If You Love Me

by Ciara Knight

  He wanted to tell her this wasn’t organized and efficient, but he figured he better not open his mouth again or he might end up like Hansel or Gretel.

  “Not like that.” Her hand covered his wrist.

  A quick zap shot from her touch up his arm, and his pulse double timed. No, not possible. This girl couldn’t elicit any kind of physical response. It was a reaction to an unexpected touch, that’s all. Like discovering a combatant.

  She guided his arm with smooth strokes around the bowl, each turn heating his skin a little more. “You’re not beating it to death. You’re combining the ingredients.”

  His heart quickened, either at the closeness or from beating the concoction in his bowl into submission. This didn’t compute. It had to be a side effect of the work stress or Lori cramming bad ideas into his head. “I’m sorry, but this doesn’t look appetizing. This is the geriatric favorite?”

  “Stop referring to them as geriatric patients. They are town elders, and the ones who are still on the town council are Davey, Mrs. Malter, and Ms. Gina.”

  He had to admit the way her forehead crinkled and her eyes narrowed was adorable in a strange, nonsymmetrical way.

  He set the bowl down and put some space between himself and Carissa. All this heat and the smells and conversation mixed him up. He needed to keep the conversation light and informational. The more he understood about the town, the smoother this project would go.

  “So why do you refer to Davey by his first name and the ladies by their last?”

  “Davey isn’t his real name. He just likes to be called that because he loves to dance like Sammy Davis Junior. I called him Davey once years ago when he asked me to dance with him at a party. It stuck. Everyone else is an elder, so it’s a sign of respect to call them by their last names—or in Ms. Gina’s case, her stage name.” She pointed at the scary mess in front of him again.

  He mixed a little more, but the batter was tough. There was no way he’d be trying these. “I don’t know what this is supposed to look like, but I think I’m done here.”

  She took the bowl from him and dumped the batter over a parchment-lined pan, where she smashed it until it was level. It looked like something you’d find in a barn. “Your nose is crinkling. Stop looking at it and smell it.”

  The pan was in his face before he could step away, and he couldn’t help but catch a whiff of fall by a fireside. “Okay, it does have a pleasant smell, but you can’t capture a smell on camera.”

  She ignored his remark, slid the pan into the oven, and then handed him the bowl and spoon. “Time to clean up. And before you ask, no, I don’t have a dishwasher.”

  “Why doesn’t that surprise me?” He washed the mixing stuff and then removed the apron and set it on the counter, brushing off any stray graham cracker crumbs from his sleeves.

  “You’re not done.” Carissa handed him a dish of white stuff with specs of spice in it and tossed the apron at his chest.

  “What’s this?”

  “You need to make them look pretty when they come out of the oven. That’s your specialty, right?” Carissa made some sort of glaze and drizzled it over what he assumed were scones and then put them in boxes. All that time, he watched how she moved with such grace. The woman was different in the kitchen, put together, angelic, beautiful, even if she still functioned like a Tasmanian Devil from that Bugs Bunny commercial he watched as a kid.

  He tied the apron back around his middle, attempting to ignore the blemish of chocolate on the front. How in this little town was he going to make this work? Yes, Lori was right, he did need this win, but at what cost? His sanity?

  “What are you mumbling about over there? You need to focus when baking.”

  “I don’t mumble. And I’m focused on the task at hand.”

  “Then why are you ignoring the timer going off? If that burns, you’re starting over.” Carissa tossed an oven mitt at him. “Take them out and put them on top of the stove. Cut them, then roll them in the powdered sugar and spices, and then put them on that plate. You think you can handle that?”

  He jumped into motion and managed to save the Southern Man Bars from ruin. Was he really cooking? No, he was working to get this done so he could get her to go to lunch with him for two reasons. One, to show her some images of the right kind of baked items that would work for the program, and two, his backup plan. Lori needed to see that he took her out on a date-non-date. How many did she say he had to go on anyway? He needed to clarify that when he returned to the inn this evening.

  He and Carissa worked side by side in the cozy kitchen in the back of her bakery. The aroma of cinnamon and something that could only be described as home filled their world. Flashes of childhood baking with his aunt Sally motivated him to finish the bars, dipping them in sugar and then placing them on the plate. When finished, he had a feeling of accomplishment, something he hadn’t felt in years. Perhaps not since going home during college.

  “They look great. You did well.”

  Her praise unexpectedly soothed him. He didn’t need validation for a job well done. He was paid bonuses for that. “What now?”

  “We need to deliver them.”

  He hesitated. “I think it would be best if you gave these to them.”

  “What’s wrong? You scared of a few elders?”

  He dusted the powdered sugar from his hands. “No. It’s just that I have to get back to work.”

  “You are working.”

  “No, I mean my real job.” He untied his apron and set it on the countertop.

  She blocked his exit. “You still don’t get it. If you want this town to be on board with the filming, then you need to make sure you get the elders’ stamp of approval.”

  “Fine, but once the contract is signed, they won’t be able to cause any more disruptions. Speaking of the contract… We still need to get something for the test shots done by the end of the week. They’re just preliminary. Someone else will be here once the contract is signed to do the promotional photo shoot and filming. That is if the test shots are approved and your bakery is chosen as the spotlight intro segment.”

