Flirt (Chasing Hope Book 1)

by Lavinia Leigh

  He thanked her for the coffee and walked out the door, forgetting his tart. She ran out after him, grateful for the excuse.

  “Hey, you, tart!” she yelled, messing up her words.

  He turned around, confused, and then saw her. He grinned. “I’ve never been called a tart before.”

  Emmeline’s cheeks burned uncontrollably.

  “I only reserve that for the best clients,” she said, kicking herself as she handed him his tart.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  There was an awkward silence.

  “Umm,” said Emmeline, biting her lip. “I should, probably—go back.” There was still a customer in the store.

  “Thanks again,” he said, raising up his tart.

  Emmeline turned and ran the few steps back into the bakery. Her heart was pounding. She opened the door and stepped inside, briefly checking to see if he would turn around.

  Oh, but why would he? she thought. Look at me, covered in flour, hair’s a mess, he’s so cute and…oh my goodness, he turned around! Her heart soared. What was happening to her? Since when was she like this? But he was so cute, like, seriously hot. Tall, with broad shoulders, dressed like a freakin’ rockstar, and with a grin that made you feel like you were the best thing in the world.

  In a daze, she walked behind the counter. This was stupid. He said three words to her, and she had turned herself inside out. She started to thump her head on the counter. The old man trying to decide between the rye and whole grain loaves looked at her like she was an alien.

  He finally decided on the rye and brought it up to the counter.

  “You know,” he said, “eventually that’s going to leave a mark.”

  Emmeline stopped thumping. Man, she was so off in her world that she didn’t realize she was still whacking her head. What had he done to her just by walking into the bakery?

  “Sorry, will that be all?” she asked.

  “Yep,” he said, and pulled out some money to pay for the loaf.

  He left the shop, and Emmeline ran to take the cookies out of the oven. She took a deep breath and began to haphazardly lift them off the hot pan and put them on the cooling rack.

  The rest of the day was a write-off. Emmeline tormented herself, chastising herself for not spending more time thinking about the possibility of romance, and then yelling at herself for even thinking of the possibility. She was a mother, for goodness’ sake. She needed to focus on Millie. She had her chance, and he died. What was she supposed to do? Should she move on? Could she move on? Did she even have the right to find someone new? It was all so complicated.

  Hopefully, he would never come back, and she could forget about this whole mess!

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Ginny was almost finished with her law degree; only a few more months left and she would be done. But instead of spending her reading week studying, she came down to spend it with Emmeline and Millie at her Aunt Pernella’s house. Millie was thrilled that Auntie Ginny was coming and especially loved the presents that Ginny brought her.

  “Now, Ginny, seriously! You’re a starving student, you don’t have to bring her presents all the time,” Emmeline chastised.

  “I know, but this way I can confirm that I am her favorite aunt.” Ginny’s eyes followed Millie as she ran around the house, trying to bat the little ball attached by a string to the paddle.

  “You’re buying her love. You don’t have to do that,” Emmeline teased. Millie loved her no matter what; the hours she spent with her reading stories when she was around, or listening to her talk about random things over the phone, made Auntie Ginny in Millie’s eyes one of the best people she knew. Emmeline was lucky to have Ginny and Callum as a constant source of support over the years.

  “It’s my pleasure. Besides, I just got everything from the Dollar Store. So, are you up for a major evening of gossip and maybe more than a few glasses of wine? We seriously have to catch up!” Ginny said.

  “Yes! I’ve been waiting for weeks for this. I swear all I do these days is work.”

  “Me too. This semester is horrible. The amount of homework is tantamount to cruel and unusual punishment!”

  “I kind of envy you, at university, preparing yourself for greatness.” Emmeline winked. “Meeting guys, going to parties…”

  “The hangovers, the walk of shame home the next morning.” Ginny laughed, rolling her eyes. “Who has time for that?”

  “So, no one in particular?”

  “Did you not hear me? All I ever do is go to class and do homework. This is the most fun I’ve had in weeks. How about you?”

  Emmeline paused.

  “Oooooh,” Ginny teased, sensing something pretty juicy was coming her way.

  “No, not like that. It’s just I hadn’t really thought about it for years, you know? Then a couple of weeks ago this guy came into the bakery. Ginny, I turned into an idiot, and called him a tart! It’s like I was overcome by some disease that took over my body for the express purpose of making me look stupid.”

  “Foot in mouth disease again?”

  “Major sufferer right here!” she said, pointing at herself.

  “So, did you ask him out?”

  “No!” She rubbed her forehead. “I could hardly talk to him. I was just so shocked that he had this effect on me. I’m not exactly sure what it was about him that got to me. Maybe his smile, or his eyes…anyway, he was tall, and well, he comes in regularly now. I can hardly bring myself to look at him when he does.”

  “Someone’s got a crush,” sang Ginny.

  “Someone has a brush,” Millie sang back.

  “There’s my girl,” Ginny said.

  “Are you finished brushing your teeth?” Emmeline asked.

  “Yesss,” Millie answered in an exaggerated way.

  “Good girl, now off to bed.”

  After a few minutes of protest and an extra story from Auntie Ginny, Millie was in bed for the night and they could spend time properly catching up.

