Just the Tip of the Iceberg: Mile High Matched Books 1-3

by Christina Hovland

  She nudged her bouquet to the side of the table and glanced around the room in an exaggerated motion. “So, this is our first not-a-date, huh?”

  “What can I say? It’s where relationships go to die.” He took a pull of Bud.

  A couple of the cowboys at the bar glanced in their direction.

  She ran a fingertip around the rim of her mug. “Did you know, every morning when I wake up, I start a list of all the things I need to get done that day?”

  “How’s that going for you?” He took the stool across from her.

  A flick of her ponytail, and she hit him square with her brown eyes. “Today’s list said things like hand out posters, make cookies, balance my checkbook, touch base with my parents. It said nothing about pretty much anything that happened after I tried to hand out my first poster to you.” She tossed him a look that should’ve sliced him into individual bite-size pieces.

  “If it makes you feel better, when I wake up in the morning, I just roll with life. After today, I’m seriously thinking about making some lists.” And drinking more beer.

  She chuckled. “Maybe there’s a lesson in here for both of us.”

  “You know what we should do?”

  “I bet you’re going to tell me.”

  “We should embrace the crazy of the day.” ’Cause fighting it wasn’t working out. “Play hooky.”

  “Or maybe we don’t?” She sipped at her beer.

  “Give me two good reasons you don’t want to do it.” His mother played this game when he was a kid and didn’t want to do something. It had always worked in her favor.

  “One, I need to get back to work and, two, something tells me you’d go all in, we’d end up skydiving or bungee jumping, and, frankly, I don’t want to break my neck.” She counted the two reasons on her fingertips.

  Heather was, apparently, quicker at the game than he’d ever been.

  “You’re not going to break your neck.”

  “Work.” She gestured to her Heather’s Cookie Co. polo shirt.

  “Just remember Jase-and-Heather-Land could be our special, fun escape place.”

  “Work,” she replied.

  “Fine.” He didn’t push because, well, he liked his family jewels where they were and not rearranged by her toes.

  “I tell you what. We can do something fun today. If you do something for me.”

  “You’re already getting leather seats and satellite radio.” What else did a woman need?

  She leaned forward, right into his space. “Help me with the senior ‘senior’ prom. I need warm bodies on the committee.”

  Negative. Committees. His muscles tensed. “That’s not really my thing.”

  She batted her eyelashes dramatically in his direction. “Please?”

  “Don’t do committees. But I can see if Mom wants to boss people around for you?”

  She let out a deep sigh. “Okay, fine, no committee for you. But if we’re going to hang out in Jase-and-Heather-Land, you need to tell me something about yourself. Something no one else knows.”

  “That’s a hard one. I’m an open book.” He leaned back and opened his hands wide in illustration.

  She pursed her lips, crossed her arms, and waited.

  Okay, there was one thing he never shared with anyone. Even his ex-wife never knew how random images on the television would trigger flashbacks to his time in the military. Then again, they had never shared their deep, dark secrets with each other. Hence, the ending. All over. Time to go. “I think television is overrated. I don’t watch it. Movies, either. Don’t even own a television.”

  Sure, he’d tried when his friends were around. Made an attempt at video games with them. But it always triggered nightmares. So, he stopped.

  Heather’s mouth dropped open. “How can you even say something like that? What do you do when you’re relaxing? Trying to veg?”

  What any man would do. “I listen to music.”

  Nothing like a good hair band to relax the muscles.

  “Just music?” she asked.

  “Yup. Music. A good workout. Ten-mile run? I’m all in.”

  “Ten miles?” She gave him the look like he’d just said his favorite pastime was sticking his dick in a meat grinder.

  “Twenty just seems excessive, you know?” he said.

  “Right, twenty would be excessive.” Heather flicked her ponytail. “I think you just haven’t watched the right TV shows. A little Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, Price is Right? Easy escape.”

  “I don’t get why people go nutty over it. All the binge-watching? Not my thing.” He’d told his secret. It was her turn. “Your turn. Something no one else knows.”