  “We’ll meet with Ms. Horton after we deliver these.” Carissa covered the plate and snagged the boxes. “These need to be delivered while they’re fresh. Let’s go.” She hooked her apron on the wall and went to the shop. “You can talk on our way.”

  “It’s midmorning. Don’t you need to get someone to man your shop?”

  She glanced around the room and gave him an are-you-serious look. “I think if anyone has a sugar craving, they can wait a few minutes.”

  “You should care more about this project since your business is struggling so much. This program could bring needed revenue here to Sugar Maple.”

  “January is a slow month. My bakery was packed in the fall,” she snipped, her southern accent dipping to a low drawl.

  He blinked at her. “January is a great opportunity to sell new beginnings. Maybe that’s something we can incorporate into your segment to add a little something extra.”

  “If we work together at all.” Again, that irritated brow crunch and eye squinting told him he’d hit a nerve.

  “I thought you were on board with this. The mayor said you were going to make the best product for the first segment.” He retrieved his coat and snagged the one he assumed was Carissa’s from the hook near the door and held it up for her.

  “If there’s a first segment. You’re so sure that your only worry is how to get me to make something pretty for your filming, but if you don’t get a contract, you won’t have to worry about it.” She shoved her arms into the coat and hiked it over her shoulders then stepped away from him.

  “The mayor is on board. This is all but signed.” Drew buttoned his coat and wrapped his scarf around his neck. “Come on. I get the dog and pony show. I have to please the elders to keep them happy, but they aren’t really the decision makers for this town. No one is crazy enough to put the future of this town in the hands of a manipulating dan
cing man in a hat, a former show girl, and a cranky old lady.”

  “You still don’t get it. We respect our elders here in town. They serve on a board that will vote on this project. We don’t shove them in homes and forget about them here.” She tugged the band from her hair, sending it into a wild frenzy until she shoved her hat over it and wrapped her scarf around her neck. “You seem to think that I wanted to spend my morning cooking with you because you are amazing and every woman would want to spend time with you. News flash… The mayor put me up to this, just like your assistant told you to come make nice.”

  He studied his coat, realizing he’d missed a button, so he quickly corrected it. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “What I’m saying is that if you don’t take those treats in there and smooth things over with the elders you alienated yesterday, then you won’t have to worry if I can make something pretty for your camera or if Jacqueline can make a beautiful dress, or Mary-Beth creates the perfect beverage, or Felicia arranges the perfect floral bouquet, or Stella fixes a carburetor, because this program will end.”

  Chapter Eight

  They were unloading the bus at the recreation room, so Carissa decided to go ahead and take the detour to her first stop. It would buy her some time to figure out how to convince Drew that she was the wrong place to start his production focus in Sugar Maple. There had to be a way to convince him. Although, if her feminine wiles didn’t win him over, she wasn’t sure she had a chance to make the man change his mind.

  “You’re going the wrong way.” Drew hiked the strap of his camera bag up on his shoulder and held up the box of treats as if she’d forgotten about the mission to the recreation center.

  “Nope. Going the right way.” She didn’t offer any other details since she didn’t want to open it for debate.

  “Okay, why are we headed toward the inn?” he asked.

  She pointed to her box of scones. “To deliver these.”

  “Listen, I know you’re trying to initiate me into this small-town clan, but why don’t we at least stop at that café or I can take you to lunch.” His voice shook from the cold or from hiding something.

  Time to find out what his obsession with taking her to lunch was all about. If Ms. Horton was correct, directness would work best. “Why are you so determined to take me somewhere?”

  “What?” His gaze shifted all over the I’m-lying zone. “Can’t someone just need a bite to eat while they work?”

  No, she wasn’t buying his pitch. She studied him, watching him squirm and tug at his jacket collar with his free hand. The movement was so unDrew-like. She’d only known him a short time, but in five minutes she knew this man was a solid, nonfidgeting businessman.

  A rumble of questions formed in her head. “Are you trying to throw me off my game so I’ll convince the elders to approve this project without you having to work for it? News flash… Small-town folk respect hard work, not fancy promises.”

  “Ah, no. I, well. Yeah, that’s it.” He toed a crack in the sidewalk. “It’s not uncommon to take clients out to eat to show them how interested we are.”

  “Interested?”

  “In your business—the business, I mean.” He eyed the elders being escorted off the bus. “Listen, it’s fine. I’m great with grandparents. I’ll win them over on my own. I realize now this isn’t New York City and you’re not the typical client.”

  “No, I’m not. Honesty and loyalty are the only things that’ll get you going around here.”

  “I can do that. Be honest, I mean.”

  Honesty? She wasn’t sure she bought that, but the game would continue between them until she could manage to steer him in the right direction. Maybe if she understood more about this filming and what they were looking for she’d be able to formulate a better plan. Not that plans were her strength. “Then tell me why this project is so important to you. Why are you willing to do work with a girl in a kitchen of a small-town bakery that obviously made you uneasy to get a contract to work with elders you don’t like in a place you obviously don’t want to be?”

