle down. I gave her the option of calling things off, and she started crying.” He winced. “I'm the one who wanted to get serious, and she's trying. I have to give her that.”

“But you're going to marry her? That's long term.”

“I know.” He rubbed his forehead, as though trying to massage away a headache. “So does Lily.”

Tessa wasn't so sure. “I trusted Gary, and it was a mistake. But maybe you're right. Lily's flying in to see you every weekend. She wants to make things work with you.”

He sighed. “That's what makes it so hard.”

“Makes what so hard?” Tessa wasn't following him.

“It doesn't matter.” Ian's expression turned serious. “I'm sorry she put you through that. It had to make you feel . . . weird.”

“Weird.” She tasted the word. “That's a good way to describe it.”

“Well, I'm sorry it happened.” He looked around the kitchen, sniffed the air. “What are you making?” It was obvious he wanted to move to a different topic.

She explained about making cookie and pie dough ahead for days when she was too busy during the summer.

“Need some help?” He grinned. “I used to love helping my mom in the kitchen.”

“I'm going to be here all day. You don't have anything you need to do?”

“There's always something to do. You run a business. You know how it goes, but I feel like playing hooky.”

A helping hand would make the work go faster. She handed him the right-sized, ice cream scoop. “Why not?”

She stirred walnuts and chocolate chips into the first batch of cookie dough, then showed him how to scoop it onto the parchment-covered baking sheets. Once they finished that batch of cookies, she put them in the oven. When the cookies cooled, she'd freeze them. Then she filled a plastic baggie with sugar and cinnamon. When she dropped a ball of the snickerdoodle dough into the bag, she looked up and caught Ian scraping his finger around the inside of the first, empty bowl.

He shrugged. “What can I say? I'm a professional bowl licker.”

“I can see that.” No wonder he helped his mother. But then, when she was little, she stole whole chunks of dough before Grandma could bake her cookies.

After Ian had gotten every bit of dough he could, he helped her with the snickerdoodles. She didn't bake those. She froze the individual balls of dough instead. Later, she'd put them in a big freezer bag, when they wouldn't stick together. For the chocolate crinkle cookies, she scooped all of the dough into a large bag and sealed it before putting it in the freezer. The dough was too messy to handle unless it was ice-cold.

Ian dutifully licked every bowl and spoon. Then they washed all the utensils and started again. By the time they finished, Tessa had frozen peanut butter, date pinwheel, and oatmeal raisin cookies. Ian had forced himself to sample one of each—for quality control—and approved them all. Tessa now had frozen pie shells and frozen pie dough, too. It had been a long day, but she was happy with what she'd gotten done. More, she'd discovered once she plugged into work mode, Ian didn't tempt her. Either that, or she didn't fall for guys in granny aprons and beach towels.

Ian glanced at the clock on the stove. “Boy, baking takes a lot more time than I thought. It's almost five.” He patted his apron-clad stomach. “I'm starving.”

Tessa bit her bottom lip. “Sorry, we should have stopped for lunch. When I start baking, I forget sometimes.”

He laughed. “I ate so much dough, I didn't miss lunch, but my body's getting hungry for real food.”

They did a final clean of the kitchen, and Ian slipped behind the empty ovens. He pulled on his dry T-shirt, mostly dry jeans, and then stepped into his shoes. Doggone it. The man looked almost as good dressed as he did mostly naked. The rain still pattered outside, so on the walk to the house, Tessa handed him her umbrella. They both huddled under it, jostling against each other. He felt good, too—all muscle and maleness.

“Lily's not flying in this coming weekend,” he told her. “My brother's going to spend a few days with me so that I can show him around.”

“You own a lodge. Isn't there enough space for both of them?”

“Brody and Lily don't get along.”

Maybe Ian's brother wasn't a fan of bed-hopping. Good for him.

They dashed in the kitchen door of her house, and she frowned at him. “How are the guest rooms at your place? Almost finished?”

He followed her to the refrigerator and smiled when she took out a thick slice of ham. “Every room's painted. I bought king-sized beds for each room on the third floor; two, double beds for each room on the second. The chests of drawers are set up with flat-screen TVs over them. I wanted Lily to help me pick out comforters and decorations, but she doesn't like shopping for stuff like that.” He looked at Tessa hopefully.

She shrugged. “We can probably find them online and have them delivered.”

“Perfect.” He helped her quarter potatoes and drop them in a pan of cold water. “What else?”

“I'll make the cole slaw if you cook the ham.” She hauled a grill pan out of a bottom cupboard and placed it on two burners.

They worked in comfortable silence and then carried their plates to the three-season room to eat. A cool breeze blew through the open windows. Ian stretched his long legs and sighed. “This is nice.”

When they finished eating, he rinsed and stacked their plates in the sink, while Tessa placed her laptop on the kitchen table. Ian drew up a chair, and they flipped through online pages to find the right comforters, towels, and throw pillows for his guest rooms.

“This is what I have, so far.” He pulled out his cell phone and showed her a picture he'd taken of a room. The headboard and drawers looked like antique, white pieces. “I thought that would go with anything. I want each room to be unique.”

They chose different colors and patterns for each room, then even hit art sites to look for paintings and posters. By the time Ian dashed out the door to his Mustang, he'd ordered all of the basics to finish the rooms.