Chapter 9

Nine

MARIA

A fter I've made a spectacle of myself in front of Lou and my friends defending romance novels, I excuse myself to the ladies' room to recompose myself. As I reenter the ballroom, there's the soft hum of chatter and laughter in the air. I barely notice it before I'm stopped by a woman with impeccably styled platinum blond hair. Her lipstick matches her silky plum cocktail dress perfectly, and everything about her screams of refinement.

She looks me up and down, her ice-blue eyes sharp and assessing. "So you're the baker," she says, her tone cool.

"Excuse me?" I ask, not sure if her words are meant as a compliment or a barb.

"The baker of that delicious cake--and those famous left-wing lemon bars." She extends a hand with perfectly manicured nails. "I'm Carrie I sent you an email about the naming competition cupcakes. I thought if you had a moment we could discuss details in person rather than go back and forth in email."

Recognition clicks and I shake her hand enthusiastically. "Oh. Of course! It's great to meet you in person."

"Fabulous," she says with a practiced smile. "There's one more person we need for this conversation."

Before I can respond, she loops her arm with mine and guides me through the room until we find the coach of the hockey team. He's a big man, and incredibly intimidating despite the warm smile on his face. Carrie doesn't waste any time getting straight to the point with him and in short order she has all the details hammered out for me to make what I need to.

The coach soon gets pulled away, leaving me and Carrie to ourselves. I'm still reeling from how quickly and unexpectedly it all happened.

"Thank you so much for inviting me to be part of it," I tell her. "This all sounds amazing."

"Your cupcakes are all over our socials. It was natural to partner with you. Plus the whole team and staff love your little bakery. It was a done deal." Her voice drops to a whisper, almost conspiratorial. "Although between you and me, watch your back around Lou. There's nothing he won't do for his career."

My heart skips a beat. "What?" I ask, caught off guard.

She looks almost regretful as she quickly glances around to make sure no one is paying any attention to us. "This is awkward. I shouldn't have said anything."

"But you did," I press. My nerves have ramped up, and my heart is starting to race.

"Forget I did." She looks behind me and quickly excuses herself, leaving me standing there, confused, and unsettled.

My breath is coming faster, and my chest is feeling tight. I scan the room, searching for something to reground me, something to focus on while I get the panic under control so I don't embarrass myself in front of all the smiling faces and happy people,

I spot the cake, and decide to check on it. Anything to distract from the knot tightening in my chest. The layers sometimes shift if people get too enthusiastic while serving themselves cake.

As I approach the cake, I see that most people have already had a slice. One less worry for the evening, and the knot lessens just a little. I cut a piece for myself, hoping the flavors will help to further calm my nerves.

Just as I'm about to take a bite, Lou appears beside me.

"That looks amazing." He says, his voice warm and genuine.

"Would you like some?" I ask, setting my plate aside as I seize the opportunity to focus on Lou.

"Can I?"

I carefully cut a generous slice for him, ensuring he gets every last bit of the cake and frosting on his plate. My hands tremble just a little as I hand it over to him. Nerves of a different kind hit me. His opinion shouldn't matter, but somehow it's become important to me. He picks up a fork to get himself a bite.

Just as the tines touch the first bit of frosting, words start tumbling out of my mouth. They come out in a full-on ramble to distract myself, or maybe delay his judgment. I'm no longer sure as I pick up my own plate of cake. "The cake is best when you can get a bite with all of the different flavors at once. Or at least, get the chocolate or vanilla layer with some of the cream cheese frosting and raspberry filling so it can break up all the richness."

He gets everything I recommended on the fork, and lifts it to his mouth and takes one perfect bite. I stop talking, I stop breathing, I stop everything. Frozen as I watch and wait to see his reaction. The fork goes past his lips and his eyes close. He pulls the fork away, and then he's nodding yes to himself and throwing the hand with the fork up in the air with a fist pump.

Relief washes over me, and I can't help but smile.

His eyes pop open and he looks at me and then at the cake on his plate. "That is the best cake I've ever had! Don't tell my mom."

He eagerly takes another bite, just as enthusiastic about this bite as he was the last. I completely forget about my own, completely caught up in the sheer joy on his face. He finishes his slice and then looks at the cake on the table, clearly debating whether to take another slice.

"Here," I offer him my plate.

He takes my plate like it's more precious than the lemon bar I'd given him earlier. Asking in an almost reverent tone, "Are you certain?"

I nod, feeling at peace with the decision as I see him take the cake so seriously.

His voice lowers, and I realize he's no longer talking to me. He's using the same voice he uses to talk to Cinnamon to talk to the cake. Telling it that it's the best-tasting cake in the whole wide world.