  She paused. “I don’t like getting flowers.”

  It was like she was throwing down the gauntlet. Running right into the kill zone.

  He didn’t even blink. He’d accept this particular challenge. Aside from defusing 155 artillery shells, making people love flowers was his skill set.

  He studied her for a beat. Pink roses. She was a pink roses kind of girl. Not just any pink roses—raspberry carrousel roses, to be exact. Sissy-ass name, but a kickass flower. Rich cream on the bottom, like the color of her skin. Deep pink at the tips, like the shade of her lips. “Then you’re just not getting the right flowers,” he heard himself say aloud.

  “Nah. That’s not it. It’s just not my preference for gifts. Chocolate? Yes, please. Sweets? For sure. Flowers? Eh.” She pulled a face like her beer had gone sour.

  Time to engage his inner fucking Freud. “What’s the first time anyone ever gave you flowers?”

  She tilted her head from ear to shoulder, ear to shoulder, then took a pull from her Budweiser before finally answering. “Twelfth grade. Guy asked me to a dance and used a dozen roses.”

  “That doesn’t sound so bad. I’d think you’d have liked that.”

  “Well, maybe I did when I first got them. But he ended up breaking it off and going with a junior instead.”

  Ass. Jase leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Who’d you go with?”

  She laughed. “No one. I didn’t go. My date dumped me and went with someone else.”

  Well, that sucked.

  “Don’t feel bad, though,” she continued. “It didn’t work out for them, either, and it’s not like he was crowned homecoming king or anything. He was just a jerk who went for someone else. No big deal.”

  That didn’t sit right with Jase.

  “Second time someone bought you flowers?” he asked, digging deeper.

  She rolled her eyes. “Pretty sure the next guy who bought me flowers was probably a boyfriend who did something wrong and wanted to make up for it. It’s not a big deal why I don’t like flowers. I just don’t care for them.” She rolled her eyes at nothing in particular. “Don’t get me wrong, I like them when they’re in the ground or on a bush. I just don’t think murdering them for my personal enjoyment makes much sense.”

  Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. Hold up. “No one murders the flowers.”

  She pinched her lips to the side. “They’re alive one minute. Hacked off their life source. Dead and on your dining room table the next. Seems like murder to me.”

  He crossed his arms. She’d fall in love with flowers. He’d see to it.

  The phone in her purse chimed. She checked it.

  He couldn’t rip his gaze from her. There was an invisible weight there, holding it in place.

  “Damn,” she said. “Jase-and-Heather-Land is about to be cut short. Candy says your grandmother is still convinced she’s employed by me. She’s now taken over the kitchen.”

  Shit.

  “We should go fix that.” Jase pushed off from his stool. Yes, his grandmother and her fuck-with-you games.

  Heather didn’t look up from the text she tapped out. She tucked her phone back in her purse, stood, and stumbled a little.

  Jase caught her around the waist.

  She gripped his shoulders for balance and they stayed like that. Her eyes locked with h
is, her lips parting, her eyelids falling heavy. Lavender and vanilla countered the smell of the cowboy bar, inflaming his senses, forcing his body to demand more. He didn’t ache for a woman. Hadn’t ached for a woman in forever. But, in that moment, his desire for this woman bordered on crazy.

  “I want to kiss you,” he said.

  She closed the gap between them, her lips brushing his. He wanted more, but it was Heather who took things deeper, leaning into him, opening her mouth.

  God, she tasted good. He couldn’t even describe it. Just Heather.

  She broke the kiss for an instant, a look of shock written on her features. “Screw it,” she said and then went back in for more.

  He did not object.

  Heaven. Kissing Heather was like heaven. Her mouth met his with hungry demand.

  His hips pressed to her, the evidence of his arousal apparent against the zipper of his jeans. She moaned, her neck arching to the side. He moved his mouth to the indentation at the edge of her throat, using his tongue and teeth and lips to show her all the things he’d rather do in private.

