“I can’t say I feel one way or the other about it.”
“Let me be more specific. Do you like mole?”
“I fucking love mole.” He winced. “Sorry. Yes, I love mole.”
Jess batted away the apology. “Don’t even worry about it. For something as good as my abuela’s recipe, any other response would be sacrilege.”
Sean smiled at her, the first time since they’d started speaking, and Jess felt it all the way to the tips of her toes. The few times she’d seen him, he’d looked haggard. Like someone who’d been ridden hard and put away wet. Her impression was of a deeply unhappy man. So seeing him smile made her feel like she’d accomplished something worthwhile with her day.
“Good to know,” he answered, “but I’m on dessert duty.” He cocked his head to the side, raising his eyebrows as though he were daring her to challenge him.
Far be it from her to turn down a dare. Jess grabbed a few different bottles of spices and tossed them into his cart. “Do you think you can trust me?”
He eyed her for a few brief seconds and then shrugged. “As much as I trust anyone, I suppose.”
Jess didn’t know why, but his response made her inordinately sad. What sort of man had so few people in his life that he could trust? Admittedly, she didn’t have a ton of close personal friends—the pageant world hadn’t been conducive to fostering deep, meaningful friendships among women. And these days, blogging for a living generally kept her in front of a screen, not out partying. Surely though, he had to have someone in his life who he trusted above all others. Jess might not get along with her family all that well lately, but she knew in her bones that they’d always have her back. Who had Sean’s?
She pushed the question to the back of her mind. She didn’t know him well enough to pry.
“Come on. I know exactly what you should make.”
He chuckled, but fell in step alongside her, the wheels of their carts rumbling over the mottled linoleum. “You have me intrigued.”
Jess tossed him a happy smile. Not one of the fake ones she’d practiced for pageants and TV appearances; an honest-to-goodness one that said prepare to have your mind blown. “Good.” She looked around, taking stock of their position in the store. “This way.” She pushed her cart toward the end of the aisle, expecting he’d follow. “We’re going to need dried chilies.”
“Chilies?” His eyebrows were raised nearly to his hairline, but he was following her. “What sort of dessert do you have in mind, woman?”
The timbre of Sean’s voice skated over Jess’s nerve endings. Something about the way he said woman had her feeling itchy—like her skin was too small for her frame. The reaction was instantaneous … and unexpected. Sure, she found him handsome, but a lot of men were attractive. There was something about this one, though, that had her on high alert. Their conversation might have started out awkward and stilted, but now that he’d relaxed, he was charming and comfortable to be with. And he was easy to look at, too. She wouldn’t mind spending more time with him, honestly.
Hmm. Again, unexpected. She was having all kinds of new experiences today, wasn’t she?
Jess stopped in front of a large display of clear cellophane bags filled with just about every type of dried chili one could ever need. She scanned the inventory, zeroing in on the dried anchos and pasillas. She grabbed a bag of each and tossed them into her cart. Turning to Sean, she asked, “Pepitas or sesame seeds?”
“I honestly have no idea.” He shook his head and laughed, a deep rumbling sound that made her stomach pitch and roll with the urge to touch him.
Fighting her attraction to him, Jess turned back to the task at hand. Tapping the pad of her index finger to her lips, she considered her options. As she did, she caught Sean eyeing her with a spark of … something … gleaming in his eyes. Immediately, she dropped her hand away from her mouth. She didn’t need his sexy looks to be giving her sexy thoughts. Her body was barreling down that road without any help, and it could use some brakes.
“Let’s go with pepitas.” She turned her cart in the direction the bulk nuts. Over her shoulder, she added, “The sesame version is ah-may-zing, but so much harder to make. We’re already stretching the limitations of my skills with this one.”
Sean caught up. “Thank you, by the way. I still have no idea what it is you think I’m making, but I appreciate the guidance.”
Jess laughed. “Oh, you’re not making this. I am.” Sean stopped walking, and Jess realized her error. “I mean, assuming you want my help. I … umm … I bulldozed right over you, didn’t I?”
