by Linda Seed
She also wouldn’t have to waste the ingredients. On the money she made, paying for another batch of groceries was no small thing—especially when one of the key ingredients she needed was champagne. Okay, sparkling wine. By either name, it was still expensive.
“I would be mortified,” she concluded. “If I have to go over there and ask for the batter …”
“Well, better for you to be mortified than for the bride and groom to get married without a cake.”
Brian thought about what to do with the giant bowl of cake batter sitting in his refrigerator.
He could throw it out. He could bake some cake.
He was a big fan of cake.
Or, he could get in touch with Cute Towel Girl and arrange for her to come and get her batter.
The more he thought about it, the more that plan sounded good to him. The way she’d told it, she was really pressed for time with the cake. Without the batter, she would have to start over, which she probably would rather not do.
Also, it would be a waste to throw it out, especially when he could earn some serious points with a seriously cute girl if he returned the batter to its rightful owner.
Brian had found that whenever it was possible to earn points with a seriously cute girl, it paid to take advantage of the opportunity.
For the karma, if nothing else.
He resolved to call her and arrange for her to come and get her batter.
When she did, there might even be some flirting—on his part, at least.
Cassie was at work the next day, doing paperwork in the Central Coast Escapes office on Main Street, when Brian called.
“Central Coast Escapes, this is Cassie.”
“Hi, Cassie. This is the guy who caught you in my mother’s house last night wearing nothing but a towel. Oh, wait. The way I said that, it could be interpreted that I was the one wearing the towel. But I hardly think there’s any room for confusion about who was wearing the towel.”
Cassie felt her face heat up with what was certainly a fierce red blush. “Oh. Ha. No, I remember who was wearing the towel. Did you call to tell Elliot about what I did? Because, yes, that would be well within your rights, but I would like to point out how good it can make a person feel when they show mercy toward someone who really can’t afford to lose their job.…”
“I didn’t call to tell your boss. I called to ask if you want your cake batter back.”
Cassie froze in disbelief. She’d been trying to work up the nerve to call him to ask for it, but so far, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it. Could it really be this easy? Could he really be letting her off the hook?
“Cassie?”
“Uh … I would really like to have my cake batter back. Yes. Yes. Oh, my God. So much.”
That last part—the yes, yes, oh my God, so much—distracted Brian to the point where he forgot what they were talking about. Was it his fault if he’d involuntarily imagined her saying those same words to him under other circumstances?
Fortunately, he got it together quickly enough that he probably hadn’t embarrassed himself too severely.
“Ah … all right. Do you want to come get it after work?”
“Yes. Thank you. I mean it. Thank you. I really appreciate—”
“And you might as well bring your pans and bake it here. I mean, you said you don’t have a good kitchen, right?” He hadn’t planned to say that last part. That hadn’t been what he’d rehearsed when he’d made the call—and yes, he had rehearsed. His intention had been to offer her the batter and get off the phone before he could say something stupid, as he often did when pretty women were involved. Instead, the last part had just … slipped out.
Now that it had, he couldn’t believe his own genius.
“You would really let me do that?”
“Sure, why not? I’ve got two ovens just sitting here.”
“Thank you. That’s … just, thank you. I can get my pans and be over there by six, if that works for you.”
With that out of the way, Brian had to formulate a plan for what he would do once she got here.
Make a move on her?
Play it cool and act like it was perfectly normal for women he didn’t know to come into his house and bake cakes?
He was pretty sure the last one was the way to go. He hadn’t had a date in a while, and the thought of sharing space in the house with a lovely woman was attractive on its own, even if nothing happened between them. Even if they only, for a little while, breathed the same air.
“Hey, Thor,” he told the dog, who was looking up at him. “A girl’s coming over.”
Thor wagged his tail hopefully.
Chapter 4
After Central Coast Escapes closed at five, Cassie went home, got her cake pans, and drove to Otter Bluff with a combination of excitement and uneasiness in her belly.
Excitement, because she really might get this cake done on time, and also because it wasn’t every day that you got to share a kitchen with a guy you regularly watched doing comedy bits on YouTube.
Uneasiness, because he still could decide at any time to tell Elliot what she’d done.
She was still pondering that when Lacy called. Cassie took the call on her car’s Bluetooth as she drove.
“So, what happened with the guy and the cake?” Lacy wanted to know. “Did you call and ask for it back?”
“No. He called and asked if I wanted it. And he offered me his kitchen. Can you believe it?”
“Wow. That’s … really great, Cass.”
Cassie frowned. “You don’t sound like it’s great. You sound hesitant.”
“I’m not hesitant.”
“Yes, you are.”
Cassie heard Lacy’s breathy sigh over her car’s speakers. “Okay. It’s just … you don’t know this guy. And you’re going to be alone with him in his house. And he’s got something on you. I mean, he could make one call and get you fired. It doesn’t sound like the safest situation for you to be walking into.”
The thought had occurred to Cassie, but she pretended it hadn’t, mostly because she didn’t want to be talked out of using the Otter Bluff kitchen.
