Chapter Three
“Be careful,” Leah said, eyeing the butterfly cookie Hamilton was decorating. It looked as if it would lift off the table at any second and fly around the kitchen, but in the most wonderful, cartoon-butterfly way.
“What?” He finished the line of frosting before looking up, concern written on his features. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No.” She leaned in to see a close-up of the butterfly cookie. “You need to be careful that I don’t steal you away from your life of slumlord-ing and actuary-ing so you can work for me full-time. You’re amazing at this.”
“That would cost you quite a few cupcakes.” Selecting the bottle of dark purple frosting, he bent over his cookie again.
“It might be worth it. You’re really good.”
He just grunted his “you’re welcome,” but she took it in stride. Somehow, she wasn’t surprised to learn that Hamilton couldn’t take a compliment.
“Did you go to art school?” she asked as she drew frosting glasses on the happy-face cookie she was currently decorating.
“No.” The word came out in a huff, as if he thought the idea of art school was flat-out ridiculous. “Of course not.”
“Why not?” Finishing the cookie, she set it carefully on the rack for the frosting to set. She did a quick count and found they’d finished seventy-three cookies. A glance at the clock showed that they had forty minutes to complete the order, and her muscles relaxed for the first time since she’d realized she’d read the order wrong. Barring a catastrophe, they were going to make it.
He gave her a glance from beneath his eyebrows that made Leah want to smack him and laugh—and perhaps kiss him. It was a look that called her a crazy person but was also the closest he’d come to really, truly smiling. Even if his amusement was at her expense, she couldn’t resist a budding Hamilton smile. “Are you making fun of me?”
“What? No. Of course not.” Confused, she paused, a lavender base-coated puppy cookie in her hand, hovering right above the table in front of her as she stared at Hamilton. “Why would you think that? It was a compliment. You are seriously good at decorating these. The only person I’ve seen do a better job had gone to art school.”
He looked at her, his eyes narrowed, as if he was using his superpowers to read her mind, to rake through all of her thoughts and pull out the mocking ones. She held his gaze until he gave a slight nod and turned back to his cookie. Leah did the same. “Then, no. There was no art school.”
The incredulous way he said the words, as if instead of “art school,” she’d said “fairy playground” or “goblin college,” made Leah almost painfully curious. “Too bad. If you can wrangle frosting and make it look this good, I bet you would be awesome at painting.”
“I’ve never tried.” He topped the frosting antennae with silver candy beads, gave the cookie a final critical look, and then added it to the rack with the others. He’d completed five in the time it had taken Leah to finish close to seventy, but each one of his were tiny works of art. Leah’s were good, if she did say so herself, but they weren’t nearly as precise and intricate as the designs on Hamilton’s were. It was a shame that they would be eaten and not framed.
Grabbing the squeeze bottle with the pink frosting, Leah added a tongue to her puppy-shaped cookie. “You are welcome any time you want to work here, by the way. Unlimited cupcakes could be yours.”
“I’ll consider it.” He chose a flower cookie next. “It’s much more exacting than I expected.”
“Yes.” She chose blue for the puppy’s collar. “With cooking, you can be more flexible. If you toss in some of this and some of that and make a few substitutions because you don’t have some of the ingredients on hand, it’ll probably still turn out tasting good.” She outlined the ears and front paws with purple frosting. “Baking, on the other hand, is a fussy bastard.”
Immediately after she said it, Leah looked up a bit guiltily. Hamilton seemed so uptight that swearing in front of him felt a bit like swearing in front of her grandma—well, if her grandma had been much taller and muscle-y and infinitely sexier and not her grandma at all. He didn’t looked fazed, though. In fact, the corner of his mouth tucked in, as if he might be considering the possibility of smiling. Leah reminded herself that he’d been in the army. There had to have been oodles of swearing there.
Still, she was flustered enough that she continued to talk as she finished the puppy cookie and moved on to a sun. “When baking, everything has to be exactly right, or bad things happen. You can’t just estimate amounts. I don’t even like using measuring cups. I’m all about weighing the ingredients.”
“I like that part of it,” Hamilton said. Glancing at him, Leah got caught up in watching how he was using the frosting to actually shade the petals, giving them depth. She had to pry her attention away from his flower cookie and focus on her own work. As beautiful as Hamilton’s cookies were, he wasn’t a speed demon. It was up to her to finish the majority of the cookies for the order. “When I would visit you before, everything seemed...chaotic.” He flicked out his fingers of his free hand as if mimicking an explosion.
