Rescue (Ransom Book 5)

by Rachel Schurig

  “We’re taking a cooking class!” Paige explains excitedly. Suddenly the aprons hanging behind the desk make a lot more sense.

  “We’re cooking?” Daltrey asks, sounding skeptical.

  “Baking actually,” Marie tells us. “We have you signed up for our French pastry class. You’ll be learning to make a variety of breakfast pastries as well as fillings.”

  “We’re going to make croissants!” Paige says, clapping her hands. “Yummy, buttery croissants! Doesn’t that sound like the perfect French experience?”

  “Paige, I don’t know how to cook,” Cash groans. “Can’t we just go out to eat if you want croissants?”

  “Don’t you want a French experience?” she asks, sounding shocked that he might disagree. “Croissants, Cash!”

  “We could eat croissants at a restaurant,” he mutters.

  “Don’t be silly. This is going to be fun!”

  “And you will get to eat everything you make,” Marie says. “If everyone would just follow me downstairs…”

  “You’re going to light the entire building on fire,” Daisy tells Daltrey as we begin to make our way down the stairs. They’re twisting and narrow, and I have to duck in order not to hit my head.

  “I can’t promise anything,” I hear Daltrey say.

  “Maybe this time you’ll make sure your pregnant girlfriend is out of the room before you run for your own life,” Daisy adds.

  “I’m never going to live that down, am I?”

  “Not if I can help it,” I say, jabbing him in the back.

  Once on the lower level, Marie leads us to a large room filled with counter-high tables. The far wall is lined with ovens and stovetops. In the front of the room is a pair of sinks and a man in a white chef’s coat standing beside them. “Here’s your group, John,” Marie says before turning back to us. “John will take good care of you. Enjoy your class!”

  The chef, a tall, dark-haired man, greets us in an American accent. “Take a seat, take a seat,” he says, gesturing at the tables. “There should be a spot for each of you.”

  “Holy crap,” I hear Daisy mutter. “That guy is hot.”

  “Hey!” Daltrey cries, and she shushes him.

  “I’m sorry, but there are some things a girl just can’t help but notice.”

  From the way Layla practically throws herself to the front of the room to grab the table closest to John, I don’t think Daisy is the only girl who noticed. Karen and Paige are looking at the chef with open mouths even as they take their seats, and Reed shoots him a glare, apparently picking up on the object of his girlfriend’s fascination.

  “Pathetic,” Haylee murmurs, and I turn to see that she has taken the seat next to me. My stomach drops. I’m not sure I have it in me to sit this close to her for the duration of the class, not when I know how she feels. Or, rather, how she doesn’t feel.

  “I wanted to apologize,” she says. She’s looking at me sheepishly, and it’s an unfamiliar look on her. She’s usually so confident, so brazen. The complete opposite of me, I think, feeling even worse.

  “You don’t need to apologize.”

  “I do.” John starts to speak at the front of the room, and she drops her voice. “Lennon, I don’t know what got into me the other night—”

  “Don’t worry about it.” I know I sound short, but I can’t help it. Being this close to her is another reminder of how beautiful she is—as if I needed one. At the table in front of us, Cash and Sam are sitting close together, laughing about something. I’ve barely seen them since she arrived yesterday. The sight of them, so happy and comfortable with each other, sends a dull shot of pain through me. I’m not going to get that with Haylee, I remind myself. And sitting here with her is just another reminder of what I don’t have.

  “Lennon.” Her voice is soft, and she sounds pretty miserable.

  “Let’s just…” I sigh, turning back to John at the front of the room. “Let’s just take this class.”

  She doesn’t say anything else, but when John instructs us to grab our ingredients, she complies.

  “Today we’ll be making the classic French puff pastry dough,” he explains from the front of the room. “With this dough you can make a variety of pastries including croissants and pain au chocolat. We’ll be making both, as well as a few others. But first we need to make our custard so it can set. This custard can be used as a filling or a sauce for the pastry.”

