He turned back to face her. “You have a Halloween parade?”
The hopeful look on her face dimmed. “Ah,” she said, then gave him a rueful smile. “I think that answers my question.”
He smiled with her. “George didn’t mention it, I’m afraid.” He could have left it at that. Should have. He had a lot to figure out and not much time to do it if Castellanos was indeed going to open for dinner. As it had every night for the past thirty-seven years. At least that’s what his uncle had boasted during their brief phone call just before George and Alethea had boarded their plane for Greece. Instead, he heard himself say, “I assume George helped with the parade in some way?”
“He provides the Cadillac convertible we use to drive the Pumpkin Festival Queen in the parade.” She grinned. “He usually drives it, too.”
“You have a pumpkin festival?” he said, charmed by the idea.
Amusement filled her pretty hazel eyes. “With a queen and everything.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Sounds quite . . . regal?”
“Oh,” she said dryly, “you have no idea.”
He chuckled. “I’d say I could imagine, but honestly, I don’t think I could.”
“Well, you will get that chance if you’ll agree to sub for George and drive his car in the parade?” she asked, hopefully. She was fair and freckled, with hair that couldn’t seem to decide if it was brown or red. She wore it as she had yesterday, pulled fully back from her face in a tidy bun at the nape of her neck. He had the most urgent desire to reach out and pull out the pins, or whatever held it in place, so he could see what her hair looked like framing her face. Maybe if her features were obscured, even a little bit, he wouldn’t find himself so utterly enraptured by every little shift in her expression, every inflection in her voice.
Her laugh, he’d discovered the day before, was open and confident. Not lyrical or musical or any of those other delicate descriptions, but honest and unfiltered. He wanted to hear it again, wanted to hear her fully let loose.
“It’s just a few hours, in the early afternoon of Halloween day,” she said, seemingly oblivious to his ongoing inner struggle. “You’d be back here in plenty of time for the evening dinner rush if you’re opening that night.”
He commended her for keeping her gaze directed at him, without so much as a glance at their utterly silent surroundings. “I haven’t been out to George’s place as yet,” he said by way of response. At her surprised look, he added, “Kind of like our place in Philly, the third floor upstairs here is actually a little apartment, held over from when George first bought the building. He basically lived up there while he was remodeling and getting the restaurant ready to launch. He’s always kept it that way. Over the years since, he’s let some of his kitchen and waitstaff use it when needed to get past a tough stretch or to set them up until they could earn enough to rent their own place.”
“That’s really nice of him,” she said.
“He’s a good guy,” Caleb agreed. All the more reason he wanted to help George out of this mess. His uncle had helped countless others in his lifetime. It was the very least Caleb could do.
“I’m embarrassed to admit this,” Bree said, “but I don’t know your uncle all that well. He sounds a lot like my grandmother in that regard. She’s a caretaker, too.” She smiled. “In Sofia’s case, they’re usually four-legged and scruffy. They have a way of finding her, I swear. Fortunately, she also has a knack of finding the perfect homes for them.” Her smile spread to a grin. “Otherwise we’d be the crazy cat and dog people.”
“That sounds like my mother’s youngest sister.” His smile turned wry. “Only not the part about finding them new homes.”
Bree laughed outright at that, and the sound was as engaging as he’d known it would be. “Possibly a good thing our families don’t live near each other.”
“Or not,” he countered. “Sofia could help my aunt Daphne reduce her cat population.”
“True,” Bree agreed, laughing again. “It’s funny. Moonbright is small compared to, well, pretty much any other town, and we do tend to stick our nose in each other’s business as a matter of form. Sofia knows George and plays cards with Alethea from time to time. Maybe it’s because we work similar hours, but I’ve never had the pleasure of really talking to either of them at any length. I’ll have to change that,” she added. “I can tell you from Sofia that your uncle is inordinately proud of his extended family and speaks of you all often.” Her lips curved more deeply. “Deservedly so, I’m sure.”