  Private.

  Shit. They were in a bar.

  He dropped his hands from her waist and pulled back. He clocked the moment Heather came back to her senses. She pursed her lips and pressed the back of her hand against her mouth.

  “We should go,” she said with efficiency, turning toward the exit.

  Jase was not a guy to dissect every kiss, every tumble in the sheets. His philosophy was to just let things be what they were going to be. Enjoy the moment, then move to the next. Watching Heather as she hustled away from him? That philosophy seemed like the stupidest shit he’d ever thought.

  “Heather?” he asked her back.

  That kiss was not a moment he wanted to move away from.

  She didn’t even turn around, just grabbed her bouquet and gave a wave with her hand. “Nope. Not doing this.”

  The fact was, they had.

  And he didn’t have any idea what to do about it.

  6

  Chapter Six

  Heather had kissed Jase. And he’d kissed her. And she needed a huge volunteer project or something to shift her attention off him. There was only so much prom planning needed. Maybe she should look at opening a second shop, so she could burn the candle at both ends and avoid thoughts of Jase’s tongue and the way he felt so good pressed against her. The way his deep voice, with just a touch of sandpaper, mesmerized her.

  “What happened shouldn’t have happened.” She stopped just outside the door of her shop, turning to him to break the silence. She hadn’t said anything since they’d left the cowboy bar. He hadn’t tried again once they were outside.

  They hopped on his bike and, penis cookies in her grip, he brought her back.

  On the sidewalk outside her shop? He’d had the audacity to look hurt.

  That wasn’t fair. He couldn’t look hurt. Looking hurt meant feelings, and they were not doing the feelings thing.

  “I trust you are as committed to our fake breakup as I am,” Heather continued. “We’ll just keep moving forward, like two people who are pretending that nothing happened.”

  “Heather…”

  Ugh. He kept saying her name.

  She pushed open the door to the shop. He followed her inside. It was immensely hard to ignore whatever was going on between them when he was right there.

  Candy met her right at the door. “Okay, hear me out. I know I’ve been texting you that she’s still here and she won’t leave, but”—she tossed her hands out wide—“I just tried her cookies and they are ahh-mazing. I think we should let her work here.”

  “Her cookies are pretty damn good,” Jase concurred.

  Heather made a low gurgling sound in the back of her throat. No. Absolutely not. Heather gave her sister her best no-way-in-hell look and hurried through the shop toward the kitchen.

  Candy and Jase were right behind her. Not that she turned around to see that they followed, but she could hear Jase going on about his love for Babushka’s tea cookies as they moved behind her.

  Heather shoved open the swinging door to the kitchen.

  And there she was. Babushka. Hairnet in place, apron tied around her neck, with what appeared to be a flour bomb detonated on the countertop in front of her.

  “Good, you have arrived.” With a final thwack to a lump of dough, Babushka brushed her hands together.

  The flour particles in the air tickled Heather’s lungs. What this day needed was hard alcohol and carbs. On that thought, she reached for a cookie from one of the baking sheets.

  Babushka edged the tray away from Heather’s grasp. “They are not ready. They must cool.”

  Heather rubbed the throb starting in the center of her forehead. Chin up. Be strong. “I really appreciate your offer to help me out here in the kitchen.”

  Deep breath.

  “I have a plan, and it’s already in place.” She tracked Babushka as the old woman shuffled around the counter to the cooling rack next to Heather and snagged a half-dollar-size cookie. “I really cannot take on another employ—”

  Babushka shoved the cookie into Heather’s open mouth.

  “Is good, no?” The old woman’s eyes shone with pride.

  The powdered-sugary shortbread crumbled against Heather’s tongue in the most delightful dance of nutty, buttery goodness. Dammit all. The cookie wasn’t good. The thing was extraordinary.

  That was not the point.

  A bit of cookie fell from the side of Heather’s lip, but it did not deter from the fact that she was the boss and this was her kitchen.

  Although, the cookie was damn good. Better than her own recipe. And she was pretty committed to her ability to bake just about anything.