“I’ll have you know this is a perfectly functioning, well-oiled machine.” Although she pretended to be affronted, laughter bubbled up, trying to escape. “It’s like a clock that tells perfect time, or a robot that does just what it’s supposed to and never, ever tries to kill you.”
“Things were so messy.” His lips turned down even as he continued focusing on his cookie-decorating. It made it harder for Leah not to let her laughter escape. “There was always flour everywhere—on your apron and hair and sometimes you had a smear of something on your face...”
That did it. Leah couldn’t hold it back any longer. Her laughter rang out, filling the kitchen. “I know. You should’ve seen me when I accidentally dumped a fifty-pound bucket of honey down my front. My jeans adhered to my legs. It was like getting a free waxing when I took them off.”
His expression was appalled, and it made her laugh all the harder. “I’m very glad I wasn’t here for that.”
Reaching out, Leah patted his arm with a frosting-stained hand. “Sorry. I shouldn’t try to push all of your buttons. You’ve been very helpful today, and I appreciate it. I’ll be better.”
“Push my buttons?”
“Never mind.” If he hadn’t realized yet that she did her best to get his eyelid to start twitching, she wasn’t about to enlighten him—especially now that he’d turned out to be the best cookie decorator in the universe.
The timer beeped, and Leah jumped up, happy to have the interruption. While the base coating of icing on the cookies had dried, they’d mixed up a batch of the gluten-free brownies. She pulled it out and checked the temperature.
“Have you tried these?” she asked. Satisfied that the brownies were done, she set them on a rack to cool and returned to her spot at the decorating table.
“The brownies? No.” He was drawing veins in the flower’s leaf. Who knew there was a frustrated artist in his buttoned-up actuary self? “Gluten doesn’t affect me negatively.”
“Me either, thank God.” She counted the cookies again before starting on another happy face. “Can you imagine the hell of not eating wheat products?” She gave an exaggerated shudder before using the squeeze bottle of black frosting to draw a pair of eyes with long eyelashes. “The gluten-free brownies are excellent, though. Very fudgy.”
“Good to know.” He meticulously edged the petals with sparkling sugar in a way that turned the cookie into a fairy flower.
“I’m beginning to think I need to charge more for the ones you decorated,” she said, once again pulling her gaze away from his surprisingly fascinating decorating technique. “That is just gorgeous.”
Shrugging off the compliment, he began to line the center with silver candy beads. Leah focused on her own decorating and finished ten cookies quickly. “That’s enough for the order.” Glancing at the clock, she saw that they had fifteen minutes before the customer was supposed to pick them up. “Good job, team!” She raised her hand above the table and waited for Hamilton to give her a high five.
He gave her a look, then his gaze slid up her arm to the hand that was hovering in midair. After a moment, he dropped his eyes to Leah.
“Don’t leave me hanging, cookie teammate!” She wanted to laugh again at his baffled expression. “C’mon. Up top!”
Reluctantly, he placed his latest cookie creation on the rack and then raised his hand. Instead of slapping her palm, though, he pressed them together, linking his fingers with hers. The unexpected contact sent a zing of heat all the way down her arm, and she stared at him, startled by the hand-holding and her reaction to it. He squeezed her hand and then pulled away, his gaze still locked with hers.
“So...good job.” Her words came out with a bit of a wheeze, so she swallowed and tried again. “Thank you for your help today.”
He looked at the remaining dozen or so cookies that were still naked except for their base-coating. “What about those?”
“We’ll decorate them while the frosting on the order sets. They’ll go up front for sale.” Leah fiddled with the frosting bottles, feeling strangely flustered by the high five that went sideways. “You’re welcome to stick around and help finish these, but you don’t have to. I imagine you had plans for today before I conscripted you.”
“It was more bribery than conscription.” Hamilton eyed the unfinished cookies with a look very close to his I-really-want-a-cupcake expression. “I can stay for a while.”
“Great!” she said, knowing that she was being too enthusiastic but not able to contain herself. “I’m going to run up front and let Q know that the order is done, just in case the customer comes in a little early. Did you want some coffee?”
“Yes.” He was already reaching for a blank sun cookie. “Please.”
As she reached the swinging door to the front, she snuck a quick glance back at him. Hamilton was bent over the cookie, a bottle of orange frosting dwarfed in his huge hand. Leah marveled at the sight of her uptight landlord, as immersed in cookie decorating as a five-year-old in a macaroni craft project. He looked up, catching her staring, and she hurried through the door to the front.