Caleb liked how her smile always reached her eyes. She came across as a sincere person who said what she meant. He liked that, too. “It apparently runs in the family,” he said. At her questioning look, he said, “Going on about family. I don’t typically regale perfect strangers with my family’s entire life story, but I couldn’t seem to shut up yesterday.”
Bree laughed. “My grandmother has a way of getting even the most reticent person to spill, so don’t beat yourself up. Besides, I didn’t think you overshared at all. I was right in there with you, going on about my folks.”
Caleb could have told her that as delightful and charming as her grandmother was, it hadn’t been Sofia who had kept him sharing. And sharing. “I have a little understanding of what you mean about small towns. Philly is not small by any measure, but it’s divided up into well-established neighborhoods that go back many generations, and they operate much like Moonbright. You know pretty much everybody’s name, where they live, what they do, and most big news does travel fast. But go a block past the edge of my neighborhood? I couldn’t tell you much of anything about anyone.”
Bree laughed. “If we’re being completely frank, I probably wouldn’t know much about anyone if it weren’t for Sofia filling me in on all the goings-on.” Her gaze remained direct, but the most delightful flush colored her cheeks. “I might spend a little too much time in the kitchen.”
He barked a laugh at that, nodding as he did. “My siblings would tell you that if it wasn’t for them and my nosy neighbors telling me everything whenever they can waylay me coming and going from work, I wouldn’t know anything at all.” His grin returned. “Now, my kitchen staff and waitstaff? That’s my village. I could tell you stories,” he said in a dead-on impression of his grandfather, who had been born and raised in Greece.
“See, I don’t even have that,” Bree said. “Sofia loves working up front, taking care of the customers. She is absolutely a nurturer by nature. It’s where she shines. I work up front, too, and I love our customers, love seeing them enjoy the things I’ve made, but given my druthers, I’m in the back. That’s my domain and I get to rule my kingdom.” She laughed. “Of course, the only one I’m ordering around is me, and I also get to do all the grunt work, but it’s a trade-off I can live with.” She raised a hand, as if she were taking an oath. “And full disclosure, when I’m not actively baking product to sell, I’m experimenting with new ideas. When I do go home, likely as not I have my nose stuck in a cookbook, or I’m online looking for new flavor inspirations, or in my own kitchen, trying them out. That is my social life in a nutshell. And I’m okay with that.”
He raised his hand in the same fashion. “Guilty as charged.” He grinned with her. “We probably shouldn’t let your grandmother and my sister bend their heads together. Cassi is constantly trying to drag me out of the kitchen. And it’s not like I don’t hear everything anyway without ever leaving the back of the house.” He lowered his hand and leaned closer. “Fair warning, my family are horrible gossips. Don’t worry, it’s just amongst themselves. Any secrets Cassi gets from Sofia will definitely make the rounds in our kitchens, but that’s as far as it will go. The Dimitrious and Castellanos are their own village, but the village is sacrosanct.”
“What happens at Dimi’s stays at Dimi’s?” she asked wryly.
He nodded and their gazes caught, and held for a beat, then another, and another after that. It felt like the most natural thing in the world right then to simply
dip his head lower, slide his hand under that bun, cup the nape of her neck, and lift that delectably tempting mouth to his own. He had to actively keep his hands to himself. They were very clearly flirting, but it wasn’t until that moment that he realized how close they’d gotten, as if inextricably drawn to each other while they’d been animatedly talking and gesturing. He wondered what she’d think if he closed the slim space that remained between them and took that slow, but bold move. It was entirely unlike him, and yet he had to curl his fingers inward to keep from going for it.
He couldn’t recall ever being so easily and fully engaged in a conversation. Yesterday had been the same way. It was as if they’d known each other for ages. Only they hadn’t. And given the way they were looking at each other, if he didn’t nip this in the bud right now, he suspected they were going to know a great deal more about each other in a very short period of time. And not all of it with their clothes still on.