  “So, when are you going to see him next?” Ginny asked, curling up with a glass of wine on the sofa.

  “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

  “Nope, too much fun. I haven’t heard you talk about a guy in years.”

  “I don’t know if it’s good or not, but he comes in now all the time. I think he has a bit of a sweet tooth.”

  “So what are you waiting for? A guy with a sweet tooth, and you the master baker. Sounds like you two are a match made in heaven,” Ginny teased.

  “I am not waiting for anything. There’s nothing to wait for.”

  “Blah, you are such a scaredy pants. Your life isn’t over. Look at you, you’re gorgeous, you have this curvy body that would make Marilyn Monroe jealous. Guys must be falling all over themselves to get to you.”

  “No, not even one,” Emmeline said dryly.

  “I have a feeling that you are just too blind to see it. Now give me more details about this sweet-toothed Sugar Boy.”

  “Sugar Boy?”

  “Well, do you even know his name yet?”

  “No,” Emmeline answered shyly. “Do you think we can change the subject? How about you?” The phone on the coffee table rang, and she pounced on it, picking up the receiver in seconds.

  “Hey,” Emmeline answered. She paused for a moment to listen, then responded, “Can I call you back later? Ginny’s here, and I just put Millie to bed. It’s time for a little girl talk. You can come on over and join us if you like.” She giggled. Ginny looked puzzled, unsure of who Emmeline was talking to. “Bye.”

  “Who was that?” asked Ginny.

  “It was Callum.”

  “He still calls regularly, doesn’t he?” Ginny said thoughtfully.

  “Yeah, every few days or so, just to check in. He was here on the weekend for a few hours.”

  “Interesting…”

  “Be quiet, you! Now, how did this get back to me? I thought we were going to be talking about you. You’re the one with everything going
on.”

  They spent the rest of the evening talking, laughing, and polishing off the bottle of wine before settling into an Indiana Jones marathon and a plate of fresh made cookies, Emmeline’s own recipe.

  They fell asleep on the couch, and Emmeline wriggled uneasily as her subconscious tormented her with a dream.

  Water poured down. She turned around, her shoes lost. She frantically started looking for them in the middle of an abandoned town. The water rose, flooding the streets; then everything turned green. She was sitting in a robot, operating it awkwardly. The world turned upside down and the robot handed her a piece of paper as big as she was. She stared at it as though it made sense.

  Nicholas was there, and then, in a flash, he was gone. All of a sudden, she was in a tropical paradise with someone—a man, she couldn’t quite tell who. They were drinking coffee. She talked to him and then hot coffee poured all over both of them. They were about to kiss, and then everything turned white, and there was church music.

  Emmeline woke up in a cold sweat. Sitting straight up on the couch, she caught her breath. As she stared out into the darkness, her mind flashed back to the different scenes, the church music playing in her ears. It was Nicholas’s face that lingered in her mind. That’s what he was now, just a dream. He was gone, but maybe this was him telling her it was time to move on. Time to rejoin that land of the living. Time to perhaps open herself up to love, just as Ginny kept telling her to; Pernella as well. Maybe she shouldn’t hide forever.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  On Monday, Ginny left to go back to university and Emmeline went back to work. All morning she thought about what she’d say if she saw Sugar Boy. She spent a few extra minutes doing her hair just in case, and made sure that she dusted off the flour while she was working so she stayed somewhat decent. Of course, he didn’t show up that day at all, leaving Emmeline disappointed, but relieved.

  When three or four days passed and he still hadn’t shown up, Emmeline started to worry that perhaps he wasn’t going to come back. That is, until he did walk in the door, catching her completely off guard. Her breath hitched as she tried, unsuccessfully, not to stare at him. His hair was cut short on the sides, but tousled on top. Adding to the perfection of his barely-there beard was a fine straight nose. He wore the same distressed black leather jacket as before, which appeared casual and yet fit his body well enough to accentuate the outline of his muscular shoulders. The added effect of a simple white tee underneath the jacket and a plaid shirt tied around his waist made him more like a vision—way better-looking than anyone she’d ever seen in real life, more like a page cut out of a magazine.

  Those familiar butterflies started to tingle in her stomach, and her breath became slightly erratic. How was she supposed to ask him out when she could hardly stay standing? She wanted to hide, but Kathy suspiciously had to go to the bathroom, leaving Emmeline alone with Sugar Boy as he searched through the display case.

  Okay, she told herself, baby steps. I will aim for not calling him a tart, and perhaps strike up a conversation.

  He walked up to the counter and opened his mouth to speak, but Emmeline interrupted.

  “Coffee, cream, three sugars, right?” she said, letting the words running into each other like a car crash.

  He pressed his lips together to supress a small laugh.

  Damn! she thought. Way to go Emmeline!

  “What was that?” he asked.

  Emmeline could feel her cheeks going red. Slow down!

  “Sorry, too much coffee this morning!” she said as she pushed a few stray hairs behind her ear. “Would you like some coffee?” she tried again.

  “Yeah, and do you have any of those chocolate chip cookies? They are so good! I seriously can’t get enough of them.” He paused. “They used to be terrible, what happened?”