It's so endearing that I have to bite my tongue to keep from laughing out loud, I can't help but find it amusing and flattering. I don't think I've seen a grown man ever get so excited about my baking. Making peace with him for tonight was the best decision. I'm still hurt over the past, but maybe, I should try to let it go like Isa has told me a hundred times.

"Do you know what the best part is?" I ask, watching him finish the last crumb, his expression forlorn.

He looks at me with hope flickering in his eyes, "What?"

"I get to take whatever is left home."

That earns me a delightful grin, and he sets his plates and fork on a tray to be taken away to the kitchen.

"Really?" he asks. "And does your good-looking neighbor get any too?"

I tap a finger to my chin, and tilt my head to the side just a little as I pretend to think hard about it. I take a big breath and then say, "I don't think cake is good for Cinnamon."

His jaw drops in mock horror, and he reaches for me. His hands circle just above my waist much like they had when he twirled me earlier. Only this time his hands are a little bit higher and his fingers shift just as a teasing glint appears in his gaze. I can't stop the laugh from bursting out of me as he tickles my sides.

"Stop it," I hiss, but I'm laughing too hard to sound convincing.

Nearby guests turn to look, and I try to hide my face against his shoulder, mortified. He's so tall that it's easy to tuck myself into him and for a moment, it feels... safe.

He loosens his hold, leaning down to whisper in my ear. "I swear that was an accident, at least at first. I'm sorry."

I peek up at him, trying to regain my composure. "Is everyone still staring?"

He glances around, then nods. "Hannah, and what looks like your other book club friends are."

I groan, letting my head fall back. "Want to get out of here?"

"And abandon your cake to the vultures?" He looks genuinely horrified.

My lips turn up into a big grin and I can't help but laugh. "Did I forget to mention that I have an extra tier at my store? It's ugly, but it still tastes good."

His eyes light up, and he grabs my hand, pulling me toward the door. "What are we waiting for."

"Wait." I protest, laughing as I dig my heels in. "We have to say goodbye to Lia and Nate."

He pauses mid-stride, scanning the room, before spotting Nate and Lia on the far side of the room with Dan and his wife. Without hesitation, Lou cups his hands around his mouth and shouts, "Hey, Nate! Lia! Great party. Thanks for the invite!"

Heads turn, and I want to sink into the floor, but Lou just grins down at me, unfazed. As we weave through the crowd, hands still linked, I realize that maybe, just maybe, meeting Lou wasn't the worst thing to happen to me after all.

L ou and I sit in the back of my bakery, forks in hand, with an eight-inch tier of cake between us. It's cozy, like a quiet bubble surrounding us, which is a stark contrast to the party earlier.

"I cannot believe you did that." I say, shaking my head as yet another text comes in on my phone. This one is from his sister. It's the tenth text in the last five minutes, all variations of laughing emojis and teasing comments from my friends.

Book club is going to be filled with questions and I'm going to be in the hot seat before any talk of books will occur.

Lou grins, entirely unapologetic as he points at the cake between us. "Worth it."

I roll my eyes, but I can't help the smile from appearing on my own lips as I take another forkful of cake. The warmth in his voice, the way his eyes light up--it's disarming. If I'd met this version of Lou first, things would be very, very different between us. I'm not used to this version of Lou, the one who seems genuinely interested in more than annoying me about lemon bars.

"So this is where the magic behind the curtain happens," He says, glancing around at the empty counters and baking equipment. "I thought there'd be more."

"More what?" I ask, puzzled.

"Tiny elves. Pixie Dust. Something glowy. Proof of the absolute magic in this cake."

His compliment warms my soul and I quickly look away as I try to hide my reaction. I look down at my fork instead of meeting his gaze, "Just me."

"Well, just you, you are amazing," he says.

My heart melts faster than the good chocolate. I don't know how to handle this flirty, earnest Lou. Not without my armor of anger to protect me. Without it, I'm left with this shift in things between us, and the unsettling feeling that keeps bubbling up. It first appeared when we walked Cinnamon together, and it's harder to dismiss now, harder to shove back into the box now that it's grown.

"I need milk, do you want milk?" I ask abruptly, setting my fork down as if it's suddenly too hot to hold.

Escaping to the fridge, I grab two cups off the shelf beside it before opening the fridge. But Lou follows, and when I reach for the milk, he's reaching for it too. Our fingers brush as he pulls it out for me, and we return to the table together. He pours the milk, leaving me with no distractions, nothing to do with my hands or my racing thoughts as I set the glasses of milk down.

In our cozy, quiet, bubble, he starts to lean toward me.