“What are you talking about? That’s just silly. If he wanted to get me fired, he already would have.”
“Unless he wants to use what you did as leverage.”
She shook her head impatiently. “Look. I know this guy from YouTube. He’s … he’s a harmless goofball. He and his partner make a living out of shoving things up each other’s noses and running races while wearing five pairs of pants. Or, he used to do all that with his partner. Now he does it alone. The point is, he’s not exactly someone I’m afraid of.”
“Cassie. That’s his public image.” Lacy sounded patient but serious—a tone she often took with her children. “That’s not necessarily who he really is. You don’t know who he really is. He could be a predator. He could be luring you over there in order to take advantage of you.”
Cassie wanted to shrug it off—wanted to ignore what Lacy was saying. But, damn it, she was right. Maybe Brian was the silly, fun-loving guy she knew from the Internet, but maybe he wasn’t. He wouldn’t be the first person whose public image was at odds with his private behavior.
“Okay. Okay. Shit. Fine.” Cassie blew out a puff of air. “But I really need that kitchen, Lacy. I need to finish this cake.”
“Well, maybe I can help out.”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Come by and pick me up,” Lacy said. “I can be ready in ten minutes.”
When Brian opened his front door in response to the doorbell—Thor by his side, quivering expectantly—he expected to find an attractive blond on his doorstep. He didn’t expect to find two of them—one of whom was toting a baby on her hip.
“Oh. Hi.” He tried to keep the disappointment out of his tone. Not that he was disappointed about a visit by two attractive blondes. The baby, though, added a certain Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to the whole thing that he hadn’t b
een anticipating.
“Brian, this is my sister Lacy and her son Trevor. She’s here to help me with the cakes. I hope you don’t mind. Hi, Thor.” She leaned down and gave the dog a vigorous rub.
“Oh,” he said again. “Ah … of course not. Come in.”
As Lacy passed, Brian grinned at the baby, who really was pretty damned cute. “Is he here to help with the cakes, too?”
“No, he’s here because he’s still nursing, so I couldn’t really leave him with his father.”
The mention of nursing necessarily roused the thought of breasts—specifically, the breasts that were right in front of him—and he felt himself blush a little. Breasts were great—he loved breasts—but these were motherly breasts, soon to be used for motherly purposes, and that was an entirely different ballgame.
He cleared his throat.
“Can I get you two anything? Beer? Cheez-Its?”
“No, no.” Cassie waved him off. “Don’t lift a finger for us. We’re just going to bake the cakes and be out of your hair. Did I mention that I really appreciate you letting me do this? And also that I appreciate you not getting me fired?”
“You did mention it, yeah. Well, I guess I’ll just …” He motioned to the sofa, where he’d been sitting and watching a show on Netflix when they’d arrived. He went back to his seat. Thor jumped up onto the sofa and curled up next to him, and Brian reached out to scratch the dog’s ears.
He pretended to be watching TV, but he was really watching the women through his peripheral vision. Cassie was arranging pans on the countertop, greasing them and doing whatever one did with cake pans before pouring the batter into them, and her sister was just standing there holding the baby.
It occurred to him that a person didn’t need assistance just to pour cake batter into pans and put those pans into the oven. And a person really didn’t need assistance to wait however long it took for the cakes to bake.
The only possible conclusion was that Lacy was here to chaperone.
He considered how he felt about that, and decided it was sensible. One might even think it was cute.
Useful, even.
If Brian hoped to ask Cassie out on a date—which he did—then it might be to his advantage to get to know her a little in a context where she felt safe. If she’d felt intimidated, she’d be more likely to say no—or, at least, that was one possible scenario. This way, though? He wasn’t a threat. He was just a charming and handsome man.
At least, he hoped he would come off as charming and handsome.
Okay, maybe just charming. The handsome would be open to interpretation.
Of course, he wasn’t going to be charming if he was sitting here staring at a TV screen. He grabbed the remote, turned off the television, and turned to look at the women.
“Anything I can do? You need anything?” Being helpful was always good.
“No, no.” Cassie was using a rubber spatula to scrape batter out of the bowl and into a large round pan. “Thanks, though. I’ve got it under control. These are about to go in the oven.”
He got up and wandered to the kitchen to see what she was doing. As he watched, she reached into her bag and produced strips of cloth that looked like they had been cut from a towel. She wet the strips at the sink, wrung them out, then began fastening them around the cake pans with safety pins.
Interesting.
“Why are you doing that?” he asked.
“Oh. It’s to make the cakes rise evenly. You know how you bake a cake and you get this bump in the middle?”
“Sure.” In fact, he had never baked a cake, but he didn’t want to say that.
“Well, that happens partly because the edges cook first. The wet towels slow that down so the cake will rise without the bump.”
He watched what she was doing with interest.
“Cool. Does that work?”
“Mostly. It might still be a little bit higher in the middle, but if it is, I’ll cut it to make it even.”
“Huh.”
She had a lot of cake pans and what seemed like gallons of batter. But he supposed wedding cakes had to be big.