The teenage crowd had disappeared, replaced by families with young kids and a couple of elderly couples. She waved to some familiar faces before moving to the register, ringing up the sales and then donning gloves to serve pastries as Q manned the cappuccino machine. Between the two of them, the line shrank rapidly. When all the customers had been helped, Leah glanced over the racks of bread and pastries, making a mental note of what had already disappeared and what wasn’t moving as well.
“So,” Q said in a quiet voice as he wiped down the cappuccino machine. “Have you guys started making out yet?”
“What?” It came out too loudly, and a couple of the customers glanced over curiously. Leah felt her face heat as she lowered her voice to a whisper. “Of course not. He’s Mr. Starches-His-Undies, remember? Not to mention that he thinks I’m the slobbiest slob who’s ever slobbed. You should’ve heard him go off about how I’m always covered in flour and other things. Nope. There wasn’t and never will be any making out.”
The sound Q made was much too close to a “pish” to come out of a not-quite-seventeen-year-old’s mouth, and Leah made a mental note to mock him about it later, when she wasn’t in full-on make-out-denial mode. “The two of you were this close to kissing when you were up here last time, and that was in front of everyone.”
“One, I would never make out with someone in my bakery, especially in the kitchen.” She held up a finger to emphasize her point. “The kitchen is for food. It is not for kissing or touching or groping or anything else along those lines.” Lord help her, her face got even warmer when she said things like “kiss” and “touch” and “grope” while talking about Hamilton. She was in so much trouble. “Two, he’s my landlord. It would be beyond stupid to get involved with the guy who decides whether I can keep my bakery here or not. Three...well, he thinks I’m kind of gross.” For some reason, the last point made her sad.
“One.” Q held up his finger in full mocking mode, and Leah gave serious consideration to firing him for about one second before reason kicked back in. After all, he was the only one who could handle the cappuccino machine. Plus, she adored him. “I agree with the kitchen thing. Even in their own homes, people should keep their private, naked parts away from surfaces used for food prep.”
“Amen.”
“Two, stupid doesn’t matter when you want someone. In fact, if it’s stupid, the guy is even more appealing. It’s a rule.”
“A rule?”
“A rule. Attraction increases exponentially by a factor of stupid.”
Leah considered that, along with the fact that she loved Q to bits. “Agreed. There is also a multiplier of muscles.”
“And musical talent. If he’s in a band, he’s hotter.”
“Or any artistic skill,” Leah added, thinking about the mind-bogglingly beautiful cookies Hamilton was currently creating. When Q looked at her with his head tilted slightly and a knowing look on his face, she hurried to cover. “Like...well, dancing. Everyone loves a guy who can move.”
“Uh-huh.” Q didn’t sound convinced by her attempt to turn her comment away from gorgeous cookie decorators.
“Whatever.” If she couldn’t subtly change the subject, she was going to just do it in an obvious way. “The reason I came up here was to tell you that the order is done.” Dropping her lofty tone, she leaned in closer to him. “Wait until you see the cookies Hamilton decorated.”
Q winced, looking sympathetic. “That bad?”
“No, the opposite. They’re amazing. He’s like the Michelangelo of cookie decoration.”
“Now I want to see.” Q pushed away from the counter. “Do you mind watching the front for me?”
“No, Q.” She rolled her eyes at him. “I can’t watch the front so you can finally have a break after dealing with the Saturday morning rush by yourself.”
When he just looked at her, she flapped her hands toward the kitchen. “Yes, go! See the beauty for yourself.”
“Beauty? Are you talking about the cookies or their maker?” His eyebrows lifted and dropped several times, making him look so comical that Leah had to laugh.
“The cookies, of course.” Her righteous indignation didn’t hold up under his knowing look. “Go, before I change my mind and handcuff you to the register.”
As he headed for the swinging door, he called over his shoulder, “Artistic. Now I get it.”
She grabbed the closest thing at hand—a Post-It note pad—and threw it at his head. He dodged through the door, laughing, and the pad hit the door frame with a useless thud. Still smiling, she turned around and jumped—Jude was standing right on the other side of the counter, staring at her.
“Oh, Jude. Hi.” She put her hand over her still-racing heart. “I hope you weren’t waiting long. Q and I were just being silly, as usual.”
There was a slight pause before he spoke, and Leah had to avoid the urge to step back. Mentally, she chided herself for being so paranoid. They were in a busy bakery on a bright Saturday morning. Jude seemed a bit odd and too eager to be near her, but he’d never done anything to make her think he could be dangerous.
