“Ah, we’re making progress. I’m not sticky or gross and you had no complaints on my technique. Is it my breath? Do I smell of livestock?”
Like the mound of bubbles outgrowing the sink, Claire couldn’t contain a giggle. “You don’t smell bad.”
“Then what’s the problem?” His hands tightened on the counter as he prepared for her answer to knock him sideways.
“I’m … It’s … complicated.” The plates clattered together on their way into the water. “I’ll be moving on soon enough.”
The news wasn’t a surprise. She was used to wandering the world. Highland’s charms wouldn’t keep her satisfied for long. Knowing that didn’t stop the crimp of disappointment in his chest somewhere around his heart.
“No reason we can’t hang out and have fun until then, though.” His light tone belied his internal turmoil.
“True.” She drew the word out as if the pros of his argument barely outweighed the cons. “As long as you understand that’s all it can ever be. A bit of fun.”
“Trust me, the last thing I want is to settle down.” When had he become such an adept liar? Next time Mr. Timmerman invited him to play poker, he would make a fortune bluffing the table.
“Me either. I’m allergic to staying in one place.” Her fierceness had a grim edge.
“So we’re agreed. We’ll hang out, have some laughs, share a soufflé, and then no hard feelings.”
She handed him a clean, dripping plate and a towel. “Agreed. Now make yourself useful and dry.”
While he wouldn’t call the atmosphere between them relaxed, it had lost its awkwardness. Now it held a tension that reflected the inevitability of an ending, but was also charged with an expectation that veered distinctly sexual.
While earlier, she avoided looking at him, now her gaze clashed with his every few seconds. Their hands brushed, hers slick and soapy against his. So preoccupied had they become with each other, he barely saved Ms. Meadows’s cast-iron skillet from a soapy death.
“Do you want to get shot by Ms. Meadows?” At her quizzical expression, he said, “Even I know not to use hot water and soap on a seasoned skillet. It’s blasphemous.”
“As in, the Lord will strike me down?”
“You joke, but Thou Shalt Not Wash Your Iron Skillet with Soap barely missed the cut for the Ten Commandments.” Holt took a scrub brush and cleaned the skillet, setting it back on the stove top. “And some would add in Thou Shalt Support the Georgia Bulldogs as a solid number twelve.”
Claire submerged the soup pot in the water. “I didn’t realize the state had an attachment to a certain breed of dog.”
“It’s not a dog, it’s a football team. Their mascot is a bulldog.”
“I didn’t realize football was popular in the States.”
It took a few blinks for Holt to cotton on to her confusion. “American football with the big pads and the quarterback throwing the ball. Although your style of football—it’s called soccer around here—is getting traction too.”
“And do you support the Bulldogs?” she asked.
“I watch every Saturday, even though I didn’t go to college.” Part of him regretted not going off to school like so many of his friends, but it would have been a waste of money. He’d known the farm was his future. Still, he wondered if he’d missed out on an important life experience.
“My parents expected me to go to university, but I … didn’t.” A story lived within her pause. Something along the lines of War and Peace.
“School isn’t for everyone,” he said simply even though he wanted to know more. He wanted to know everything, but she was as skittish as a polecat, and he would bide his time. After all, they had a date on the books.
Claire handed the rinsed pot over and Holt dried it, setting it to the side of the sink. The kitchen was clean and there was no reason to hang around unless she offered one. He wouldn’t mind sneaking out to the porch to continue having “fun.”
“I should go?” His voice wavered between a statement and question.
“You need to spend some quality time studying that soufflé recipe.” She wiped the bubbles off her arms with the dishtowel. The hot water had inflamed her palm and had him pulling her hand toward him.
“Ah, Claire. That must hurt.” He stroked her wrist with the pad of his thumb.
“It could have been worse.” She pulled her hand back and lowered the sleeve, gesturing him toward the door. She didn’t speak again until they were on the porch. “By the way, thanks for not telling Ms. Meadows what happened. I don’t want her to worry next time I go to town.”