  He passes a few vanilla bean pods around the room and shows us how to scrape the insides to collect the seeds. He has Paige add the vanilla to a bowl of milk and instructs her to crack a few eggs into the mix. “Very good, Paige,” he tells her, and she beams at him.

  “Paige is crazy competitive,” Karen mutters from the table next to us. “So watch your back. She’s not beyond sabotaging someone.”

  “For a cooking class?” Haylee asks, leaning over me so she doesn’t have to raise her voice. I try not to wince as her arm brushes mine. Why does she have to smell so good? Why does my skin have to feel like it’s burning—in the best possible way—every time we touch?

  “Cooking class, scrapbooking, sandcastle building. Doesn’t matter. Paige takes these things very seriously.”

  “Let’s divide our custard into two pots,” John says. “And then we can gather around the stoves.”

  Once we’re standing in front of the cooking top, John hands a whisk to Cash. “Here you go,” he says. “Let’s see what you can do.”

  “Oh, I can’t cook,” Cash says quickly, trying to hand the whisk back, but the chef only laughs.

  “Which is why you’re taking the class.” He holds out another whisk. “I need another volun—”

  Before anyone can respond, Paige is grabbing the whisk and walking to the other stove at Cash’s side.

  “Okay,” John says, sounding slightly bemused. “The goal here is to keep the custard in constant movement. If you allow the mixture to be still in any one spot, we’ll get burns. We want zero burns.” He grins at Cash. “So you’re going to have to use all your arm strength.”

  Cash snickers. “Dude. I play guitar. I think I’ll be fine.”

  “Let’s get started then.”

  John turns the heat on under the pans and instructs Paige and Cash in how to stir the custard. “Good,” he says. “Now you only have to do that for two more minutes.”

  “No problem,” Cash mutters. But after thirty seconds or so, his face starts to tighten.

  “What’s the matter, babe?” Sam calls cheerfully. “Your arm getting tired?”

  “No,” he says, his voice tight. “It’s just… a repetitive movement.”

  Daltrey snorts. “Then you should be really good at it.”

  Daisy smacks his arm. “Don’t be crude.”

  Now that Cash has hinted that he might be having difficulties, the guys have no choice but to trash talk him. Paige happily joins in. Her face is smooth and unlined as she whisks her custard, apparently having no issues with her arm aching.

  “Okay, twenty more seconds,” John says.

  “Think you can handle it, Cash?” Reed calls.

  “You look tired, buddy,” Levi says. “Sure you don’t want to give up? There’s no shame in losing to a girl.”

  Paige smiles at him over the stove. “No shame at all.”

  “Will you all please shut up?” he growls, right as John calls time and pulls the two pans from the heat.

  “Okay, here’s the moment of truth,” he says, pouring the custard from the pans into two glass bowls. “If we see any scorch marks on the side of the pan we’ll know that we have some burning.” As Paige’s mixture fills the bowl, he smiles at her. “Good, Paige. Very little scorch mark right here, but nothing major. This will be a good custard.” She beams and turns to Cash, eyebrows raised. “Now, Cash,” John says, pouring his custard into the next bowl. “Well, look at that. Not a single scorch mark. That’s just about perfect.”

  Cash gives Paige a huge smirk. “Don’t worry. There’s no shame in
losing to a rock star.”

  She’s still glowering at him when we return to our seats. “He’s asking for trouble,” Karen mutters.

  John gets the custard in the cooler to set then instructs us on how to mix and knead our dough, a process which consists of rolling the dough into a ball before slamming it into the counter top. Soon the room is filled with the noise of dough slapping against marble. “Your brothers seem to enjoy this part,” Haylee says. It’s the first thing she’s said to me since her attempted apology earlier, and I feel a flash of guilt for being so cold. But then I follow her eyes around the room, and I have to laugh. She’s right—my brothers are taking great glee in slamming their dough around.

  “Dylan and Lance are into it too,” I say, nodding at their table.

  She smirks. “Guess it’s a guy thing.”