“I didn’t mind the wait,” he said, making her wonder how long he’d been standing there and how much of her and Q’s conversation he’d overheard.
Shaking off her renewed unease, she looked over at the pastry display. “There’s one croissant left. Good timing!” After putting it on a plate for him and handing it over, she reached for a cup. “Your usual large coffee?”
“Yes.” He looked pleased. “It’s nice that you remember what I like.”
Leah hummed in response. For months, he’d been in almost every day the bakery was open. If she hadn’t been able to remember that he always ordered a butter croissant and a large coffee—black—then that would’ve been pretty pathetic. As she filled his cup, she remembered her promise to Hamilton.
As if on cue, Hamilton pushed through the swinging door.
“Sorry, Ham!” She held out the coffee to Jude as she apologized over her shoulder. “Give me just a minute, and I’ll get your coffee. I got distracted and forgot to bring it to you.”
“He’s working here now?” Jude asked in a low voice, taking his coffee. His lips pulled tight into a straight line, making his words sound strange. “I thought he was your landlord.”
“Not really, and he is.” She tapped the register screen and accepted the card Jude held out even before she told him the total. It was the same as every other day he’d ordered the exact thing, so she wasn’t surprised he had it memorized. This time, though, she noticed his last name on the card—Whittier—since she was curious, thanks to Hamilton’s paranoid questions. “Ham’s just helping me out this morning. I misread an order, so I was in a tight spot.”
“Oh. You call him Ham?” Jude wasn’t looking at her anymore but was staring over her shoulder. A glance behind her showed that Hamilton was staring right back. Leah swallowed a laugh. Jude looked like a beagle trying to stare down a rottweiler.
“Yes. Making cookies together is a good way to break the ice and achieve first-name status.” Inwardly, Leah groaned. After spending the morning with him, she was apparently starting to talk like Hamilton now. Maybe it would be best to limit her interactions with him. Even as the thought passed through her brain, she dismissed it. She’d enjoyed her time with Hamilton much more than she’d expected to. Even though she’d been teasing when she offered him full-time work, a part of her would’ve loved having him here more than the brief moments he popped into the kitchen to complain about her leaving the back door open.
“I’m available.” Jude jerked her out of her daydream about a cookie-making Hamilton haunting her kitchens. “Since I work at home, my schedule’s flexible. If you need help, I could do it, rather than having to ask your landlord.”
Leah tried not to physically recoil at the thought of being trapped alone in the kitchen with Jude. “Oh, thank you, but I couldn’t ask that of you.”
“But you can ask it of him?” Jude glared at Hamilton, who’d moved closer to Leah and leaned against the counter next to the cappuccino machine. Although Hamilton was wearing his poker face, Leah felt tension radiating from him.
“Well, yes. Ham is...” She tried to think of a diplomatic reason to give Jude about why she’d allow Hamilton into her kitchen but not him, but she couldn’t think of anything. It didn’t help that Hamilton had moved even closer until he was right behind her. She didn’t know if it was her imagination reacting to the tension of the moment or if she could actually feel his heat against her back. “Ham is my landlord. You’re our customer. It’s...different.” She winced inwardly, knowing she was just making things worse.
Jude’s angry glare moved from Hamilton to her, confirming her suspicion that she wasn’t handling the situation well. “I see.” Picking up his coffee cup and plate, he turned abruptly and walked to the exit. As he used his back to push the door open, he sent another ferocious look their way. Even the jangle of the bell as the door swung closed behind him sounded angry.
“Oh, dear.”
“That’s probably a good thing.” Hamilton’s voice was so close that she started and automatically turned her head to look at him. He was right behind her, his front just a few inches from her back. With her head turned the way it was, if she’d been a foot or so taller, their mouths would’ve been uncomfortably close to a kiss.
“What?” Her voice was absent, her brain too obsessed with his nearness to take in what he was saying.
“A good thing. Him leaving.” Hamilton’s gaze focused through the window on Jude’s Jeep as it tore out of the lot. “If we’re lucky, he’ll stay away.”
“That’s not what I was oh-dear-ing about.”
He dropped his gaze to hers, and she was instantly reminded of his proximity. The counter was in front of her, so there was no way to step away, and she didn’t know if she even wanted to put any space between them. A large part of her was just fine and dandy with having him so close.
“What was it then?”