“I can respect that,” she said, her open smile effortlessly drawing him in. She was utterly lacking in artifice, and what was so attractive about that was he suspected it was a deliberate choice on her part, not a by-product of naïveté. She was sharp and quick-witted. And she was attracted to him.
He might have been single for a long stretch, but he wasn’t naïve, either. He wanted to assure her that the attraction was mutual, but he suspected she was as well aware of that fact as he was.
He should be making his excuses about George’s car and hoping they could find their Pumpkin Festival Queen another carriage for the parade. Get back to the business he’d come here to do, which was so much more than he’d bargained for.
But when she finally broke eye contact, it was only so she could turn and loosen the string on the box of treats. Whatever excuses he might have come up with to end this little tête-à-tête before it went to a place they couldn’t return from, died unspoken the moment the rich aroma of cinnamon and vanilla filled the air again, along with the scent of—“Anise?” His eyebrows lifted in surprise. “And is that . . . pears?” He automatically leaned over the open box, drawing in the sweet, fruity blend without even realizing he was doing it. It was the chef in him. Other people drew in air; he drew in scents.
She nodded. “Anise is traditional in some Italian baking, but I’ve been playing a bit with blending it with other flavors. Not everything we sell at Bellaluna’s is traditional Italian, but the inspiration always comes from our roots.” She lifted an oversized muffin with a crumbled topping baked into the top and peeled away the paper cup from the bottom. “Try it.”
She handed it to him and his hand covered hers as he steered the muffin to his mouth. It wasn’t as bold a move as stepping in and tipping her mouth to his, but it wasn’t not a move, either. From the way her pupils flared, she was well aware of that, too. She didn’t pull her hand away, and her gaze shifted from their cupped hands to his mouth as he took a bite. He’d meant to keep his gaze on her as he did, but his eyes closed the moment the blend of flavors and textures melted on his tongue and filled his senses. “My God,” he mumbled as he swallowed the first bite, already thankful there would be more.
“You like?”
He opened his eyes then. She’d sounded, not surprised exactly, but inordinately pleased. He held her gaze directly. “I more than like.”
Her gaze flickered down to his mouth—again—then quickly back up to his eyes. “You have a . . .” She reached up and touched a crumb at the corner of his mouth.
He should have quashed the urge, but he didn’t, and felt no regrets for the decision, either, when he turned his head and captured the crumb on the top of her finger with his lips and heard her intake of breath.
He stopped short of pulling her fingertip fully into his mouth, choosing to close his eyes and kiss the tip of it instead. He smiled when he opened his eyes again, only to discover his glasses had fogged over. “So smooth,” he said, shaking his head on a laugh.
“I don’t know,” she said, sounding a bit breathless as she laughed with him. “I thought you were doing pretty good there.”
They were still holding the muffin between them when he slid his fogged glasses off so he could see her once more, albeit a little softer around the edges now.
“You have the prettiest eyes,” she said on a sigh, then her own grew momentarily wide. “I said that right out loud, didn’t I?”
He chuckled and nodded. “If it makes you feel less self-conscious, I’ve been fighting the urge to undo that bun since you stepped into my kitchen.”
Her eyes widened again, but the continuing heat in them caused an immediate matching reaction throughout his entire body. The hand he still cupped trembled a little. “Yeah,” she said, that breathless note still there, “I don’t know if that helped all that much.”
They both laughed, then continued to stand there, the poor muffin crumbling to the work surface below as their grip on it tightened a bit when his fingers squeezed hers. And yet, neither one of them moved to set it down.
Then Bree lifted her free hand and reached back behind her neck. It took a few tries with her clearly trembling fingers before she managed to pull two pins from her bun and let it uncoil. “So smooth,” she said, the corners of her mouth lifting in a wry smile.