  Once our dough is properly elastic, John shows us how to layer it with the butter we rolled out earlier. It’s an involved process including a lot of rolling and layering. To keep our dough from sticking, he teaches us a method of flinging flour to the counter surface. It involves a little flick of the wrist to get the flour to spread evenly, and I’m terrible at it.

  “No, like this,” Haylee says, laughing. She has the flicking movement down pretty good, and I try again, attempting to copy her, but my flour lands on the table in a clump.

  “Daltrey!” Daisy squeals. “You’re getting flour all over me!”

  She isn’t exaggerating. She has a huge swath of flour down her shirt. Daltrey takes one look at her and starts laughing, causing Daisy to take a handful of flour and flick it right into his hair.

  “Hey!” he cries, his hands patting his hair.

  “You’re making it worse,” she says, laughing so hard she has to bend over. “Your perfect, rock star hair!”

  “I’m so sorry,” I hear Reed telling John at the front of the room. “We can’t take them anywhere. I’ll make sure they clean up.”

  “John doesn’t seem too worked up about it,” Haylee says.

  “I bet Paige paid a pretty good bonus for putting up with us.”

  Haylee laughs. “Reed wasn’t joking about not being able to take you guys anywhere.”

  The layering of dough and butter isn’t as easy as it sounds. John explains that touching the dough too much will cause the butter to melt, but layering it correctly requires a lot of folding and rolling it into precise rectangles.

  “Good shape, Cash,” John says as he walks up and down the aisles to examine our work. “Paige, you need to even out those corners a little.”

  “I’m pretty sure there’s steam coming out of her ears,” Haylee mutters, and I snort.

  Once we have the dough layered, John shows us the shapes to cut it into to create our pastries. We roll up several croissants, pain au chocolat, a pinwheel, and a little basket shape that Haylee cuts in two accidentally. “Oops,” she says, trying to piece it back together. “Does that look okay?”

  “Uh, you want the polite answer or the honest answer?”

  She laughs. “I guess that was answer enough.” She points at my tray. “But look at your croissant!”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “It’s wonky.”

  “I’d rather it be wonky than cut in two.”

  “Okay,” John calls. “Let’s get these into the oven.”

  Our tray, wonkiness and all, is one of the better showings in the room. Daisy and Daltrey appear to have given up shortly after the flour incident. “We’ll try yours,” Daisy says when Paige protests. “I’m pregnant, Paige, I didn’t feel like rolling out all of that dough. Sue me.”

  To my great surprise, the pastries on Cash’s tray look perfect. He’s beaming as he slides them into the oven while Sam stands next to him, arms folded. “He didn’t let me do anything,” she complains. “He’s obsessed.”

  “Maybe we found his calling,” I say.

  She shrugs. “I guess it’s my gain if he turns out to be some amazing cook.”

  The only pastries that come close to Cash’s are Paige’s, of course. Reed is suspiciously free of flour and has his phone out—I have a feeling Cash wasn’t the only one who refused to let his partner help.

  “While those are baking, let’s get our stations cleaned up and finish this custard,” John says.

  “This was kind of fun,” Haylee tells me as she wipes flour from the counter.

  “We got to see Dalt covered in flour,” I say, nodding in agreement. “I couldn’t ask for a better way to spend a Tuesday afternoon.”

  Since Paige and Cash appear to be locked in mortal combat to create the best pastries, the rest of us hang back while they help John finish the custard. “What else do you have planned for Paris?” Haylee asks.

  “I’m not really sure. Probably Paige will have some ideas.”

  She nods, looking away.

  “What about you?”

  “I don’t know. I never really thought I’d end up in Paris, you know? It wasn’t really a dream of mine.”

  “Where did you dream of traveling?”

  She shoots me a little grin. “Somewhere warm and tropical. Probably sounds lame to someone as cultured as you.”

  “Cultured?” I bark out a laugh. “I’m hardly cultured. Have you met my brothers?”

  “You’re not your brothers,” she says, and something in her voice makes my chest feel tight. “I was with you in Edinburgh,” she continues, sounding more like herself. “I heard you going on about the castle and the Royal Mile and all of that stuff. You obviously knew what you were talking about.”