  “Really? Thank you so much!” She beamed. “I’ve been warking—working for ages on the recipe, and last month I-c-convinced-my-boss to let me change the old recipe for this one.”

  “That’s your recipe? You’ve got talent. I don’t say that lightly either.”

  “Thank you,” she managed to squeak out. Finally, she was doing something right. She poured his coffee and picked out a couple of cookies, putting them into a paper bag. “Two enough?”

  “Maybe for today. I don’t know about tomorrow, though.”

  Emmeline grinned. It was nice to hear someone appreciating something that she had worked so hard on. Do it, ask him out, do it, her mind chanted the words over and over.

  “Umm, I’m Emmeline,” she said, holding her hand out, trying to force her body to relax. Arms, please don’t shake, please don’t shake.

  “Joel.”

  Tingles shot up her spine as his hand touched hers; without thinking she gently closed her fingers, holding on tighter than she should have. Realizing what she was doing, Emmeline panicked and abruptly put both arms behind her back. Did he feel the spark too?

  “I, um, should perhaps—hot—I meant bread,” she stumbled. Shut up, shut up shut up!

  Joel chuckled. “Go get your bread, I’d be devastated if it burnt. In fact, I’ll wait here until you take it out, and I’ll buy it. I’m off to a meeting with my manager. It might make it go a little smoother if I brought him some of your bread. Especially right out of the oven.”

  “He can be bribed with food, I see.” They were having an actual conversation. It couldn’t go better than that, even if she sounded like an idiot.

  “Usually.” He grinned. “I’m a food blogger. We all can be bribed with food.”

  “I’ll have to keep that in mind.” Emmeline put her hand on her hip and thrust her chest out slightly in a sad attempt to flirt. Joel grinned.

  “The bread?” he reminded her.

  “Ahh!” Startled, she ran back into the kitchen, and found Kathy already pulling the hot tray out of the oven. The whole room smelled of yummy hot bread goodness.

  “It looked like you were doing just fine out there by yourself, so I thought I’d take over back here.”

  Emmeline rolled her eyes.

  “I don’t blame you, he’s pretty cute. If I was a few years younger, I’d be all over him. Wait, do you think he’s into older women?” An evil grin spread across Kathy’s face, her imagination clearly running away with her.

  “Don’t know, you want me to ask?”

  “Nah, I’ll let you have a shot at him first,” Kathy said. All the same, Emmeline became nervous for Joel’s possible future if she didn’t get back out there quickly.

  “He wants the bread,” she said, grabbing a paper bag and gently easing the loaf inside.

  She checked in the mirror on her way out to the front. There wasn’t much she could do, even if she wanted to fix her hair again or something. She brought the bread out to Joel.

  “For you. Careful, it’s super hot.”

  He reached out and took the bread, pausing slightly to look at her, which made Emmeline extremely uncomfortable. She shifted her weight back and forth from one leg to the other. She ran through the words she just said, paranoid that she had said he was hot and not the bread. She was pretty sure she’d said bread, but not a hundred percent.

  “Thanks,” he finally said, putting some money on the counter. “This will get me out of trouble with my boss. He always hates it when I’m late.”

  “I take it you’re late a lot.”

  “More than I should be. But I’d say being late today is worth is, especially since I didn’t get called a tart this time.”

  Emmeline scrunched up her face, shooting him a look tinged with amusement and disgust. All right, he was a teaser. She could handle that.

  “Enjoy,” she said, then boldly added, “and come back…I mean, anytime. I’ll make more of the cookies.”

  “Deal,” he said, then looked at his shoes for a moment. “I should go.”

  Emmeline smiled. She made a small wave and watched him leave, cursing the fact that he had that shirt tied around his waist.

&nbs
p; “So,” said Kathy, coming up from behind Emmeline to resume her role in the front of the store as the door closed behind Joel. “Are you two in love yet?”

  “Well, maybe not in love, but I know his name. Isn’t that step one?”

  “Perhaps. I’m sure I knew the name of my first husband, although I seem to have forgotten it now,” Kathy said, grinning mischievously.

  “Goof!” Emmeline said, returning to where she was the most comfortable—the kitchen where dreamy guys couldn’t disturb her.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  It took a few more weeks of restless dreams before Emmeline actually got up the courage to ask Joel out. She had been holding out, hoping that he would take the initiative, but so far, he hadn’t, and the more she saw him, the more she wanted to spend further time with him. She just hoped he felt even a little of what she was feeling every time his face floated through her mind. It would be incredibly embarrassing if she was the only one who felt the spark between them.

  There was something about him that she couldn’t stop thinking about. His voice, his smile—the one that made her feel like the most important person in the world.

  She decided that the next time he came in, she was going to ask him out on a date, or resolve to forget about him entirely. She was done torturing herself with the possibility of “what if?”

  When he finally did come in, she immediately regretted her decision, and tried to run and hide. Kathy was having none of it, telling her either to go and ask that man out, or she would do it for her. Emmeline knew she was defeated.

  Joel rang the little bell on the counter four times before she timidly showed her face.

  “Hey, Joel.” She tried to look natural, which meant she looked anything but.