  “It’s my job,” he announced in a matter-of-fact, what-don’t-you-get tone.

  There was no use. The man wouldn’t be honest if she hooked him up to a lie detector test and had his nana ask him questions. “Riiiight.” She hotfooted it to the corner, down the street, over two blocks, and up the hill to the inn. “You would have an easier time if you just start at the fashion store with Jacqueline.”

  He stopped at the edge of the wrought iron fence surrounding the historic Victorian home. “She made that abundantly clear when we met at the coffee shop.”

  Carissa didn’t have to ask what that meant. She knew her ex-best friend better than anyone. “Then why not?” She forced herself not to bite down so hard she’d chip a tooth again. It was strange to want to turn over something because you don’t want it, yet giving it to the person you resented was a hard cupcake to swallow.

  “Because she isn’t right for the first segment. We need someone who is the essence of this town, who can show the camaraderie of the people.”

  “Then I’m definitely not the right person for the job.” Her skin tingled, reminding her it was freezing outside and they needed to get indoors, so she headed up the brick sidewalk toward the inn.

  “Tell me what’s the deal with you two. I thought you were childhood friends, but there have been hints made about a falling out between you.”

  She rounded on him like a winter storm, bitter, cold, and relentless. “Leave that alone. Not part of the story. Got it?”

  He took a step back. “Got it.”

  She forced a smile she was sure looked like that Stephen King clown on that horror movie. “Good. Let’s go.”

  “Wait. Tell me why we’re here. Are there going to be a mass of townspeople inside waiting with leaves and maple syrup?”

  She laughed. A humor she hadn’t felt in a long time tickled her with the image of children pasting leaves to his clothes. “You’d have to be carried away in a strait jacket if gooey hands touched your perfect clothing.”

  She reached the steps.

  “Wait.”

  “No more waiting. You’re not going to weasel—”

  “Shh.” He held a black leather, stylish but too-thin gloved finger to his lips. “Do you hear that?”

  She listened but didn’t hear anything. “What?”

  “That sound.”

  “What sound?”

  He set his box on the front porch, stepped off the brick path, and walked around until he disappeared from her sight. “That.”

  Footprints marked his way, so she left her own box on the porch and followed him over the dormant rose bushes to the side of the inn. “Where are you going?”

  He cupped his ear. “There.” He pointed above his head. “It’s coming from up there. I thought I heard it last night when Lori forced me to work at the inn’s parlor. She said I was imagining it, but I’m not. Listen.”

  Mew. Mew.

  “Is that a cat?” She scanned the roofline but didn’t see it. The motherly draw to help filled her insides. “Poor thing must be stuck up there.”

  He removed his coat and scarf and tossed it to her. “I think you’re right.”

  Mew. Mew. Mew. It cried and whined, stirring her into action.

  “Poor thing.” Carissa backed away, trying to see if it was close to the roof edge. “Should I call the fire department?”

  “Let’s see if we can get the poor thing down first.” He climbed the oak tree that was the pride of the inn and managed to shimmy out onto a hearty branch toward the roof. A sight she’d never thought she’d see from Drew Lancaster. He wasn’t the tree-climbing, rescuing cats kind of guy. This was the first time he’d surprised her since he’d arrived in town. “It’s not on the roof.”

  A bitter wind gusted, shaking the tree. “I think it’s in the chimney.”

  She pulled her cell from her back pocket. “I’ll call the fire department.”
The icy air caused her fingers to shake, making it difficult to dial, but she managed to hit 911. “You better get down from there. That’s a hundred-plus-year-old tree.”

  He moved like an inchworm backwards, but a snap cracked the silence.

  She caught sight of him a half second before he hit the ground with a loud bam. The phone rang, but she abandoned it to rush to his side. “Are you hurt?”

  “Only my pride.” Drew brushed off his pants and shirt before he twisted his arms and checked his legs.

  The phone kept ringing in her ear. “You hurt more than that. The limb you just broke was the one that the owner’s husband crawled out on to propose to her at her bedroom window when she was seventeen.”

  His hands cupped his head like he was keeping it from exploding.

  “911, what’s your emergency?”

  He dropped his hands to his side. “I’ll deal with this later; I’m going inside to see if I can hear it from there.”

  “Your coat,” she shouted after him, but he trotted inside before she could get to him.

  “Hello?” Gretta’s voice called to her.

  Carissa eyed the tree and the chimney. “Yeah, um, there’s a cat, and we think it’s stuck in the chimney.”

  “Can you hear it crying?”

  She cupped her ear in hopes of hearing something. “We could, but it’s not making any sounds right now.”

  Greta cleared her throat as if she’d just woken up, which was probably the case. She did tend to nap in between calls, which allowed a lot of napping time. “Okay, I’ll send Charlie over with the big ladder.”

  “I’m at the inn.”

  “Okay, hang tight. Charlie is over in Creekside, so it might take an hour or two.”

  An uneasiness twisted her stomach. “That long? It’s awful cold out. Will it survive that long?”

  “There’s a chance. To be honest, if it stopped crying, it’s probably too late already.”

  Her chest ached. Poor little creature. “I’ll see if we can get a ladder.”