Sean’s eyes twinkled, and when he smiled, a dimple popped in his right cheek. Wow, Jess thought. He really is a handsome devil, isn’t he? Handsome or not; she’d taken over his dessert, and he hadn’t asked her to.
He nodded and scratched the stubble lining his jaw, a tiny smirk pulling at his lips. “You did.”
“I’m sorry.” She looked away. “This happens when I get excited about something. I guess I’m used to just plowing my way forward.”
“It’s okay,” he said, his smirk forming into a full-fledged smile. “It’s cute.”
Jess smiled back. “That might be the kindest thing anyone’s ever said about my penchant for bossiness.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but then closed it. He scratched his cheek. “So how’s this going to work?”
She shrugged, the question catching her off guard. “Umm … I hadn’t thought that far ahead, to be honest. Not to be presumptuous or anything—” he chuckled “—but if you want, you can come by my place, and I’ll teach you how to make my abuela’s Mexican chocolate pie.” She skated the toe of her sandal over the scuffed floor as she waited for his response. Jess didn’t get nervous, but she swore she could feel her heart banging away in her chest.
Sean shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and rocked back on his heels. He dropped his gaze away from hers, and visibly retreated into himself. For a split second, Jess worried she’d stepped over some invisible line, but then he smiled and met her eyes again. “That sounds great.” He gestured up the aisle. “Lead on.”
Twenty minutes later, Sean was loading Jess’s bags into the trunk of her car. Even though she’d repeatedly told him he didn’t have to, he’d insisted. And far be it from her to stop someone from lifting and hauling heavy bags of groceries for her. Especially if that someone had back muscles that flexed and pulled with each stretch toward her trunk. His shirt hung looser on him than was the current style, and every time he leaned over, it rode up a bit, exposing golden skin dusted with fine, pale hairs that seemed to sparkle in the sun. Not that Jess was staring or anything.
He closed her trunk and turned to her. “Thank you again.”
She waved her hand in front of her face. “No problem. I love cooking, even if I don’t get to do it much.”
“Oh yeah?”
Jess glanced away. How to tell someone that even though you loved food, you didn’t eat much of it because the ten pounds you’d immediately gain could ruin your career? And Sean wasn’t just some random someone either. He worked at a bakery, for goodness sake. His livelihood was built on making the very things she’d purposefully gone without for years. He’d think she was insane if she told him she hadn’t eaten a single slice of bread in almost three years.
She fell back on her old standby. “Cooking for one isn’t nearly as fun.”
Unfortunately, standing with Sean, a man who was so handsome it made her eyes hurt, that excuse sounded even more pathetic than usual. If he knew that she willingly denied herself some of life’s greatest pleasures for the sake of a paycheck, he’d run in the opposite direction. Here she was, a single woman approaching thirty who’d been on a diet for more than fifteen years and hadn’t been on a date in a year. Yeah, she was a real prize.
He surprised her by nodding in understanding, his smile dimming. “Yeah. I hear you.”
He looked away again—as if lost in thought—and Jess took the opportuni
ty to study his profile. His jaw ticked, and deep lines formed around his eyes. In that moment, he looked even more tired than he had that first morning she’d spied him standing outside the bakery in the pre-dawn light. But then all at once, his features cleared, and he brought his face back around. “So, what time do you want me?”
Unbidden, Jess pictured her body pressed to him, their hips rolling in unison.
Goodness. Just that word … want. She shivered. It’d been a very long time since a man had made her feel the way this one did. Inexplicably, she wanted to know him … and for him to know her. Both emotionally and physically.
But that wasn’t what he’d meant.
With a quick shake of her head, Jess pulled some air into her lungs and pasted a smile onto her face. “How does six work?”
“Six works great.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his phone, passing it her way. “You should probably give me your number. Just in case.”
