Just One Kiss

Except this time, she was just going to enjoy the attraction as the primal sexual response it was. This time she was not going to start dressing up simple lust with emotions it didn’t deserve, not assign to basic animal reaction any happy-ever-after importance or expectations of True Love. Fool her once, shame on her, fool her twice, she was a total moron.

She led him into her kitchen, feeling a swell of pride, hoping he could see its beauty the way she did. Sacks of flour stacked two and three feet high. Bags of seeds, sugars, specialty flours and containers of nuts and dried fruits. Her fifty-kilo dough mixer, which Alice would be bent over later in the day; the gleaming metal work table where José shaped loaves; her triple-deck oven; tall metal cooling racks where Frank did the baking—all secondhand, but working perfectly.

“This is great.” He stood in the center of the room, tall, vividly dressed, masculine, looking foreign. Angela had gotten so used to seeing everyone in flour-dusted aprons and jeans. “How does it all work?”

“I have a great staff.” She counted on her fingers. “Alice mixes the doughs, José shapes them, Frank bakes and Scott comes here and there to do random cleaning and help man the counter when he’s not in school.”

He turned from perusing the bags of specialty flours. “And you slack off all day.”

“I do. But when I’m not doing that, I develop new recipes, do most of the pastry baking, make up the schedule, balance the books, maintain inventory, try to get new accounts, put out fires …” She knocked wood. “Figuratively speaking.”

“Is this what you always wanted to do?”

“I’ve always loved baking. But it wasn’t until my honeymoon …” She practically choked on the words, then noticed his glance flicking to her left hand and realized what that sounded like. “I mean my ex-honeymoon. I mean my honeymoon with my ex.”

Smooth, Angela.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’ve moved on.” Though from the sound of her voice she was still bitter, a sound she needed to change if she were going to do this dating thing again.

“So you decided to be a baker during your honeymoon …”

“I was always a baker. Always had a dream of owning my own place. But in Europe I became really obsessed. I couldn’t go to enough of the shops over there. When we got home, I got a job at a bakery and learned the business. When Jack came to the rest of us with the idea of buying a building together, I jumped at it.”

“Jack? Rest of who?”

Angela made herself slow down. “Jack Shea has the photography studio down the hall. All the business owners at Come to Your Senses went to the U of Washington Seattle and graduated four years ago. We live in the apartments upstairs.”

“Okay, I get it now.” He ran his hand along the edge of her work table. Such great hands. “Must be nice to have friends around. Starting a business is tough.”

“Yes, it’s a huge plus.” She gave a little laugh. “I guess that makes us friends with benefits.”

This attempt at a joke fell as flat as her first croissant. Now he probably thought they were all sleeping together. So much for trying to let him know she was available. “How about you? What do you do? Oh, here, try this.”

She handed him a piece of her chocolate-orange pistachio baklava, a new recipe she had high hopes for.

He bit, chewed. Both eyebrows went up. “Hmm. Nice. Thanks.”

Nice? She wasn’t after nice, she was after wow. But maybe he was shy about being effusive, or thought it wasn’t manly. Tom had barely ever let a compliment pass his lips, as if he were afraid strengthening someone else would weaken him.

“Glad you like it.”

“I work at Slatewood International.”

Angela’s ears perked up, even as she hated herself for letting Tom’s words get to her. Slatewood was a huge manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Seattle. She’d tried, admittedly lamely, to get noticed at some of the larger local companies but without luck. Maybe having an employee to get her in the door would help. Landing a corporate account would be a coup even Tom couldn’t sneer at. “Really. Slatewood. Doing what?”

“Security specialist. Trying to keep one step ahead of scammers, hackers, phishers and so on.”

“That’s a big job.”

He shrugged modestly. “I enjoy it. Kind of a good vs. evil battle.”

“And you get to be the superhero. One of these?” She passed him one of her most popular cookies, based on the lowly oatmeal raisin, changed by supplementing the cinnamon with allspice and cardamom, and substituting dried currants and cranberries for raisins. Pretty basic, but good.

Another bite. More chewing. His jaw slowed. His eyes closed in bliss. “Oh, my God, that’s amazing.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Angela plunked her hands on her hips, forcing herself to look pleased. So he wasn’t afraid to compliment. Apparently for some tastes the baklava recipe wouldn’t fly as is. She’d need to do more fiddling. “Would you like to take some home?”

“Absolutely.”

“Just for you or is there someone … living with you?”

“I have a roommate.”

A roommate. “How many do you think he—” deliberate pause “—or she can eat?”

“He can eat a lot.”

He. She hid a grin as she packed a dozen cookies, freshly baked, into a box. “That’ll last an hour or two. Those are on the house, by the way. You can always come back for more.”

He took the box. “Thank you, Angela.”

“You’re welcome.” They stood there for way too long, both holding the box, gazing at each other until it got really awkward and embarrassing.

“Um. My oatmeal bread.”

“Right. Yes. Okay.” She didn’t move or look away. He didn’t, either. He was so beautiful….

Oatmeal. Right. Let go of the cookies, Angela.

She made herself relinquish them, forced her eyes away from his. Headed for the wrong rack. Had to stop and change direction. Picked up a multigrain loaf. Had to put it down. Picked up another. Oatmeal! Her brain had apparently rebooted.

She slid the fragrant fine-grained loaf into a paper bag, aware that she was ostensibly handing Daniel his walking papers. If she were going to suggest they get together again, she would have to do it now, and make it clearer than a general invitation to come back for more cookies. Otherwise she was going to stand behind the counter all day, every day, for the next who-knew-how-long hoping he’d come by again, which was pathetic.

Angela slid the bread on top of the box of cookies he was carrying, stood too close and looked up coyly. “Daniel. I was wondering …”

His eyes widened. He took a step back she could only hope was involuntary. Not a confidence builder. Had she only imagined the pull between them?

She let the sentence hang, nerves fraying. If he turned and left now, if he changed the subject, if he took another step back, she’d drop the idea entirely.

He didn’t. He stood, somberly, waiting, apparently, for the ax to come down.

So be it.

“I don’t usually do this. I mean I’ve never done this. It’s not really my habit … I mean you’re a customer and it’s not really right for me to … that is, I was wondering if you’d like to get together sometime. Somewhere. For … something.”

Oh. My. God. The all-time worst invitation that had ever been issued since the dawn of time. Why couldn’t she be cool and collected, say something like, “Hey, wanna catch a movie sometime?” Or, “I hear the bartender at such-and-such makes a mean mojito, care to join me?”