Bliss and the Art of Forever (A Hope Springs Novel)

by Kent, Alison

  “What are we making?” she asked, coming closer to examine the ingredients laid out on the counter.

  He reached overhead for two trays of spiral cone molds. “It’s called Punch Drunk.”

  Brooklyn picked up one of the molds and examined it. “I think you put one of those in the box I bought for Jean.”

  “Did she like it?”

  Grinning, she set down the tray. “She asked if you could just make her a bowl of the filling.”

  He grinned, too. “I could, but since I’m about to reveal all my secrets, you’ll be able to show her how to do it for herself.”

  “Then I’ll pay very close attention,” she said, but he was too distracted to respond.

  “This wine,” he said, frowning as he studied the unfamiliar—and obviously Italian—label. “This doesn’t look like something you found locally.”

  “It’s from Italy,” she said, her gaze intense, and he wondered what it meant to her, this wine. “I’ve only got a few bottles left, and only a couple of wineries are still making it. It’s definitely sweet so if you’d like something else, I can run home and see what I have.”

  “You sure you want me to use it?” he asked, though he was more than curious to see how it would taste; he usually worked with a Spanish red. But if it was important to her, if it held memories, if it made her think of Artie instead of him . . .

  She went back to her bag, brought out a corkscrew and two glasses she held upside down by the stems. “You did say something about drinking the rest.”

  “Okay then.” He smiled, held out his hand for the corkscrew. “Let’s do this thing.”

  “Uh-uh,” she said and waited for him to hand over the bottle. “My wine. I do the honors.”

  “Have I ever told you how much I like bossy women?” he asked, grabbing a cutting board and knife while she worked the corkscrew like a pro.

  “Since you’re brandishing a weapon over there, and mine’s all twisted up in this cork, I’ll give you that one.” She poured the Sciacchetrà, but he swore her hands weren’t as steady as before, and he didn’t know if she was reacting to the innuendo in his question, or a memory connected to Italy and the wine. She sipped hers, handed him his, and said, “What’s first?”

  “The molds. We’ll prep them with colored cocoa butter so they’ll be ready when the chocolate is.” He nodded toward the cabinet above the counter behind her. “Supplies are in there. I use the pearlized red for the airbrushing and spatter the one called Eggplant Garnet. Comes out looking pretty much like a bowl of sangria.”

  “You’ve got quite the artist’s studio in here,” she said as she opened the doors. “Paints. Brushes. Rollers.” She glanced over her shoulder. “What else do you need?”

  He showed her the scrapers and spatulas, along with the airbrushing system. Then, warming the solid cocoa butter, he took her through the process he used to decorate the molds.

  She watched closely, asking only a couple of questions as he spattered them with the one color before airbrushing them with the second. No two candies from any batch would ever look exactly the same, and that was the point. Their uniqueness was what drew customers to the display case, the color, the shimmer, the gloss.

  The design tools moved out of the way, and the molds placed on another counter, she asked, “Now what?”

  “Now we temper the chocolate.”

  “And what does tempering do exactly?”

  He took a second to decide the best way to explain. “Have you ever left a chocolate bar in a hot car and then tossed it in the fridge to save it? The consistency’s not the same, right? It doesn’t snap when you break it. It’s not glossy anymore. It’s streaky or blotchy or spotted. A little bit soft. That’s all caused by the reactions of the crystals in the cocoa butter.”

  “And that sounds a lot like science,” she said, her eyes behind her glasses sharp and bright.

  “And here you thought I was just a pretty face,” he said, reaching into the cabinet below the workstation for a five-kilo bag of 100 percent cacao mass discs.

  “Those aren’t the same as the chocolate melt discs you can buy in the grocery store, are they?”

  He shook his head. “The stuff in the grocery store usually isn’t even real chocolate. No cocoa butter. Partially hydrogenated oils. Trans fats. Run far, far away.”

  “And you only work with the real deal.”

