Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

Yardley’s Country Depot was vibrant with Christmas decorations, customers, tourists, and contestants—not to mention a camera crew. Jason scanned the long glass display window where Jen had told him to meet him. She wasn’t there yet.

Two long folding tables sat on either side of the main doors with a pair of older women at each. One table had a sign taped to it that said, “Guests and Tickets,” the other “Contestants.”

He may as well get the materials he and Jen would need as contestants. If he’d known it would be this crowded, he would have arrived a half hour earlier at least. She wasn’t kidding about being late to things.

He got in line at the contestants’ table when a familiar man stepped up beside him. Dan Klein. He wasn’t in uniform, but he still had a commanding presence.

“What did you tell her?” Dan didn’t look at him.

Jason’s brows drew together. “What?”

“She came to me today. Worried. Asked me to investigate you.” Dan crossed his arms. “I told you to let the past stay in the past.”

What the hell? Why would—

He had the urge to catch himself against something, but since Dan presented the only option, he just straightened. Could Ned have talked to her? TJ had been following him all day. He would have known if Ned had talked to Jen.

What could have spooked her?

“Did you tell her?” Jason’s voice was strained. Maybe it was why she hadn’t shown up to the competition yet.

Dan shook his head slowly. “But I don’t enjoy lying to my sister. So I’m going to ask you nicely. Again. Stay away from her.”

The person in line in front of Jason finished, leaving the space at the table vacated. “Last name?” a woman intoned in a dry, unenthusiastic voice.

“Klein.” Jason lifted his gaze and met Dan’s eyes. “I promised to do this contest with her.”

“I know.” Dan’s mouth set to a line. “And I know about the eviction and her debts. You’re still not doing her any favors by staying in town.”

Dan’s stiff nod signaled the end of the conversation. He strode off into the crowd of the store. Jason turned back to the check-in table. The lady handed him a canvas bag with the name of the store printed on the side. Whoever was running this operation had a good handle on marketing, that’s for sure. The line to the cashiers was almost around the store.

Colby found him before he could turn around. His arms snaked around Jason’s leg, and Jason stiffened, startled. He looked down, then put his hand on the top of Colby’s head. “Hey, dude.”

Jen was a few feet away with two other adults right behind her. The way they looked at him, expectant for an introduction, almost made him feel like a teenager standing at the door for prom. Jen smiled. “Jason, these are my parents. Betty and Robert Klein.”

Parents, he could usually handle. Even parents of a girl he had no interest in dating long term.

But the parents of a woman like Jen?

He felt intimidated as all hell. He put on his most charming smile and held out his hand. “Nice to meet you. Jen’s told me all about you.” Had they even talked about her parents? Did he remember something about maybe her mom working as a nurse?

Jen looked a lot like her mom, who was of similar height, with blond hair that had long since gone gray. Neither of her parents was overwhelmingly tall, so where the hell had Dan come from? Her father was an affable-looking man with a trim gray mustache and glasses. He had a sharp look, his hair wispy. He shook Jason’s hand with a firm grip. “Call me Bob. Jen tells us you’re in finance.”

“That’s right.” His eyes darted to Jen’s face briefly. She didn’t give away any sort of concerns with her body language. Why had she gone to Dan?

“What company? I work as a consultant for the FBI in financial crimes, so I’m in the Windy City a lot.”

Of course. Because why wouldn’t he be? He held his breath momentarily. It wouldn’t help to lie about this. “Cavanaugh Metals.”

“Really?” Bob drew his face back. “I’ve met Tom Cavanaugh before.” He gave a brief chuckle. “He’s a tough son of a bitch. Good businessman.”

The chances of Jen’s father having met his grandfather. The skin on the back of his neck prickled, and Jason’s smile was tight. “He actually passed away a couple of months ago.” Before the conversation could continue, he lifted the canvas bag and set his gaze on Jen. “I checked us in. They said we need to be over by the baking center in ten minutes.”

Was that relief on her face? She slipped her arm into his. “See you later, Mom and Dad.” Then she kissed Colby’s cheek. “Behave, okay?”

Colby threw his arms around Jen, and she squatted to hug him. “I love you, Mommy.”

Jen kissed his cheek. “I love you, too, bud. Maybe if you’re lucky, Mom-Mom will buy you a candy cane.”

Colby gave a wide grin. “Two candy canes!”

“Don’t push your luck.” She kissed him again, then stood. “ After the show is done,” she murmured to her mom in a low voice that Jason barely heard.

As her parents and Colby walked away, Jen turned to him. “I told them we’ve been together on and off for a while but that we finally made our relationship official. I didn’t want them thinking I’ve lost my head with a guy I just met, especially right after I just asked them if I could move back in.”

“Got it,” Jason said. Her face looked pale. “Everything okay?”

Her gaze followed the direction her parents and Colby had gone. “I was just worried you might not be here when we showed up.”