Too anxious to sit still, I snatch the milk from him and return it to the fridge. Needing something to do, and seeing the butter and eggs I pull them out. Then I'm grabbing sugar, flour, and salt too.

"What are you doing?" Lou asks me, watching me with a bemused smile.

"You'll see," I say, my voice tight. Then a thought hits me. "You don't have to get home soon do you?"

"Well Cinnamon is there, but if you're asking if I want to leave, the answer is no."

At the mention of Cinnamon, guilt hits me. I start packing the ingredients away. "I can make these just as easily at home."

"Cake to go?" He asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Perfect." I reply, with my customer service smile. "I'll get this all put away, then we can get going."

Lou offers to help, but I wave him off, needing distance and to keep my hands busy with the task of tidying up. As I do, Carrie's warning from earlier flits through my mind, destroying a little bit of the happiness I'd found. Before I can push it aside, I remember the cupcake order and pause, butter and eggs still in my hands.

"Actually, can you grab a notebook from my office? I need to jot down some details for a cupcake order before I forget," I say over my shoulder.

"Any chance I can get a cupcake as a reward?" Lou asks, half serious, half teasing.

He disappears into my office and I put the butter and eggs away. He's still in my office when I finish cleaning up everything else too.

"Is the notebook that hard to find?" I tease, but my smile drops when I see what he's looking at.

He's staring at my vision board, eyes fixed on the judges' scorecard for my lemon meringue pie.

"Why do you keep this?" He asks, his voice full of confusion and something close to anger. "They wrote such horrible things. Untrue things."

A stab of bitterness tugs at my heart, but I force a smile. "I really don't want to talk about it. Let's go before Cinnamon eats your lucky hockey slippers or something."

He groans theatrically. "Why would you wish that on me when I'm already cursed."

"Cursed?" I ask, genuinely curious.

"All season," he replies, his tone losing its levity.

"Can't you get uncursed?"

The look he gives me says he's tried it all.

"Have you considered that maybe you just suck." I tease trying to lighten the mood.

His grin returns, but the playful spark isn't quite as bright as before. "I think a very wise, and beautiful I might add, baker once told me that. Of course, she also told me that I could have lemon bars, and the two seem to go hand in hand with my curse."

"Oh you are not pinning this on me," I say, laughing despite myself. "Let's leave so you can check on your slippers."

We keep the conversation light on the drive back, but there's no getting rid of the awareness of the tension simmering below the surface. I offer the rest of the cake to Lou and use getting up early for the bakery as an excuse to cut our time short. But inside my apartment I can't turn my mind off, and the urge to bake, to make something won't go away. The urge to drown out the lingering doubts and the memories stirring in my mind.

As I start mixing ingredients, I keep replaying the moment he asked me about the judges' scorecard. I'd thought that the date on the card might trigger a memory for him, or at least help him connect the dots. But why would it? To him I was just a stranger in a grocery store.

The rhythmic motion of stirring batter isn't enough to keep my thoughts from wandering further, back to the day that we first met…

C old rain pelted me as I ran inside the grocery store, soaked to the bone. My once carefully styled hair was now a sopping mess, clinging to my face and neck. I wrung out the water as best as I could before pulling my hair up into a quick messy bun. So much for the professional and put-together look. Might as well embrace the chaos as I gathered the last of the ingredients I needed.

Feeling like an overcooked, wet noodle I reached for a basket just as a large hand reached for it as well.

"Oh sorry." I pulled my hand back and looked up. Then up some more. The man who reached for the basket was easily the tallest and most gorgeous guy I'd ever seen in my life. If someone had plucked the top ten blond models from my favorite novels, mixed them together, and baked at 350 until golden, the results would be him.

His wet blond hair hung down and he brushed it away from his eyes with a casual swipe of his hand, but oh, his eyes, his honey-colored eyes reminded me of the lemon honey I got from the local farmer's market. He finished picking up the shopping basket and held it out to me with a warm smile. A shiver ran through me, though I was pretty sure it was not because of the rain.

His deep voice had a bit of a rumble to it as he asked, "Do you want this?"

I nodded and took the basket from him, our hands brushed, and tingles rushed up my arm.

"Have a great day." He walked away, and I let out a dreamy sigh.

The world needed more men like tall, blond, and gorgeous in it. I'd have bet that he would've handed over anything in his basket if someone else needed it. He was just that kind of person.

As I headed to the baking aisle my thoughts shifted away from the handsome stranger to the competition looming ahead. I needed sugar and cream of tartar for the lemon meringue. Grandmother's recipe was about to make me a blue ribbon winner and I couldn't wait to hang it up on the wall.