  “Artisan-produced couverture.”

  “Couverture?”

  “It’s the Rolls-Royce of chocolates. Designated by the percentage of cocoa butter to cocoa solids. Rich flavor. Brittle texture. High sheen. Low melting point. Creamy.” He stopped then because he was pretty sure he’d crossed from instructive into evangelical.

  “Domori?” she asked, reading the name on the bag.

  “The cacao plants are the Criollo variety.” And now he sounded like a Wiki page. “They make the highest quality beans, pretty much a delicacy. Comes out of Venezuela. The chocolate itself is made in Italy. This is the dude, Domori, I told you makes the unsweetened bar that’s not the least bit bitter.”

  She opened the top of the bag and peered in. “Wow. I swear I almost smell coffee, too.”

  He thought back to the park when they’d talked about the soil where both coffee and cacao were grown. “You probably do.”

  “What does this bag set you back?”

  He snorted. “Let’s just say it’s not cheap. But you’ve seen the price of the candy.”

  “Should we maybe work with one that’s not so pricey?” she asked, her frown worried. “Since I don’t know what I’m doing and don’t want to waste something this valuable.”

  “Do you want to do it right?” When she nodded, he said, “Okay, then. We’ll just use half a pound.” He eyeballed the amount he wanted and poured it into his electric melting pot. “Besides, I don’t have anything cheaper.”

  “You can’t use a microwave?” she asked, looking at the chocolate as it began to warm.

  “Yeah, but I’m old-school,” he said, and handed her a digital thermometer. “We need to hit one hundred twenty-two degrees.”

  While she measured the temperature of the chocolate, he reached for his wine, working it around in his mouth and thinking how it would taste when reduced with the fruit. She was right. It was sweet, but not enough to throw off the rest of the flavors.

  “Is that okay?” she asked. “The wine?”

  He nodded as he swallowed. “Not what I expected, but I’m anxious to see how it turns out,” he said, checking the chocolate’s thermometer. “Okay. We’re at temp. Now pour about two-thirds of what’s in the bowl onto the marble counter. Spread it out. Then work it back into the center. It’s how we equalize the temperature as it cools.”

  “I thought they made machines for this,” she said, and when he arched a brow, she blew out a deep breath and added, “Right. Hands-on. Old-school.”

  That had him laughing again. She did that a lot, made him laugh. He hadn’t realized how seldom he let himself relax enough to do so except when with Addy. “I actually do use the tempering machine most of the time. I just wanted to show you how to do it by hand.”

  “Sure thing, boss,” she said, in such a near perfect imitation of Lena that he groaned as she lifted the pot from the warming element.

  Then, focused on the pool of chocolate in front of her, she held the offset spatula and the scraper the way he’d demonstrated, and got to work, spreading out the warm liquid, bringing it from the edge back to the center with the scraper, repeating the process again and again until the chocolate reached the consistency that indicated the right temperature.

  Since the first time he’d tempered chocolate, Callum had thought it an incredibly sensual act. It was a lot of work. It used a lot of muscles. The repetitive motion, the clicking sound of the scraper against the marble, the spatula against the scraper, the chocolate growing thicker as it cooled. But he wasn’t sure he’d ever known the full measure of t
he sensuality until having Brooklyn in front of him, her hair pulled up in a net to match his, her long neck exposed, her triceps flexing with the motion of her arms, her back and shoulders flexing, too . . .

  “Okay. That looks good,” he said after clearing his throat and forcing his attention from her body to the reason they were here. He set the pot on a stool beneath the lip of the work surface, scraping the cooled chocolate into it to seed the rest into a tempered state, too. Then he poured the chocolate into the molds to coat them, draining the excess back into the bowl to use later, and leaving the shells to set.

  “So that’s the outside of the candies,” Brooklyn said, waving a hand toward the molds. “I guess that means the filling is next.”