Holt clamped his teeth together. He wanted to put his foot down and forbid her to ride the bike into town. He had to content himself with saying, “The road is too narrow and dangerous.”
“What choice do I have?”
“I would be happy to take you to town.”
“You’re offering to be at my beck and call as a personal chauffeur?”
“I’d be happy to be your Jeeves,” he said.
A smile flitted across her face, banishing the shadows that seemed to hover around her. “You surprise me.”
“Better than being a bore.”
The soft ping of the rain falling on the tin roof was hypnotic and soothing. He dreaded leaving the comfort and company to return to his empty cabin.
“I would appreciate a lift back to Wayne’s sometime this week so he can fix my chain.”
“My pleasure.” It was the polite thing to say, but also the truth.
“I’ll walk up to your place on Saturday. It’s not far, is it?”
He wanted to argue with her, but decided to cede the field. “Less than a mile. Once you’re about halfway to the barn, you’ll see my cabin off to your left.”
“I’m looking forward to it.” Her shy smile did funny things to his inside.
He ducked into the misty rain and splashed through muddy puddles to his truck before he did something inadvisable like kiss her again. The headlights illuminated Claire, still standing on the porch. He hesitated with his foot on the gas. Saturday night couldn’t come soon enough.
Chapter Seven
Holt was a car-chasing dog who had no clue what to do now that he’d caught the bumper. He’d lured Claire with the promise of fancy French cuisine, when what he should have done was eat his pride, go back to the library, and find a cookbook featuring recipes with less ingredients or geared toward idiots.
He read the recipe again. He’d thought he’d followed it to the letter. This wasn’t even supposed to be the difficult one. The grand idea to make bread to go with the artisanal cheese he’d bought at the farmer’s market as an appetizer had seemed like a great idea. Peasants in the Middle Ages had figured out how to make bread. The gooey blob of dough he was kneading looked nothing like the accompanying picture.
Worst-case scenario, he’d pull out the frozen chicken wings and fry them up to accompany the soufflé. Southern hot chicken meets French haute cuisine. The shot of humor settled him down. He plopped the dough in a bowl and covered it with plastic wrap. Now he was supposed to let the dough prove. What was it supposed to prove? Hopefully, that Holt wasn’t courting disaster.
The soufflé recipe was intimidating. The ingredient list had looked doable, but the instructions were shoving him to the edge of a panic attack. They involved whisking eggs until they had stiff but not dry peaks. It was in English, yet he didn’t understand.
He paced back and forth, then peeked at the bread dough, which hadn’t proved anything. While he might need a cooking for idiots book, he wasn’t an actual idiot. He knew when he was in over his head. He grabbed his phone and called for reinforcements.
Anna Maitland didn’t answer her phone. He left a message and then called Iain Connors.
“What’s up, mate?” The Scotsman hadn’t lost any of his burr since moving to Highland.
“Please tell me you know how to cook.”
“I could tell you that, but it would be a lie.” Iain’s ru
mbling laugh did not improve Holt’s mood.
“Is Anna around?”
“She’s working.”
“On the Burns Night celebration?”
“I suppose.” Iain’s non-answer held seeds of worry.
“Everything okay with you two?”
“She’s been acting odd the last couple of weeks.”
“What’d you do?”
Iain grunted. “Why do you assume it’s my fault?”
Holt let Iain stew on the question in silence.
Finally, Iain groaned. “I have no idea what I did.”
“Listen, I will be happy to play Doctor Phil if you’ll come over and help me. I’m in a pickle.” Holt checked the time. He was behind schedule.
“I’ll be there in a tick.” Iain disconnected, and Holt breathed a sigh of relief. Any sort of backup would be appreciated.
Holt read through the recipe one more time, pulling out all the ingredients he’d need for the soufflé. The number of eggs and egg whites called for was crazy.
Iain knocked on the front door and let himself in as Holt was making a mess separating whites from yolks. He picked a piece of shell out and said, “I’m a useless idiot. What was I thinking?”