“What kind of cake are you making? Do you have a picture?”
She smiled—a radiant smile that showed her even, white teeth—and reached for her purse. She dug around in there, in the mysterious and unknowable depths, and produced a folded page that had been torn from a magazine. She handed him the page, and he unfolded it and spread it out on the counter.
The cake depicted in the photo had three tiers, right on top of each other—none of those froufrou posts holding them apart—with white frosting and a veritable garden of sugary roses cascading from the top to the bottom in a pink, flowery swirl.
“You’re going to make this?”
“I’m going to try.”
“Wow. I mean … wow. Really?”
“You sound doubtful,” Lacy observed. Her son grabbed a hank of her hair, and Lacy gently pried his fingers off of it.
“Not doubtful, just impressed.”
“Let’s hope you’ll be equally impressed when I’m done,” Cassie said.
“If you can do this”—he pointed at the photo—“then why are you cleaning houses for Central Coast Escapes?”
“Cassie’s going to be a professional wedding baker,” Lacy said, looking at her sister fondly. “It’s what she’s working toward. This cake—if all goes well—is going to be her professional debut.”
“Really.”
“That’s the plan,” Cassie said. She opened the ovens—both of them—and slid cake pans onto the racks. There were too many pans to put them all in at once, even with two ovens. He supposed she planned to do them in shifts.
“I can’t wait to see how it comes out.” To his surprise, he meant it.
Cassie supposed it was obvious that she hadn’t really brought Lacy to help. Help with what? All Cassie had to do was pour batter into pans and put the pans in the oven. Okay, yes, there were the towel strips, but that was hardly a two-person job.
Well, it didn’t matter. So what if he knew why Lacy was here? It was only reasonable for a single woman to protect herself. It was only sensible to take precautions.
When the cakes were in the ovens, Cassie told Brian, “If you want, we can leave and come back in half an hour when it’s time to take them out. We don’t want to impose on you, so …”
“You’re not imposing. Have a seat. Relax. I was just about to put on a movie. I’ll even let the two of you choose.”
Cassie and Lacy exchanged a look.
“All right,” Lacy said. “If you really don’t mind.”
“I really don’t. Make yourselves comfortable.”
So they did. Cassie sat on the sofa with Brian and Thor, and Lacy took a reclining chair with Trevor in her lap. Brian didn’t even protest when the sisters chose a rom-com instead of the action flick he’d had in mind.
“This is really nice of you,” Cassie said again as the movie started and the smell of cake began to waft through the air.
“No problem. I don’t mind.” Brian pushed his glasses up on his nose and leaned back on the sofa, propping his feet up on the coffee table.
The truth was, he really didn’t mind. It was nice having attractive women in the house, even if one of them was a wife and mother. It had been nice having attractive women working in the kitchen, though he knew better than to say that.
It wasn’t that he had some kind of male fantasy of women cooking for him. It was more the feeling it created to have them bustling around with their mixing bowls and their spatulas.
It felt like home.
Not like any home Brian had ever known, but like the one he imagined in his fondest fantasies. It felt like warmth and nurturing. It felt like some elusive thing he’d always wanted but had never had.
It was even nice having the baby in the house, he thought—until he glanced over and saw that Lacy was nursing her son under a light blanket she’d brought out of her diaper bag.
He fe
lt himself blush but pretended he hadn’t seen what she was doing.
He put his eyes back on the screen.
Chapter 5
When the timer went off, Cassie paused the movie, got up, and used a wooden toothpick to check the cakes for doneness. The toothpick came out clean, so she removed the cakes from the ovens and put them on cooling racks she’d brought with her.
“Okay, I have to wait a few minutes for them to cool, then I can turn them out of the pans and onto the racks,” she explained to Brian. “Then I can put in the rest of the cakes. The whole thing is going to take another”—she mentally calculated—“forty minutes or so. You sure it’s okay?”
“We’ve come this far,” Brian said. “Might as well see it through.”
By the time the next batch of cakes was in the oven, Trevor was asleep on Lacy’s shoulder. Cassie came back to the sofa, and Brian started the movie again.
“I wouldn’t have chosen this movie,” he said, “but it’s not bad.”
“You mean you’ve never seen it?” Lacy asked in surprise.
“No. Should I have?”
“It’s When Harry Met Sally!” Cassie said, as though the very title of the movie were all the answer that was necessary.
“Well … I know that. But, no, I haven’t seen it.”
“It’s a classic!” Cassie put her hands on her hips, glaring at him in indignation.
“Still …”
“I’ll bet you’ve seen every movie Adam Sandler has ever made, though,” Cassie observed.
Brian blinked, uncertain whether he was being insulted. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Cassie shook her head and rolled her eyes to assure him that he was, in fact, being insulted. “Just watch the movie,” she said.
By the time the last cake had come out of the oven and was cooling on a wire rack, it was around nine p.m. Lacy was yawning and Trevor was beginning to fuss. The movie wasn’t over yet, but she got up and stretched, saying she needed to get her son home and get back to her other kids before they plotted a coup against her husband.