  “Yep. Now I get to try out your wine.” He reached for the cutting board and knife, then the skillet, plugging in the countertop range he would use to reduce the fruit and the wine. Honey, cinnamon, and brandy would finish the sauce.

  They made quick work of the ingredients, Brooklyn anticipating his next move and handing him one item, then the next. She asked smart questions, and he explained the entire process at length, probably giving her more information than she really wanted, but enjoying more than he thought he would talking to her about what he did. Since Duke and Lainie, he hadn’t talked to anyone about what he did. Not in any depth.

  Lena knew enough to advise customers, and his father had stopped by a time or two to watch him make a batch of one candy or another. He couldn’t remember his mother doing more than walking through Bliss a day or two before it opened, commenting on the placement of this or that, asking why he hadn’t chosen colors that were brighter, music that wasn’t so loud, flavor combinations that might appeal to more people.

  The memory had him laughing as he funneled the fruit mixture into the squeeze bottle for filling the shells, which had Brooklyn asking, “What’s so funny?”

  “This is the first time I’ve walked through making an entire batch of chocolates with anyone,” he said, liking a whole lot, probably too much, that he’d done so with her. “Of course, it’s also the first time I’ve asked anyone to come watch what I do.”

  “Then I’m honored,” she said, her elbows on his worktable, her chin in her hands as she studied him. “Do you ever feel the urge to squeeze that into your mouth?”

  He looked up from the tray of half-filled molds. “My mouth?”

  “You know, like spraying canned whipped cream from a nozzle.”

  “Into my mouth.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never done it.”

  “Never.”

  “Not once.”

  “Never,” he repeated.

  “You don’t know what you’re missing.”

  “Besides a sugar coma?”

  “In this case,” she said, reaching over to close her hand around the bottle above his and slipping her finger beneath the tip, then licking off the squirt of thick filling, “it would be more like a shot. If wine came in shots. Oh my God, that’s so good. No wonder Jean wanted more.”

  Good. Nothing better than a satisfied customer. “Wait till you taste it with the chocolate.”

  “How long?”

  “Till it sets?” he asked, and she nodded. “I’ll top the molds with more chocolate, then let that harden. That’ll give us enough time to get this mess cleaned up.”

  “Right. I forgot. I’ve been making candy with Mr. Clean.”

  “Funny,” he said. He was in an unbelievably good mood.

  Another thirty minutes and the chocolates were done. Callum set about storing the ingredients and wiping down the equipment. Brooklyn helped, scraping out the skillet and setting it in the sink with the spatulas and other utensils. When she turned suddenly, her hands full with the bowl holding the remaining fruit filling, her shoulder bounced off his chest.

  He reached to steady her, his hands on her upper arms, squeezing before he let go to move the bowl out of the way. He set it on the counter behind him, his gaze still holding hers as they stood there, not speaking, barely breathing, the tension of the last couple of hours finally ready to break.

  The bowl settled, the stainless steel ringing against the marble before coming to a stop. Brooklyn hadn’t moved. She stood where she’d been, her hands empty, her gaze wide-eyed and searching, her pulse throbbing in the hollow of her throat, a tight drum skin, boom, boom, boom. Then she swallowed, and pulled in a shaky breath, and Callum was through waiting.

  He threaded his fingers into her hair on either side of her head, exactly as he’d been wanting to do since walking into her classroom. The strands slid through his fingers, corn silk, smelling like flowers and rain when he stirred them, and so he leaned down, nuzzling her beneath her ear, breathing her in, smelling green tea and lemongrass and ginger.

  He’d think more about the combination later, and about what he thought was saffron, but for now he wanted only Brooklyn in his head: the texture of her soft skin, the flutter of her lashes against his cheek when she closed her eyes. The jittery rise and fall of her chest as if she’d been distracted from her need to draw breath by the way he was touching her.

  He liked that. He wanted her to respond. He needed her to be as involved as he was, as compelled to explore this chemistry, if it was something that basic. A mix of flavors. A reaction of one ingredient to another. The science of attraction. Which wasn’t simple at all.