  “I am sorry.” Babushka went about working the dough in her hands. “About this morning. You are nice girl. I lend you my car until you have a vehicle, and I vill vork off my debt to you vith pastry. Ve vill have some fun, yes?”

  There were not enough deep sighs in the world for this day.

  Heather only needed to step aside and think this through. Treat Babushka like she would any other business challenge. Step back, evaluate, make the best decision for the company.

  So, yes, her van had been creamed by a demented old woman. A demented old woman who’d thought she was defending the honor of her grandson. Heather could, on some really weird level, appreciate that kind of dedication. It was, in its own screwed-up way, sort of sweet.

  Jase was buying her a new van and making that situation right. She didn’t even have to pay a deductible.

  And she could use Babushka’s Buick. That would come in handy.

  Babushka had apologized and made exceptional cookies.

  Perhaps the time had come to start embracing all that was Babushka. This was a woman offering to bake for free. Heather had been thinking she needed to bring on another baker, anyway. This would essentially lower overhead. And boy, the woman could bake.

  “What if we start this as a temporary experiment and see how it goes?” Candy suggested. “I’ll supervise. You don’t have to do anything.”

  Babushka nodded as though she had no doubt this was the decision that would be reached. “I vill come in early every morning.”

  “Oh, we don’t do that,” Candy replied. “We aren’t that kind of bakery. We just do cookies, so we have a solid eight a.m. start.”

  “Vell, that vorks even better.” Babushka nodded. “I vill be here again tomorrow. Eight a.m.”

  “Okay,” Heather heard herself say, against her better judgement.

  “You sure you want to do that?” Jase sounded as unconvinced as Heather felt.

  “Of course she is sure.” Babushka laid her weathered, floured hands on the table and nodded toward Heather. “I vill vork in your kitchen until I die. Vhich vill not be long. I vill leave you my recipes vhen I am gone.”

  “She’s gonna leave the recipes.” Candy squeezed Heather’s arm. “Isn’t that the best?”

 
The best? Heather might not take it quite that far.

  “This is just a trial. We’ll see how it goes. It’s temporary,” Heather confirmed.

  And she almost believed it.

  7

  Chapter Seven

  Jase was bringing Heather flowers. A bouquet of two dozen carrousel roses, to be exact. These were now his so-you-hate-flowers-I’m-going-to-make-you-love-them flowers. Officially, he was just calling them “Heather’s flower” from here on out.

  He had a system—a flower for every occasion. From sorry-your-ex-got-married-today to I’d-like-in-your-pants-please. For Heather? He was going all in. Sometimes a florist just knew the right type of flower for a person.

  While he waited in the shop, he shifted from foot to foot like a teenage boy. This time he didn’t barge into her kitchen. Today he waited out front for her cashier to go get her. Like a good little Jase.

  Babushka pushed through the kitchen doors and headed for his bouquet. “Jason, you brought me flowers. You are good boy.” She leaned a cheek up so he could kiss it.

  Shit, he couldn’t exactly give Heather flowers in front of his grandmother. The grandmother he had convinced of the breakup that never was.

  Babushka smiled a wry smile and took the bouquet.

  Heather emerged from the kitchen in her apron, a smudge of flour against her cheek. “Hey, Jase. Your grandmother was just teaching me to make kolaches. They’re freaking awesome.”

  He focused on the way she said his name. He liked it. She could say his name all day long. Scream it, even. He didn’t mind at all.

  “He brought you flowers. He is good boy.” Babushka handed them to Heather.

  Well, he had, but Heather didn’t need to know that. Not with his grandmother standing right there.

  With an abundance of reluctance, Heather took the bouquet. “I thought we had an understanding about my feelings toward floristry.”

  “See, he brings you flowers.” Babushka fussed with a few of the blooms on the bouquet. “Is not big deal. You make such fuss about seeing him.”

  “You made a fuss about seeing me?” Jase didn’t have to fake his surprise.