Was Jess imagining things, or was that a look of … hope … in his eyes? She didn’t want to read too much into it, especially given the troubling way her mind and body were in cahoots, but she let herself imagine for a brief moment that she hadn’t misinterpreted the look on his face. That he was as into her as she was into him.
Jess took the phone and typed her digits and name into the contacts app before passing it back.
He glanced down at the screen, his dimple popping again, and tapped the phone a few times. Her own phone buzzed in her purse, and he smiled at her.
Jess went weak in the knees.
“That’s me, so you have my number. Text me your address? I’ll see you at six.”
She nodded as he backed away toward his car. She was in so much trouble.
Chapter 7
Sean was nervous. And he hadn’t been nervous about a date with a girl since he was fifteen. This wasn’t really a date, though. Or was it? He hadn’t worried about that question either since he was a teenager. But somehow, he felt like a new person tonight. It wasn’t as though he’d been celibate since he’d moved back to River Hill—his mother was right about that. But none of the one-night-stands he’d brought home from the bar had ever offered to teach him how to cook.
He found himself smiling as he tucked one side of his henley shirt into his jeans and picked up the market bag full of spices Jess had made him buy. Whatever this was—date or no date—it was something very new. And he was pretty sure he was going to like it.
When he pulled Bessie Blue up in front of Jess’s charming little cottage, he took a moment to breathe deeply. The house, like its owner, seemed to radiate life. Pale blue shingle siding and navy shutters were accented by a riot of flowers in long boxes along the porch railings, and he caught a glimpse of a windchime glittering with vibrant red and green glass pieces hanging in the corner near a swing that took up the entire left side of the porch. It looked like it got a lot of use. He let himself picture Jess there, hair in a loose ponytail, curves clad in comfortable clothes, a steaming mug of coffee in her hand. The image was so easy to conjure and seemed so real that it nearly took his breath away. He wanted to see her like that, comfortable and at home. His mental image of Jess smiled up at him as she patted the empty bench next to her.
Sean shook his head. Sobriety was making him hallucinate now. He thought he’d gotten beyond the worst of the aftereffects of pickling his liver for the past year, but maybe the headaches and nausea had just been the beginning. He looked down at the bag of spices on the passenger seat of the truck. Should he even be here? Was it fair to subject somebody as lovely as Jess seemed to be to all his baggage?
He didn’t have a chance to decide. The door to the house opened, and Jess’s head popped out, eyebrows raised. When she met his eyes and smiled, something inside of him relaxed. He didn’t take the time to wonder about what made seeing her feel so good, he just grabbed the bag and hopped out of the truck to follow her inside the house.
“Your place is nice,” he said as he handed her the spices.
“Thanks.” She led him toward the back of the house. “Kitchen’s back here.”
They entered a room that made Sean blink. “Wow.”
“I know, right? It’s the whole reason I bought the place.” She grinned at him.
The entire back wall of the house was windows. A French door opened onto a small backyard— Sean glimpsed what looked like a wrought-iron table and two chairs on a little patio before he turned his attention back to the bright, airy kitchen. The cabinets were white, but the countertops were made up of what looked like handmade blue and white tile in a mix of geometric patterns, with stylized birds added in to accent the expanse of the island. He looked closer and realized that the knobs on the cabinets were made from the same ceramic. The kitchen was somehow bright and airy while also feeling cozy and warm. It felt like home.
“It’s really nice,” he said. It felt like an inadequate description.
“Thanks.”
He blinked, realizing that in addition to looking good, the kitchen also smelled good. “What do I smell? Did you start without me?” A warm, nutty odor was coming from the oven.
Jess picked up an oven mitt printed with yellow and blue roosters. “I’m toasting the pepitas so we can get started right away. Once you smell them, they’re ready.” She opened the oven and leaned over to pull out the tray of toasted seeds. Sean let himself watch. Who wouldn’t? That ass was magnificent. It took him longer than it should have to drag his eyes back up to what she was doing on the counter. From the look on her face, he knew she’d noticed, but she didn’t say anything. The old Sean would have taken that as a sign that everything was golden, and he would have moved in. Sober Sean, newly fledged Actual Human Being, however, had no idea if it was good or bad that she wasn’t commenting on him ogling her ass. He winced. He was a mess. Get back to the baking, Romeo.