Iain stood at the threshold of the small kitchen and surveyed the mess. “What in the devil are you doing?”
“Attempting to impress a woman. What else would cause such chaos?” An egg escaped and rolled toward the edge. Holt made a grab to save it and failed. It landed with a splat on his shoe. He wiggled his foot and the egg hit the door of the lower cabinet and slid to the floor, leaving behind a slimy trail.
Iain ran a hand down his beard, not bothering to disguise his amusement. “And what woman would this be?”
“Claire. The one you met at the Brown Cow the other morning.”
“Ah, what’s her story?” Iain joined him at the counter and tilted the cookbook so he could skim the recipe. The page was dotted with flour and egg white. Holt was sure to get an earful from the librarians when he returned the book.
“Claire Smythe is a mystery.”
“Have you tried searching for information on the internet?”
Holt grimaced slightly and nodded. “Only mentions of a Claire Smythe are in reference to the Scunners. It’s like she sprang into existence when she joined the band.”
“Smythe could be a married name.”
The possibility hadn’t even occurred to Holt. Was her insistence they not get serious because she had a husband in Scotland? Was she running away from him? Had he been a member of the band? He tried to remember the other band members’ names, but couldn’t. Surely he would have noticed if she’d shared a last name with one of them.
Iain, unaware of how shaken Holt was from his suggestion, asked, “Why did you pick such a complicated dish? I could help you with a hearty beef stew or a steamed pudding. I’m a dab hand at scones as well, but this”—he waved his hand at the page—“is quite ridiculous.”
“I picked this because it seemed like a good idea at the time.” Dinner with Claire had seemed like a fine idea. “How do I get stiff peaks?”
“That sounds like a problem for your doctor.”
“Har-har.”
“Looks like you have more eggs to separate.” Iain gestured at the eggs on the counter.
“Thank you, Julia Child.” Holt got back to work on the eggs. Even though it was clear Iain wasn’t going to be much use, Holt’s nerves settled into something manageable.
“Anna is a much better cook than I am.” An uncharacteristic uncertainty emanated from Iain.
“All right, what’s going on in Loveland?”
Iain let his head fall back as if the secret code to understanding women had been carved across the wood beams by Holt’s ancestors. If history had taught Holt anything, it was that the males in his lineage had been as ignorant as him and Iain.
“I don’t know. Everything was amazing until it wasn’t. All of a sudden Anna’s distracted and emotional. She asked me if I wanted to adopt a dog together. I told her we had just gotten settled in the house, and she had a lot going on with the studio and the Burns Night festival. I told we should wait until spring to see if things calmed down.”
“Seems reasonable.”
“That’s what I thought. She burst into tears, ran into the bathroom, and slammed the door in my face. It was a good thirty minutes before I coaxed her out.”
Holt frowned while he picked eggshells out of the bowl. “That doesn’t sound like Anna at all. She’s a ball-buster.”
“Exactly.” Iain paced the length of the galley-style kitchen. “Do you think she regrets asking me to come back to Highland with her? I thought things were going well, but…”
Iain didn’t need to put his fears into words. Holt understood well enough.
“Have you asked her what’s wrong?”
“Of course. She smiled—but not a real smile, her bless your heart smile—and told me nothing is wrong, everything is fine.”
“Yikes. Something is for sure wrong if she gave you her bless your heart smile.” Holt pointed toward a drawer at the end of the kitchen. “I think there’s a whisky thingie in there.”
“Excellent. I could use a drink.”
“Not whisky, you lout. A whisk. For my stiff-peak problem.”
Iain riffled through the drawer and handed over a whisk. “I’ve racked my brain, but I can’t think of anything I did wrong.”
“Maybe it’s something you didn’t do right.”
“Her birthday isn’t until spring. We’re not married, so I couldn’t forget an anniversary. What else could it be?”
Holt began to whisk the egg whites, leaning over to read the instructions again. Peaked but not dry. What the eff did that mean? After a few of minutes of vigorous whisking, the eggs were frothy, and his wrist was tired.