Today would be that day though. Today I would get that ribbon at the fall festival.

Grinning to myself I finished with the dry goods, and moved to the dairy area.

I needed eggs, before I could head to produce. To my pleasant surprise the gorgeous man from before was adding eggs to his own basket. He stopped and handed them to me instead.

"Thank you," I told him, as I checked them over to make sure none of them were cracked before adding them to my basket. I was happy that my prediction was correct and he would give something from his basket to help out a stranger.

A wide smile spread on his face, "She does speak."

"I'm not normally so star-struck," I replied, blushing furiously.

The smile on his face dimmed, and I immediately wanted to fix it.

"Crazy weather right?" I said, then wanted to kick myself. I was not trying to make small talk at a party.

"Pretty normal for this time of year," he said, and grabbed a different egg carton off the shelf. "New to the city?"

I shook my head no.

"Right, well, have a good day." He hurried away from me.

I couldn't blame him. I'd run from someone trying to trap me in small talk too. I couldn't help but admire though when he paused at the end of an aisle, and was able to grab something off the top of a shelf without struggle. If only we'd met in the baking aisle and I could have asked him to reach something for me. Then I could have offered to thank him with a baked goodie, and asked him for his number. Instead, I'd asked him about the rain. Rain I know is normal for fall in Glacier Bay, but what else should I have said to him? Nice chicken thighs? He had a package of those in his basket as well as some good-looking steaks.

Yeah, good thing he left before I could embarrass myself more.

I wandered through the bakery section briefly and let the smell of flour and sugar calm me. I needed all the calm I could get to get my head back on what was important. Winning that fall fair blue ribbon to hang on the wall. Focused and calm I headed to the produce section for the last of my ingredients.

It was there that I saw him again. His basket was full of vegetables now, and I tried to not make an idiot of myself, by avoiding him.

I went for the loose lemon and orange section on the far side so I could pick the ones I needed. Unfortunately, the area was empty, and I was forced to go to the section he was in with the bagged ones. The pre-bagged ones were a mystery as to the quality inside, and not how I wanted to enter a competition. Much to my surprise, there was only one bag of lemons left, and he reached for it just as I did.

He was fast, he snatched the bag just as my fingers brushed the netting.

Blinking up at him, I said, "Wow."

"Oh." He looked down at me. "Did you want these?"

"Yes, thank you." I reached for the bag, expecting him to hand it over like he had the eggs. He was definitely kind and generous, like all men should be.

He pulled them out of my reach. "That's too bad, I got them first."

My jaw dropped, "We were reaching for them at the same time."

A store employee with a blue apron and hair braided into Princess Leia buns chose this moment to approach us and asked. "Is everything alright?"

He smiled at her, and she fanned her face before paying him a compliment on the cut of his bicep. Immediately I knew that things were not going to go in my favor as she flirted with him. His smile was the same politely dim one that he gave me by the eggs which made me feel moderately better.

Pointing to the now empty lemon display he told her that we both needed lemons.

"Oh yeah, the delivery driver got caught in the storm. The truck ended up tipped over and spilled everything all over the highway. It's a mess."

"There's nothing in the back?" I asked hopefully.

She shook her head. "No we won't have any for at least a week, and the other stores are out too. Lemons aren't a high-demand item."

"But we both reached for the lemons at the same time," I told her.

My heart started to beat fast, and my chest started to squeeze as the early stages of a panic attack quickly rose.

"And I got them." He held up the bag proudly.

In my panic, my temper flared and I snapped out, "Only because you have ridiculous gorilla arms."

His eyebrow lifted, "And you think insulting me is going to convince me to hand them over?"

Wincing, I bit my lip, and tried to take calming breaths. In for four, hold for four, out for four. They helped just a little, even if I felt ridiculous doing them, and I could see the growing look of judgment in the store clerk's eyes. The look wondering if I was about to burst into full crazy or something.

I looked away from her, but I didn't dare look to see what his eyes said. "You're right. I shouldn't have said that, I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted." He started to walk away.

"Wait!" I yelled.

He paused and looked back at me. His honey eyes were curious as he looked at me.

"Can we split them?" I asked him in desperation. There had to be at least ten in the bag.

He looked at the bag, counting them briefly. "Sorry Lady, I need them."

I started to go after him, but the store clerk blocked my path. She held out her arms like she'd be just fine tackling me like an NFL defensive lineman if it would result in getting his number.

"Do I need to get security?"

He didn't bother looking back at me as he walked away without a care in the world. After all, why would he care that he'd destroyed my future over a bag of lemons? The panic attack rose up and swallowed me whole.