Jason bent his head toward hers and kissed her. “Of course I’m here.” He interlaced their fingers, tugging her deeper into the store. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“It’s just that”—she kept her gaze low—“I didn’t hear from you all day. I mean, even after I texted you the instructions for tonight, all you answered was ‘OKAY.’ And I-I didn’t know if things were okay.”

He paused mid-stride. Crap.

He’d been out of the dating game too long. And when he’d taken women back home recently, they knew better than to expect a message. They didn’t even get his phone number in the first place.

Jason had spent the entire day thinking of her and the situation with her and everything to do with her.

And he hadn’t let her know.

None of that would make for a good explanation, though. He reached across his chest, rubbing his opposite shoulder with his free hand. “They fired me this morning. So I had a lot on my mind.” He took both her hands, pulling her closer. “I promise, all I dreamed about today was you. And I won’t let it happen again.” He kissed her as though they weren’t in the middle of a crowded store.

“You got fired?” She pulled away, her eyes wide. “Are you okay? What happened? I’m so sorry, I had no idea.”

“It’s fine. The company hired a CEO a few years ago that I don’t get along with too well, so I’ve been expecting it.” That was putting the whole thing mildly. All the half truths made him shift with discomfort. None of this was straightforward anymore, and he’d started to feel like he was drowning while trying to keep up with the lies. “The good news is that I can stretch my visit out here to Brandywood longer.”

“I don’t love the reason for it, but that makes me happy, at least.” She gave him another kiss, enough to send his pulse racing, and a man bumped into them.

“Get a room,” the man muttered, stalking past.

Jen pulled away, then covered her mouth with a gasp. “Oh my God.” Her eyes were wide but gleeful as she looked at Jason. “That was Brad. ”

“As in the idiot who dumped you the other night for kissing me?”

She nodded, her cheeks reddening. “He’s going to think I was totally cheating on him.”

Jason wrapped his arms around her, then kissed her jaw. “I’m more than happy to confirm his worst suspicions.”

“Stop. My parents are over in the audience.” She pointed toward the middle of the room, where a large section of the store was corded off. About ten rows of folding chairs had been provided, but they were full, and there was standing room only.

Beyond the folding chairs was an elevated area—not as high as a stage, only about one stair step up. But wide enough to accommodate what looked like a full, well-stocked kitchen. Ten small but stocked kitchen islands had been set up across the space, each with a stand mixer. “The guy who owns this place, Peter Yardley, got a deal with the Happy Home Channel to make a cooking show. He built this to accommodate his filming schedule.”

Jason frowned at the large cluster of contestants in the contestant holding area beside the stage. “There are more contestants than stand mixers.”

“I think they said they’re going to do a few rounds of quizzes to eliminate people before anyone gets to cook.”

Jason froze. “Individually?” He didn’t know a damn thing about cooking.

Her grin widened at his discomfort. “By team. So as long as you smile and look pretty, we should be good to go.” She winked at him, then pulled him into the holding area.

Two hours later, Jason felt more out of his depth than he’d felt in a long time. They’d made it through the first three rounds, which had whittled the crowd of over one hundred and fifty contestants down to ten. Because it was being televised, the contest had drawn entrants from the tristate area, and Brandywood was bursting at the seams with tourists.

The owner of the store, Peter Yardley, was acting as the host and chief judge of the competition, with two other people from the magazine and channel as judges. He was speaking to the camera now, and Jason could see why the magazine had chosen him to work with. Despite being an older man, he was charming and had a magnetic personality. Considering his obviously successful bar and the Depot, he clearly had a shrewd eye for business.

He reminded Jason of his grandfather.

As Jen sorted through the ingredients at their station, Jason eyed the crowd. Besides Jen’s family, he’d spotted Mildred come through the door. He avoided looking at her, but he saw her now, sitting in the back corner of the seated section.

TJ was there, too. And Ned.

Ned didn’t hide his presence, and it wasn’t as though Jason could kick him out.

“Ready?” Peter motioned to the contestants. “Time to bake!”

Jen turned to Jason. “Hold on. Let me help you tie your apron on.” She pulled an apron from the canvas bag he’d gotten during check-in, also emblazoned with the store name.

“I don’t think I’ve ever worn an apron in my life,” Jason muttered back to her. She’d tied one on herself without blinking. He wasn’t used to doing anything he didn’t excel at. Anything he couldn’t do, he just didn’t. The kitchen was not a part of the house where he’d ever spent any time. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t just stand here next to you as I did during the quiz stuff.”

“I’ll talk you through it. I got us through the other part, didn’t I?” Jen gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. She looked at the assignment card and read it out loud to him. “Make a signature pastry that is an expression of both people in the relationship.”

Jason blinked at her. “Come again?” The blush that spread on her cheeks was enough to make him grin. “You know what I mean. Good God, your parents are over there.”

She planted a kiss on his cheek. “I know what you meant. And I’d be happy to do the other one at another opportunity. Right now, let’s bake.”

“Bake what? I don’t understand what the hell that means. Don’t we need a recipe?”

“I am the recipe.” She checked the clock. “We barely have enough time for this because they have to sit for a while before we bake them.”