He opened and closed his hand to stretch the muscles. “I don’t have the stamina to do this by hand.”
Iain snickered. “I would think living alone would have built up your stamina.”
Holt couldn’t quite stop a grin from breaking out, but turned serious with his next question. “Has she kicked you out of bed?”
Iain’s smile flipped into a grim frown. “We’re sharing the bed.”
“That’s good news.”
“We haven’t done anything but sleep in it for almost two weeks.”
“Ouch. Maybe I should give you a go with the whisk.”
Iain glanced in the bowl and made a not-very-encouraging sound. “Mrs. Mac has an electric mixer she uses for macaroons and such.”
“Would she let us borrow it?”
“I’m sure she would, but she’s the cook at Cairndow, so that wouldn’t be very convenient, I’m afraid.”
Holt dropped the whisk in the bowl. “Do you have anything useful to suggest?”
“I suggest you pick an easier recipe.” Iain took the cookbook and flipped through. “Didn’t the library have a less posh cookbook?”
“I promised Claire a soufflé.”
“Sometimes we do the best we can do and hope it’s enough.” Iain wasn’t any older than Holt, but in that moment he sounded years wiser.
Holt snapped his fingers. “What am I thinking? My mom has cookbooks up at the house. Wait here.”
Holt retrieved a dog-eared cookbook from a shelf in the kitchen of his parents’ house. He stood in the entry to his childhood home for a moment, the silence broken only by the ticking of a clock. It was a lonely sound. One he’d lived with for too long. But tonight, at least, he would have Claire with him and no matter what they ate, they would have fun.
By the time he stepped back in the front door of the cabin, Iain had the counters cleared and the dishes in the sink. Together they picked a casserole recipe with enough beef and cheese to qualify as a heart attack risk. He could use the cheese he’d bought for the soufflé, and he had ground beef in the freezer he could defrost. Getting creative, he opened four boxes of macaroni and cheese to scavenge the elbow p
asta. It would have to do.
Holt checked the bread dough. He should have taken before-and-after pictures of it. He had no idea if it had proved itself worthy or not. After dumping it into a loaf pan, Holt said a little prayer and slipped it into the oven to bake.
Between him and Iain, they muddled through the steps of the recipe. The cheese on top disguised any flaws. It might even turn out edible.
A knock came on the front door. A moment of panic had Holt brushing flour off his shirt and smoothing his hair.
Pasting on a warm smile, he opened the door. Anna stood there, dark circles under her eyes, her hair sticking out of its braid.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said, gesturing her inside.
“Gee, don’t set me on fire with your warm welcome. I got your message, but it smells like you and Iain have things under control.” She stepped inside, craning her neck to glance around the cabin. “Where is he?”
“Bathroom. What’s going on with you two?”
The look she sent his direction was hunted. “Why? What did he say?”
“That you’re acting super weird.” Holt gestured from her head to her toes like she was Exhibit A. “Which you totally are.”
Iain came out of the bathroom but stuttered to a stop upon seeing Anna standing there. “Hullo,” he said cautiously.
“It was nice of you to help Holt out.” The formality in her voice was odd.
Holt glanced between the two of them. It was becoming obvious Anna and Iain needed to sit down for a heart-to-heart. Holt didn’t have that kind of time. He had to salvage his and Claire’s hopefully edible, possibly romantic dinner.
“It’s been great to see you guys. I really appreciate the help, Iain. The next beer at the pub is on me.” Holt sidled around Anna to the door, throwing out as many verbal and physical hints as possible without actually telling them to skedaddle.
“What in bloody hell is wrong, love? Why won’t you talk to me?” Iain took a step toward Anna with his hand out.
Before she could take it, a knock sounded on the door and made all of them jump. Holt muffled a curse and opened the door.
Claire stood on his porch, shifting in her boots and tucking her hair behind an ear. She was dressed in jeans with artful fraying around the knees and thighs exposing slivers of skin and a black T-shirt with a faded Lynyrd Skynyrd emblem on the front under a too-big windbreaker.
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