It was all he could do not to groan at the way it made those cupid’s bow lips of hers pucker. Despite her fumbling, watching her take her hair down for him was somehow more erotic than any act other women had performed for him. Maybe it was the uncertainty he saw, even as she held his gaze with unwavering directness. It was the first hint of vulnerability he’d seen in her, and it brought a whole host of other feelings roaring to life inside him. She struck him as a woman who had no problem slaying her own dragons, thank you. He also wasn’t the protective sort, or perhaps not the overprotective sort, at any rate. He liked capable women; his family was full of them. And yet, in that moment, he realized his instinct where Abriana was concerned would be to step in and do whatever was necessary if she so much as blinked in a moment of need.
“I don’t know,” he said, a rough note in his voice now. “I thought you were doing pretty good there.”
She laughed then, and just like that, the flicker of vulnerability winked out and her confidence returned. Knowing that she had that side to her stayed with him, though. In a good way. Vulnerability wasn’t the same as weakness, and feeling it from time to time generally gave a person greater empathy for others.
Lost in his thoughts, he reached out and loosened the unbound strands of her hair. It was longer than he’d expected, and he’d spread the tendrils across her shoulders before it occurred to him that maybe he should have asked first. She didn’t stop him, though.
“Abriana—” he began.
“Bree,” she managed, her voice a little huskier now, too.
He liked that. A lot. His fingers were still twined in her hair. “Abriana suits you so well, though.”
“How could you know?”
He was operating totally on impulse now, not thinking, merely reacting. He drew the ends of one tendril up to brush across his lips. It wasn’t the taste of her that he was literally aching for at the moment, but he needed to feel her on him like he needed his next breath. His reaction to her was completely out of proportion to anything that made sense given the short time they’d known each other. Yet, the truth was, he felt filled by it, invigorated rather than swamped, energized rather than overwhelmed. In fact, he couldn’t recall a moment when he’d felt this good, and happy. As if all the elements he was made of had been switched on all at once. He was turned-on, both physically and mentally, and hungry for more.
It was like . . . all the indescribable things he’d felt when he’d bitten into that cookie was exactly how he felt right in that moment, just standing there breathing her in.
And try as he might to recall the myriad reasons why giving in to the utter temptation of Abriana Bellaluna O’Neill was a supremely bad idea, he couldn’t do it. Nor did he care to try.
“
Only my grandmother calls me that,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper now.
He could feel the fine trembling in the fingers still pressed against his, saw the thrum of her pulse at the base of her throat when she swallowed against the dry rasp that edged her words.
“Would it bother you so much if I did, too?” he asked. He finally lowered what was left of the muffin to the table, then laced his fingers through hers. He kept their hands joined, down by his side, as he wound her hair around the finger that was still tangled in her silky tresses. He wound it once, then again, gently, until her head moved slowly toward his. He shifted that small bit forward, closing the last of the space between them as her chin tipped up so she could hold his gaze. “Abriana?”
She nodded, as if unable to do more. Her throat worked and her gaze dropped to his mouth. It was as plain an invitation as he had ever received, and all that he needed.
“There’s one thing I definitely don’t know about you yet,” he said, his own voice even deeper now, almost a gravelly whisper, as he slowly lowered his head. He wanted her so badly, yet he also wanted to draw the moment out, savor every scent, every touch, every taste.
“What is that?” she asked, the words almost but not quite causing her lips to brush his. Her words were a bit slurred, as if she were a little inebriated by the palpable, all but tangible tension steeped in the air around them.
“How you taste.” Then he took that perfect bottom lip of hers between his . . . and found out.
Chapter 3
What on God’s green earth was she doing? She’d come over to make sure the parade car situation was resolved as a favor to the coordinator. Not to jump Caleb Dimitriou right in his uncle’s kitchen.
Oh, come on. You all but fell over yourself offering to help when you heard it involved talking to Caleb. With your flirty little muffins and come-hither talk of pumpkin queens and family bonds. This is exactly what you were hoping for.
The Bakeshop at Pumpkin and Spice Page 4