It was her turn to look out the window. “He took my mug and plate.” Turning her head, she eyed Hamilton’s tiny, barely there smile. “I doubt I’m getting those back.”
“Probably not.” As Leah watched, his smile grew wide enough to dent his cheek.
“Oh my gosh! You have a dimple!”
The smile disappeared in a flash. “No.”
“You do! I saw it with my own eyes.”
“It’s an indentation.”
“Dimple.”
“A natural depression.”
“Dim-ple.”
“I do not have a dimple.”
“You’re a liar. It was right there.” She booped the spot with her fingertip. As soon as she made contact, she realized her mistake. His skin was soft, but also bristly with a tiny bit of scruff. Like everything else she was learning about him, it was addictive. Now that she’d felt him just the smallest bit, she wanted to pet him. Instead, she behaved like a normal person and dropped her hand.
He fell silent for several seconds before clearing his throat. “Babies have dimples. I do not.”
“You are such a dimpled liar.”
“Excuse me.” Leah turned to find yet another customer had snuck up on her while she was preoccupied with the strangely intoxicating feel of Hamilton’s face. “Could I get a blueberry muffin?”
“Of course.” As Leah stepped sideways toward the display case, Hamilton backed away, and she instantly missed his closeness. Telling herself to stop being an idiot, she focused on getting the woman’s muffin. The next person in line was a regular customer, an elderly man who came in every Saturday for his loaf of rye bread and two oatmeal raisin cookies. By the time she finished chatting with him, she’d regained most of her composure.
“Where is Q?” she asked, just now realizing that he’d been in the kitchen a while.
“Decorating the last few cookies.”
“Oh no.” Leah cringed.
“What?”
“That’s probably not good.”
“Why not?”
“He’s not a cookie-decorating savant like you.” Leah waved her hands as she tried to think of a kind way to say it. “Q is... He’s really good at a lot of things. In fact, he’s the only one who can fix the cappuccino machine when it’s in a bad mood, and that’s impressive. I can leave him out front and trust that he’ll do a great job—like this morning. Everything ran as smooth as butter while we were making cookies in back. When Q tries to decorate cookies, though...well, it’s just not one of his strengths.”
“He’s bad at decorating cookies?”
“So, so bad.” She covered her face in her hands as she remembered the horror of last time. “You will not believe how bad. He doesn’t see it, either. Maybe if we have a cookie sale, or just hide them under the ones you made—although I don’t know what we’ll do once yours sell, because they will in like a minute, and then we’re stuck with the horror underneath.”
Hamilton was eyeing her carefully, looking like he wasn’t sure if she was joking or not. “Are they really that bad?”
“Just wait,” she said grimly, turning to help the couple who’d just approached the counter with a couple of baguettes. “Just wait and see. They’ll haunt your dreams tonight.”
As if she’d summoned the terrifying things just by speaking of them, Q sailed through the swinging door carrying a parchment-lined tray bearing cookies. Leah tried to keep her gaze on Q’s beaming face, rather than looking at the monstrosities he carried, but she heard Hamilton’s quiet choking sound and knew that they were just as bad as she’d warned him they’d be.
“You’re right, Leah,” Q said, starting to transfer the cookies into the display case. “Mr. Hamilton’s decorating skills are on point. Good job, Mr. H.”
“Thank you.” He sounded a little breathless, making Leah wonder if it was from holding back laughter or sheer horror. Knowing Q’s decorating skills, it could easily be either.
“I boxed up the order and thought I’d bring these up to sell. The frosting on a couple of mine is still a little tacky, but I’ll just put them on top of the others, and they should be fine. There.” He smiled proudly at the display, looking so pleased that Leah had a moment of doubt. Maybe Q’s work wasn’t as bad as she remembered. Maybe he’d been practicing at home and had improved since the last disaster. Maybe...
She glanced down and swallowed back a shriek. It was worse than she thought it would be.
“Wow.” She had the same note of breathlessness in her voice as Hamilton’d had. “Wow. Those are...wow. And they’re right on top where everyone can see. That’s...wow.”
Q turned his happy grin toward her. “I know, right? I think I really nailed them this time.”
Hamilton hadn’t made a sound since he’d thanked Q, and Leah risked a glance at him. He was staring at the abominations that had been innocent cookies just a short time before, his face more expressive than she’d ever seen. He looked appalled and horrified and morbidly fascinated—all appropriate reactions to what Q had done to the cookies.