  This was complicated, this feathering of his fingers over her ear, her fingers curling into his biceps, pulling him to her as she lifted her chin. He gave himself enough space to look down at her as her eyelids shuttered down, as her lips parted, and then his mouth was on hers.

  She tasted like chocolate, and like the grapes in the wine, like apples and peaches, like oranges. Like pears. It was his version of sangria, though it was different than he’d ever made before because of her wine. Her rare Italian and no doubt expensive wine. And he would forever think of her when he made the filling they’d created tonight.

  Who the hell am I kidding? he mused, using his thumbs on her jaw to tilt her head. He’d be thinking of her every time he stepped into this kitchen. And he had no one to blame but himself. It was his choice to bring her here, to sacrifice solitude for her company.

  Right now he didn’t care. This kiss . . . he fell into it, losing himself, finding Brooklyn and something that could not have felt more right. That shouldn’t have happened. Everything in his world was already right, wasn’t it?

  He took a hard step into her. She stepped back and he followed until she had no place else to go, the work counter behind her, his body in front, yet still he pushed, aligning their bodies, moving a thigh between hers, his hip bone pressed to her abdomen, his arm sliding around her shoulders to hold her.

  She didn’t try to get away, only to get closer, as if she, too, needed more of what they’d created. More of this heat nearly melting them. Sweat ran down his spine to the small of his back, and her hands were there, her fingers curling into the fabric, tugging it up so she could find skin, then touching him . . .

  He wanted to laugh, but his tongue was tangled with hers, which was as hungry as the rest of her. She was moving against his thigh where he’d pinned himself between her legs, and he wasn’t sure which of them was the first to realize where this was going and groan.

  “Brooklyn—”

  “Don’t stop.” Her hands had moved up his back to his shoulders, to his nape, to his hair, her fingers raking against his skull to the knot and tugging it loose. It fell around his face, around her face, a curtain hiding them from the hard truth of this very big mistake.

  She was leaving.

  He was staying.

  He’d promised himself no more bad choices. He had Addy to think about. He had Bliss to think about. Thinking about Brooklyn would splinter his focus, but if he didn’t think about her, he’d lose his mind. “We can’t—”

  “I know. I know,” she said, cutting him off.

  But he wasn’t sure s
he did. Her mouth was still on his, kissing, nipping, and her hands had moved to his neck, and the buttons on his coat. He let her free one, then two, then three. At the fourth, he grabbed her wrists and stopped her.

  “Brooklyn. We can’t. Not here. Not tonight.”

  She dropped her forehead against his chest, gripped fistfuls of his coat while she stood there and breathed. She said nothing. And for the longest time he was afraid he’d hurt her feelings. But she had to know the time wasn’t right for either of them, with all they had going on in their lives. None of that meant he didn’t want her.

  There wasn’t a cell in his body that wasn’t aching to strip her pants down to her ankles and off, hoist her legs around his waist and let her ride. Even painting the mental picture . . . he couldn’t help it. He groaned. And Brooklyn spread out her fingers over his chest, as if feeling the sound echo.

  “Do that again,” she said, finally lifting her head.

  Her eyes were damp, but not sad. “Maybe later.”

  “Will we? Later?”

  How was he supposed to answer that? Later could mean anything. Tomorrow. Next week. Four months from now when he was still here and she was in Italy. “I don’t know.”

  “It’s been a long time for me.”

  “It’s been a long time for me, too.”

  “I haven’t . . . since Artie.”

  “I haven’t since leaving the hospital with Addy in my arms.”

  He should’ve told her sooner, because those were the words that finally got her to let him go.

  “You haven’t slept with a woman in six years.”

  “Nope.”

  “No sex in six years.”

  “With another person?” He shook his head.

  Her cheeks bloomed with color, but he didn’t think her embarrassment had much to do with his admission.

  “Six years is a long time,” she said.

  “So’s two.”