Her mind was clearly going at a speed he couldn’t keep up with. But she was skilled in this without the slightest self-doubt. He liked how confident and clear-minded she was even though he felt like an idiot.

In order to keep the streaming and live audience entertained, the camera crew stopped by each of the tables three times during the baking part to interview them. They were the last station on the end, which meant they had some time before they came for the first interview.

Jen was moving with a quickness he couldn’t follow, cracking eggs. She separated the whites from the yolks into two separate bowls. He stood next to her, using the cart to shield him from view. “Give me something to do.”

She didn’t look up. “Okay, grab that sieve from the side of the cart.”

He set his hands on the cart, then checked the side. He looked back at her. “What’s a sieve?”

“Strainer.” Her focus remained on her work, but she’d finished the eggs and had moved on to opening a bag of powdered sugar.

He saw two options—one that looked like a fine net and another with wider holes. “Which one?”

She opened a small bag labeled almond flour and jutted her chin toward the fine net. “That one.”

He set it next to her. “What are we making?”

She weighed her ingredients out in a bowl on a small kitchen scale. “French macarons.” She gave him a jaunty grin. “Chocolate French macarons, to be exact. One with peanut butter buttercream, one with mint buttercream, and one with strawberry buttercream. Hand me that big bowl over there.”

The fact that she’d come up with that so quickly deserved a medal by itself. If they’d given him two days to come up with something to bake with that prompt, he’d probably still be wearing a blank expression when they returned for the final product.

Despite his lack of any skill, they fell into a routine quickly enough. She’d spent enough time in a kitchen ordering other people around, and he could fetch things and move things as she finished with them.

As the camera crew neared stopping a few stations down, Jason slinked beside her. “Should we figure out a couple story?”

She frowned, pulling the bowl of merengue she’d made away from the stand mixer. She grabbed a whisk. “I don’t have time to talk to them. I’ll let you do most of the talking, and I’ll just go with whatever you say.”

She’d just made his job easier in so many ways. He could kiss her.

By the time the crew reached them, she was piping macarons onto the parchment paper. Peter stepped between them and put his hand on Jen’s shoulder. “Last but not least, we have this special lady, who is my favorite baker in town, Jen.” The audience clapped.

Had the audience been clapping and interacting before? They must have been. Jason had paid little attention because he’d been so distracted by what Jen was doing. But now that all eyes were on them, he noticed everything about the audience. Noticed Jen’s family. Noticed Ned leaning forward from his spot over by a display of cookbooks.

Peter looked over Jen’s shoulder. “I don’t have to ask what you’re making.”

“No, you don’t.” Jen smiled, giving him a brief glance, then continued her piping.

“I’ll ask you about them in a second. First, I think the question everyone here in Brandywood has been wondering is who this handsome fellow to your left is.”

Jason shook Peter’s hand. “I’m Jason.”

“Jason, you’re not from around here, correct?”

“No, sir.” The lights seemed brighter, hotter. Jason had been on live television before. He’d partied with celebrities and been invited to soirees and done press conferences.

His heart felt as though it would pound out of his throat.

“And how long have you and Jen been together?”

He shot her a smile. “A long time. But long-distance, which has been tough.” His grandfather had taught him that. “When they ask a question you don’t want to answer, give them something vague, then distract and redirect.”

“Oh, sure, sure. That’s always a hard thing for relationships. Where’re you from?”

Peter was a natural, and his calm demeanor was all Jason needed to find his footing. No one had ever accused a Cavanaugh of lacking social grace or confidence.

Now he really sounded like his grandfather.

“Chicago. But it’s getting harder to stay away from Brandywood.” He stepped closer to Jen and rubbed the small of her back.

“I have it on good authority that you two were recently an accidental part of one of our best Christmas traditions here in Brandywood—the A Christmas Carol street play. Care to replicate the scene you were in for all of us?” Peter reached from behind his back and lifted a sprig of mistletoe.

A red blush was spreading to Jen’s cheeks, but the audience was loving it. Peter was doing them a favor—giving them a chance to be rooted for—and Jason could see it in Peter’s eyes.

“All right. If I can wrestle that pastry bag out of Jen’s hands.” Jason winked at her, then held out a hand toward her.

She put the bag down and took his hand. As he pulled her closer, he wrapped one arm securely behind her back, then dipped her for a kiss. Their lips connected, and the audience cheered, which electrified the energy of the entire room.

Any nerves Jason had melted away as he kissed her. He was having fun...in the most unexpected of ways.

He brought her upright. Jen’s eyes were glued to his, bright with laughter.

If someone had told Jason a week earlier that this was where he would be, he wouldn’t have believed it for a second. In Brandywood, doing a baking competition, pretending to be dating the gorgeous single mother of his nephew? With Mildred in the audience, no less.

He felt like he was living someone else’s life.

And even more strange, it felt like a life he’d actually enjoy. One he didn’t deserve.

His throat tightened as he glanced at Colby in the audience, watching him and Jen with rapt attention.

. . . the life Kevin should have had. And once again, Jason felt like he was the wrong person to be living.