“Uh, Q...” A couple of customers noticed that something new had been added to the display, and they were making their way over. Leah couldn’t let them see Q’s cookies. They would never come to her shop again. “Would you mind bringing the cookie order up front? I think I saw the customer pulling into the lot.”
Her voice must’ve sounded strange, because Q gave her a quizzical look, but he agreed readily. As soon as he pushed through the swinging door, Leah slid the display open and snatched up the four horrific cookies.
“Here,” she hissed, shoving one of them at Hamilton. “Eat it, quick, before he gets back. We’ll tell him it sold.”
“I’m not eating that.” He took a step back and turned his head away, as if he were a fussy toddler refusing to eat his mashed carrots.
“What? You’ll eat anything with sugar! Why won’t you eat this cookie?”
“Look at it!” Leah did and immediately regretted it. It was supposed to be a happy-face cookie, but the expression was so, so wrong and bad. “I can’t eat that.”
“Why not?” The seconds were ticking by, and Leah was getting desperate. She looked around frantically for somewhere to hide them, but there was nowhere that Q wouldn’t see them and be terribly hurt.
“It’s possessed,” Hamilton said. “That one eye follows me. If I ate it, it would swallow my soul.”
“It’s a cookie, Ham.” She held it out to him again, but he held up his hands as if warding it off.
“That’s not a cookie. Whatever Q did to it made it no longer a cookie.”
“Fine.” She shuffled through the four she held, trying to find the best of the very worst. “Eat this dog one, then.”
“Why did Q cut its throat? What is wrong with that kid?”
“What? I think that’s supposed to be a red collar.”
“Why is it dripping blood all down its front?”
“I don’t know, okay?” She resisted the urge to stamp her foot. “Just eat it!”
“I’m not touching the mutilated dog cookie.”
“Don’t be a baby. Just eat it.”
“You eat it.”
“I’m not eating it. It’s an abomination.”
“Exactly. Why are you trying to make me eat it, then?”
“Because you’re a sugar vacuum. You could at least use your ability to inhale two dozen baked goods in five minutes for good!”
“Not that.” Hamilton shook his head slowly, his eyes fixed on the cookie. “Never that. Even if it were the last cookie in the world.”
The door to the kitchen swung open. After a final glance around, Leah dumped all four cookies of terror into her apron pocket. It bulged, giving her away, so she ducked behind Hamilton, peering around his side as Q carefully set the boxes holding the cookie order on the counter.
“All of mine sold already?” Q asked, sounding excited as he peered into the display.
“Mmm.” Leah sidled toward the kitchen, keeping her back toward Q.
“Those cookies are beautiful,” a woman said. “Can I get three of them?”
“Of course.” Q radiated pride. “I helped to decorate them.”
Holding back her eye roll, Leah darted toward the swinging door. “Since you have things under control up here, Q, I’m going to go clean up. Yell if you need anything!” Without waiting for a response, she darted into the kitchen.
Hamilton followed her as she made a beeline to a garbage can and tossed Q’s horrific creations inside. She immediately tied the top of the plastic bag and pulled it out of the bin.
“I can’t believe you wanted me to eat demon cookies,” Hamilton muttered as he took the garbage bag from her.
“I can’t believe there’s a cookie you won’t eat.”
“Q can’t decorate them ever again.” He said it so seriously, as if he was taking a vow. Leah started to giggle and tried to muffle the sound, which just made her laugh harder. Hamilton watched her with a baffled, slightly amused expression.
“Agreed,” she said when she got her giggles under control enough that she could talk again. “Q is never to touch frosting ever again. I promise to do my best to keep him away from all innocent, undecorated cookies.” She stuck out her hand, and he accepted it with the hand not holding the garbage bag. He gave it a firm shake and then held it for a moment longer than she’d anticipated. His hand was warm, his skin rougher than she’d expected from an actuary. When he released her, she missed the contact.
To hide the fact that she would’ve been happy holding his hand for another hour or so, Leah reached to reclaim the garbage bag. “I’ll take it out. You signed up for cookie making, not Dumpster duty.”
He shifted slightly, turning so the bag was out of reach. “Dumpster duty is my favorite part.” With that, he peeled off his apron and headed for the back door, leaving Leah staring after him. Had he just made a joke? The other option was that he really did enjoy visiting the stinky, sticky, fly-and wasp-attracting trash bin out back, which was only slightly less believable than the idea that Anthony Fitzgerald Hamilton III might have a sense of humor after all.
He had dimples and jokes. Leah shook her head as she headed for the hand-wash sink. Who would’ve guessed?