  I feel a little uncomfortable. It’s a strange feeling, knowing someone was listening to me, paying attention. I’m usually the one who stands in the back, unnoticed, especially when my brothers are around. You’re not your brothers, her voice seems to whisper in my ear.

  “Okay, these should be ready to come out,” John says. “If someone wants to—”

  Cash and Paige are across the room with oven mitts before he can even finish. They pull out the pastries, which smell pretty amazing, and place them on the front counter. “These look great,” John says.

  “Which ones would you say are best?” Paige asks.

  John looks taken aback. “I don’t… they’re all very nice.”

  “Yes, but which are best?” Cash presses. “If you had to choose.”

  “Oh my God, you guys,” Karen snaps. “Sit down so we can eat.”

  John divides the pastries onto plates and passes them around as Marie joins us again, bearing a tray of coffee and tea. “You all did very well,” John says as we start to dig in. “So now you can enjoy the fruits of your labor.”

  “Except for Daltrey and Daisy,” Levi calls out. “Who did virtually nothing and shouldn’t be rewarded.”

  “Except for Daltrey and Daisy,” John agrees, smiling. “But we’ll let them eat as well.”

  “Holy crap,” Haylee mutters, mouth full of pastry. “That’s good.”

  “It is good. I kind of can’t believe I made this.”

  “I helped,” she says, poking my arm.

  “You did. Even your pathetic little basket turned out okay.”

  “It turned out delicious is what it turned out.”

  She’s smiling at me, and I can’t help but smile back, even though a little voice in the back of my head is warning me that this isn’t smart. Sharing food and coffee with her, both of us tired and messy, our guards down… what good could come of this?

  As if sensing the direction of my thoughts, Haylee looks away. “Thanks for this, Lennon.”

  “For what?”

  She looks back at me, and my breath catches. Her eyes are wide and pleading. “For being so nice to me, after… well. After I was so awful.”

  “You weren’t awful,” I say automatically, wanting to make her pleading look disappear.

  She smiles sadly. “You don’t have to say that. I know what I did.”

  “Haylee…” I trail off, not really knowing what to say. “It’s li
ke you said,” I finally continue. “We could both use a good friend, right?”

  She’s quiet for a moment, watching me. When she finally responds, her voice is wistful. “Yeah. Good friends.”

  As we finish our pastry and thank John, I can’t help running her words over and over in my head. Good friends. It was what she asked for, what she says she wants. So why did she sound so sad when she said it?

  Chapter Twelve

  Haylee

  “So I hear we have plans tonight,” Layla says, plopping down in the chair across from me in the lounge of our hotel.

  “That’s the rumor.”

  “I also hear the male contingent of our band is opting out.”

  “Lucky them.”

  She squints at me. “You sound super excited about the evening activities.”

  I sit up a little straighter. “I’m sure it will be fine.”

  “Any idea what we’re doing?”

  I shake my head. “I mean, it’s Paige doing the planning, so it could be anything.”

  She smirks. “Good point. Well, she said we didn’t have to dress up, so I’m assuming it’s not clubbing.”

  “It’s also only seven,” I point out. She’s eyeing the coffeepot in front of me. “You want some?”

  “Sure.” She fixes herself a cup, and we sit in silence for a few minutes, people watching. Finally she sighs. “Haylee, why are you doing this to yourself?”

  “Doing what?”

  She fixes me with that knowing look of hers, the one where she raises one eyebrow and I become convinced she knows every last one of my secrets. It’s kind of scary, that look. “You like Lennon,” she says.

  “Of course I like Lennon. He’s a great guy and—”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it.”

  I sigh, consider arguing with her, and decide there’s no point. She knows me too well. “I really messed it up.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I don’t think we should be together. I think it could be a huge mistake for both of us.”

  “Haylee.” She sets down her coffee cup and faces me across the table, holding my gaze. “You have to stop punishing yourself for what happened with Randy.”