“What’s next?” He moved to hold the stone bowl she was pouring the toasted seeds into.
“We grind these up, then make the crust.”
“You’re using this to grind them?” He held up the pestle that went with the bowl.
“I’m using that to get them started,” she corrected. “I need a new blade for my food processor, to be honest. It can’t handle whole nuts and seeds anymore.”
He laughed. “And here I thought you were just old-fashioned.”
She shrugged. “My abuela uses the molcajete for the whole process. I go to the gym if I want arm muscles.” She shot him a quick grin. “Here, you have plenty of muscles already; you grind these.” She handed him the stone pestle and stepped back.
He obediently stepped to the counter and began to press the tool into the bowl full of seeds. “Is this some kind of test?”
“Not unless you feel like you need testing.” She pulled a blue food processor out of a cabinet underneath the counter and clicked its bowl into place. “Got those broken up?”
“Yep.” He lifted the bowl and poured the seeds in.
She plugged the appliance in and put the lid on before hitting the pulse button a few times, coarsely grinding the toasted nuts. “Next we add flour and sugar.” She pointed to a narrow door on the side of the kitchen opposite the wall of windows. “Pantry’s there, can you get it?”
He crossed behind her, feeling the warmth of her body as they met in between the island and the counter. The kitchen might feel big and airy, but in reality, it was pretty small. Perfect for engineering close encounters. Which she surely wasn’t. Was she? He really needed to stop overthinking this. He found flour and sugar in labeled plastic containers and brought them to her. She measured in what she needed, then pulsed the processor a few more times.
“There’s a stick of butter melted in the microwave,” she said, notching her head toward the corner.
He tsked at her. “The microwave?”
“Don’t get uppity with me, baker boy,” she said with a laugh. “In the real world, we do what we have to.”
He laughed. “I get it.” At the bake
ry, they melted butter in large saucepans— but they also used multiple pounds of butter a day. When he’d lived in L.A., he’d never baked, and he hadn’t used the microwave in his fancy condo for much beyond reheating leftovers, but he probably would have melted butter in it eventually. Jess’s practical attitude was refreshing. He opened the microwave and pulled out the butter, then drizzled it into the food processor bowl at Jess’s direction. A few more pulses and they had a crumb crust.
He watched as Jess pulled two pie tins from the cabinet in the island. “Two?”
“I figured you’d want to taste it before you took it to your friend’s place,” she said.
“And this way, you get the rest?” he teased.
Her expression went blank. “No, I won’t be eating it.”
“Uh…”
“You can take them both home,” she chirped, as though she hadn’t just announced she was helping him make two entire pies she didn’t have any intention of eating.
“Tell you what, we can put half in your freezer for later,” he said.
She shrugged. “Sure.”
She didn’t give him time to ask any questions about her pie-eating habits. They pressed the crumb mixture into the pie tins and put them in the oven to bake and set. Then he was hustling around the kitchen gathering more ingredients while she washed the food processor bowl.
He pulled the bags of dried peppers she’d made him buy out of the market bag, together with little bottles of cinnamon and coriander seeds. “What are we doing with all this stuff?”
“Pie filling,” she said. “It’s like mole, but also pie. You’re going to love it.”
She was right. The pie filling was like a ganache – something he could make with his eyes closed. But her version involved grinding the peppers and spices up in the stone molcajete— she confessed she’d broken her spice grinder and he resolved to buy her a new one immediately, shaking out his aching arm— before adding them to the cream as it warmed on the stovetop. He held the bowl steady while she poured the hot spiced cream over the chocolate he’d broken up, and the steam rising from the mixture made him want to plunge his face directly in.
The Baker's Beauty (The River Hill Series Book 3) Page 5