Former Marine Jack Carter has left Afghanistan behind, but after a close encounter with a suicide bomber, he now battles a hidden enemy. Ashamed that he succumbs to heart-stopping panic attacks, he refuses to leave his house and makes excuses for failing to meet up with his best friends.  He’s got the perfect set up—his job allows him to work from home, he hires out the dog walking and grocery shopping and he has subscribed to a meal delivery service that comes complete with a cook. Jack expected a lunch lady, but he gets Whitney. She’s bubbly, she’s way too chatty, and his dog loves her more than him. But he forgives her all of that because she’s sexy as hell and a bright spot in an otherwise lonely day.

 

Whitney Baldwin has been groomed to follow a long line of highly successful lawyers into an equally successful family law firm, but she’d rather bake a cake than read a tort. Her dream is to open her own patisserie. To say her father is disappointed in her career path is an understatement—if she can’t pull this off, she’ll have to head home with her tail between her legs. In a last bid to make her dream a reality Whitney accepts a job with Dinner Magic and lands an insanely handsome client in Jack Carter. His crazy good looks captivate her, but it's something about his hyper-awareness of her combined with a vulnerability that is an irresistible recipe.

The smoldering attraction between Jack and Whitney quickly turns molten. But when he makes an important promise that he can’t keep, Whitney can’t fathom how this relationship is going to work. Will Jack ever be able to conquer his worst fears for true love?

* * *

Face your panic. Was he panicking? No, he wasn’t panicking, he was just…worrying. He was worrying that he was making an ass of himself right now. He’d lost his panache. Dropped it in a parking lot, left it on a plane, shot it up in Afghanistan.

“A bakery,” he blurted. It was neither a statement nor a question.

She glanced over her shoulder. “Yep,” she said confidently.

“Where?”

“Well, I’m new to town, so I’m scoping things out. Do you have any suggestions for trendy neighborhoods?” she asked, circling a spatula in the air.

Jack felt flush under his shirt. He scratched his face, realized he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. “Umm…not really.”

“No? That’s okay. I’m meeting my realtor friend in a bit. She’s got a couple of places near Pioneer Square to show me.”

Jack hadn’t been through Pioneer Square in a very long time. He hadn’t had sex in a very long time, either. Although he didn’t consider himself a pig, he couldn’t stop looking at her perfect, heart-shaped derriere and thinking about just how long it had been.

“Good?” she asked.

He glanced up.

“Pioneer Square. I need a great location. I’m scared she’s going to convince me to lease some place that won’t work.” She dropped the sausage in the pan, added a container of sauce and a package of seasoning. “And rent is expensive.”

He wondered why someone would move to a new city to open a bakery. Did Seattle have the highest pastry eaters per capita or something?

“These recipe cards say fifteen to twenty minutes to make this dish, but trust me, it is consistently more like forty-five.” She covered the pan, then pulled a head of kale out of the box. Buster lifted his head, and as deftly as a professional baseball player, she tossed a bit of crumb of sausage to the dog without looking at him. As deftly as a professional baseball player, Buster caught it.

She chopped up the kale and stirred it into the mix. “Ohmigod, look at the time,” she said suddenly. “That’s what I get for talking instead of working, and I’m going to have to get through that street march.”

“Street march?” Jack’s heart leapt to attention.

“A march, a party, some Labor Day thing.”

Jack blinked. It was Labor Day? When he lost touch with his calendar, he really lost touch. So, not a mob after all—Labor Day. Something inside him relaxed. “I…could finish up if you need to go,” he offered.

She laughed, and stirred the mixture harder. “I can’t let you do that! You’re paying me to cook it, and plate it, and box up half and store it in your fridge, and then clean the kitchen. Why else would you pay thirty bucks for this? You could go down to the deli and get the same thing.” She paused and considered the wall for a moment. “I guess I shouldn’t say things like that.”

Unfortunately, the corner deli was not an option for him. “Seriously, I can do it,” he said. Actually, he’d prefer it. He didn’t know how to slink back to his room while she was here and he didn’t know how to stop looking at her body and imagining things that were doing him no favors.

“I appreciate the offer, but I’m pretty sure you won’t plate it right.” She smiled playfully.

That smile was like fat sizzling on a hot griddle, and he felt himself relax a little more. “Are you dissing my plate game? I can spoon sausage and vegetables into a bowl as well as anyone.”

“See, that’s where you’re misjudging this.” She pointed with her spatula. “You don’t just spoon it. You have to present it. You would not believe the amount of training we get on presentation. And anyway, it’s almost done.”

She put a lid on the pan and turned back to the sink. She picked up a piece of bell pepper from the cutting board and tossed it high in the air. Buster’s squat legs had to rev to lift him up and wheel him about in time to catch it.

“What do you think about downtown?” She leaned over to open the cabinet under the sink, which gave him a glimpse into her shirt and the very perky breasts there.

Breasts.

Damn it. It had been a very long time since he’d touched one.

She glanced up, caught him looking, and Jack’s face flooded with warmth. He wanted to escape. Could he leave the room now? Maybe the building? At least go down to the basement and wait by the trash dump until the coast was clear? How far would he have to go before he would stop thinking about having sex with her?

“Downtown,” she said.

Downtown! Was that sexual innuendo? His pulse quickened, other parts thickened.

“For my bakery?”

“Oh, ah…” He almost sighed with relief. “I don’t really…I’m not into, ah…bakeries.” And now he was speaking English as though it were his third language. Fantastic.

“Well.” She smiled. “Maybe I can change your mind about that.” She nudged the cupcake closer to him.

She turned back to the stove, turned off the heat, found a plate in his cabinet and slid half the dish onto a plate, nudging the sausage to one side. She placed the plate on the bar, took out the recyclable container and spooned the second half into it, taking a moment to arrange it. From her pocket, she whipped out a marker and jotted down the contents and date on the lid, then put the container in his fridge. In five minutes, she’d cleaned the kitchen and given Buster a good belly rub.

“Okay!” she said brightly, and popped up, gathered up her things and her tote bag. “It was really nice meeting you, Jack Carter. See you Wednesday?”

“Sure.” He awkwardly stuck out his hand. The only problem was that her hands were full. So, he quickly raised his in a half salute with a nerdy flair, as if that’s what he’d intended all along. “Thanks.”

“My pleasure. Bye, Buster!” she said cheerily, and hurried out the door.

Jack looked at his plate. Then at Buster, who had moved around the bar to take up a position where Jack couldn’t miss his woeful stare. “What just happened?” Jack asked.

Buster swished his tail.

What had just happened was that he’d had the first full-on chat with a woman besides his sister in more than two years. And for the first time in a very long time, he’d had some very robust thoughts about sex.

He wondered what Dr. Pratt would have to say about that.