Wild Holiday Nights: Holiday Rush / Playing Games / All Night Long

The people around them watched with increased interest.

“You can tell Nathan I’m fine and go back to Texas. There was no reason to come all this way,” she said as she turned and walked into her bakery. She sat at the front table, going back to work as if he didn’t even exist.

Gideon had been dismissed, and he paused for a beat out on the sidewalk.

“Well, are you just going to stand there? Go on in there after her,” said the man who liked the chocolate cake. He winked at Gideon, nudging him with his elbow, obviously misinterpreting the whole thing.

But the guy was right. Gideon couldn’t just walk away and leave it at that. He went inside, too, and closed the door behind him, aware they still had an audience.

“Calla. Can we talk? Maybe have lunch? My treat.”

“It’s past lunch, and I have work to do. I’m running behind.”

She picked up a long spatula, fumbled it, dropped it to the floor with a clatter and cursed.

“He only wanted to make sure you were okay,” Gideon offered.

“I’m fine. I don’t have time for this nonsense right now.”

“It’s nonsense that Nathan was concerned about you being attacked and robbed? Especially when he had to find out about it through the police sheets? You never even called home.”

Calla glared. “I spoke with my mother just a week or so ago.”

“But you never told her what happened.”

“Why? To worry them for no reason? I’m fine. And Nathan should keep his nose out of my business. You, too.” She pointed the spatula at him with a few sharp jabs that punctuated her words. “I can take care of myself, in spite of what my family thinks. For goodness’ sake, I’m an adult. I don’t need my brothers sending their friends to check up on me.” Over the top of the spatula she leveled him a look. “You did your duty. Go home.”

With that, she went to the large sink in the corner of the room and turned on the hot water, scrubbing the spatula and then drying her hands, putting on new gloves.

When she stretched to reach something on an upper shelf, Gideon was distracted by how the chef’s coat lifted and hinted at her curves underneath. Eight years had turned Calla from a girl into a woman, and he wasn’t immune to that fact.

“Have they caught him?”

“I have no idea.”

She went to her table and started working on more bells, ignoring him completely.

Gideon stood there and watched. Part of him felt ridiculous, because she was right. She was a thirty-year-old woman with her own business, who had lived in this city almost as long as she’d lived back in Texas. He could see that she was fine. Better than fine.

But he’d promised Nathan, and he didn’t take that promise lightly. Gideon owed Nathan, big-time.

She stopped working again, smiling at the people outside as she winked and closed the window. Then she turned on him.

“Gideon, you’re distracting me, and I can’t afford—literally—to be distracted right now. You can tell Nathan I’m fine, I carry pepper spray and I’m as careful as I can be. I have a business to run, and people counting on me. I’m behind schedule after having to redo the cake that was destroyed the other night—which took two twenty-four-hour days to finish, by the way. I barely made it. Now I’m behind on this one, too, and you’re not helping.”

Gideon backed off a little, seeing the strain and the exhaustion that he hadn’t caught before. She was stressed, probably afraid, but like the other members of the Michaels clan, she wasn’t one to back down.

“When is this one supposed to be done?”

“Three days. I need to deliver it Christmas Eve, for a Christmas Day wedding, and it’s not going as well as I’d hoped. I guess I’m distracted, but I keep messing up the carvings, and the first batch of batter didn’t come out right.”

“There was nothing wrong with that sample you just handed out, believe me.”

“This one was good. I need to do it three more times now. I need forty-eight bells, and then I need to bake the base they will rest on. Then decorate.”

Gideon looked at the bells on the counter. There were eight.

“It took me the last six hours to do these.”

“You need to spend thirty more hours at this?”

“I should be able to make it, but it will be close, assuming no more goofs. Or distractions.” She looked at him pointedly.

Gideon considered for a moment and stepped forward. “Maybe I could help.”

Her eyebrows lifted, and she coughed out a laugh. “Are you hiding a culinary degree up your sleeve?”

“I do a lot of wood carving. How different can it be?”

Her lips fell apart, her expression shocked. “Are you kidding?”

“No. I mean, why not? If I can help you carve bells, that will speed things up for you, right? You can bake more cake while I do the carving. Consider it my apology for bugging you.”

“These have to be done just so. It’s cake, not wood.”

“Let me try one. You might be surprised.”

“No. You’re just trying to find a way to stick around watching over me.”

“Is that so bad?”

“Is this because we kissed once? Do you think you have some kind of special influence over me or something?”

“Do I?”

She crossed her arms over her front. “It was a long time ago, and it was only one kiss. I’ve kissed a lot of other guys since then.”

Gideon wasn’t sure he liked that idea, but shrugged.

“Fine. I’ll make you a deal. Let me try one bell, and if I botch it, I go home, tell your family you’re fine and leave you be. If I do okay, I’ll stick around and help. At least for today.”

“They can’t be okay, they have to be perfect.”

“Okay. Then if I do perfect, I can stick around.”

“Why are you pushing this? Why not just go?”

She sounded exasperated, but he knew he had her on the ropes.