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  “And I can’t ask you to drive me around today either,” I added, almost as an afterthought. “I have to go all the way to Lynchburg.”

  Connor sighed heavily. I gasped softly with surprise when he suddenly stretched across the center console and reached across my body. For a startling moment, I thought he was about to fondle me, but he pulled the seatbelt across my chest as I sat there awkwardly, not knowing what to do with my arms and hands as he buckled me in.

  He smelled good. He smelled like…winter in the mountains. Pine, wood smoke, and that crisp scent in the air just before it snows.

  “Are you always this stubborn and prideful?” he asked as he pulled his own seatbelt on.

  “Yes.”

  He gave me another sidelong, but amused look as he put the truck in drive. “Cool. I like a challenge.”

  Chapter Twelve

  We stopped at the All In One for coffee before hitting the road. After living in the city for so many years and having access to many varieties of delicious coffee, drinking the little convenience shop’s coffee was akin to drinking dirty dish water with a shot of battery acid, but I was willing to suffer through it for the sake of not turning into a raving lunatic.

  When Connor picked up a packaged pastry, I gasped in alarm and put my hand on his arm.

  “Please don’t,” I pleaded.

  He looked at me with wide and confused eyes. “Don’t what?”

  “Please don’t purchase and then consume packaged shit in my presence.”

  His mouth opened as if he were going to say something, but didn’t seem to know what it was he wanted to say.

  “But…” He glanced down at the package in his hands and back at me. “It’s a cinnamon bun. Cinnamon buns are delicious.”

  I shook my head as I carefully removed the offending piece of food from his hands and put it back on the shelf.

  “If you promise not to ever, ever eat anything like that in front of me, I will make you cinnamon buns that will knock your socks clear off. You’ll never want to touch anything like this again,” I said, gesturing to the shelf of prepared, processed, and utterly disgusting snacks.

  He eyed me with doubt. “And what will I do when you leave, and I no longer have anyone to make me fresh baked goods?”

  I shrugged. “You’ll probably come back to this packaged shit here, but you will weep while you eat it.”

  He laughed. I liked his laugh. It wasn’t loud. It was low and sexy.

  Holding up his right hand, he said, “Okay. I promise not to eat any packaged baked goods in your presence ever, ever again.”

  I nodded my approval. “Great. I will bake cinnamon buns for you.”

  His voice dropped, and he waggled an eyebrow at me as he tugged on the end of my long braid. “I can’t wait to try your buns.”

  I tried not to smile as I turned to go to the checkout counter. I couldn’t resist responding over my shoulder, though. “You’ll love my buns. I may even let you frost them.”

  I chuckled when I heard him choke on his coffee.

  “So, who was the woman?” I asked Connor a little while later in the truck.

  He glanced over at me, confused. “What woman?”

  “The woman you canceled on this morning after you talked to Billy.”

  “Oh.” He gave me a short smile. “Heard that?”

  I smiled with some triumph. “No, but I could tell by the way you were moving. You looked uncomfortable. You looked like…” I shrugged. “You looked like you were breaking a date.”

  “I did break a date,” he admitted, “but she’ll get over it. It was just breakfast.”

  “Is it serious?”

  “Breakfast? No. Just pancakes, I’m sure.”

  I laughed. He looked away from the road long enough to wink at me.

  “It’s not serious.”

  I sipped my awful coffee and then asked, “If it ain’t serious, is it just sex?”

  He looked surprised and amused. “Sex with pancakes?”

  “I’m a chef, Connor. I think good food is orgasmic, so why not combine them?”

  “That could get sticky,” he laughed, shaking his head.

  I grinned. “Sometimes sex is sticky.”

  His head swiveled so fast, it had to have hurt. He stared at me for as long as he dared before glancing back at the road. He looked back at me and raised both eyebrows in question. “Do you want to have sticky pancakes with me?”

  “No! I don’t want to have sticky pancakes with you after you almost had sticky pancakes with someone else today. Besides, once you have my cinnamon buns, no other woman and her sticky pancakes will ever matter to you ever again.”

  “We really need to cease with this conversation. All this talk about orgasmic food is making me hungry.”

  Don’t say it. Don’t say it. Don’t say it!

  “Just hungry?”

  I said it.

  Connor’s direct stare made me feel like lightning had just struck very close to me. It didn’t hit me, but it was enough to make my hairs stand on end and to make my skin hot.

  His voice was low and only proved to exacerbate my condition. “Not just hungry.”

  My phone rang then, and I was so thankful I didn’t have to respond to that. What would I have said? Why did I even have to ask him, “Just hungry?”

  I answered my mother’s phone call. Someone had gone into Tilda’s and told her they saw my Bronco getting towed. Another person told her that they’d seen me in the All In One and had watched me drive away with Connor Chandler. By the time I convinced her that I had not been kidnapped, nor had I bought condoms in the convenience store, enough time had passed for Connor and me to easily transition into another conversation.

  “So, tell me about your life up in Philly,” he said after I told him what my mom said. I didn’t mention the condoms. “What made you go there of all places?”

  I sighed wistfully. “In my heart of hearts, I wanted to move to New York City and become Carrie Bradshaw. But New York City is an expensive place to live in. Philly has it’s own unique culinary flair, and the cost of living is significantly lower than New York. However, I’m close enough to New York to be able to visit and explore it’s culinary delights frequently.”

  He smiled. “You really love food.”

  I smiled back at him. “I do. We need food to survive, but there’s no reason why we shouldn’t enjoy it.”

  “So, you’re out of school and working in a bakery now. What’s your ultimate plan? Are you going to open up a cupcake boutique or something like that?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe someday, but before that happens, I want to travel.”

  His eyebrows rose. “To where?”

  “Everywhere. I have been to a few places here in the U.S. already, but I want more. Do you know there are people who live in town that have never gone outside of Augusta County? My sister is one of them.”

  His eyes widened a little at that, but then he shrugged. “It’s almost a thousand square miles. It’s the second biggest county in the state. That’s not a bad space to roam in.”

  “It’s the second biggest county in Virginia, but so what? It’s a blip on the east coast. It’s a dot on a U.S. map and a minuscule speck on a North American map. In terms of the world, it’s a grain of sand. There is so much world out there, so much more. I spent my teen years watching the Travel Channel and reruns of Sex and the City. I would go online and use Google Earth to go to different parts of the world, or find live feeds of busy city streets around the globe. Virginia is beautiful,” I admitted. “Maybe someday I will come back here and settle down, but until then I want more. I want the world. I want to eat my way through every continent and learn from any chef or cook that is willing to teach me. Not just the sweet stuff either.”

  I smiled dreamily and closed my eyes, almost tasting the things I’d never tasted in my life.

  “The savory. The spicy. The pungent and astringent. Things that taste sour and things that taste bitter. Exotic fruits an
d vegetables and weird looking fish. I want to eat comfort food, happy food, and bizarre food. I want to try it all, even if I end up not liking some of it.” I opened my eyes and sighed again. “And I might come back here as a butterball, but I’d be a happy butterball.”

  I glanced over at Connor. He was looking at me with wonder, his mouth slightly open and his brown eyes bright.

  “You should have seen your face,” he said softly. “I’ve never seen someone’s face look so luminous.”

  He looked at me as he did the night before, his gaze darting away bashfully.

  I pulled my braid across my cheek, wishing that my hair was out so that I could cover the surprising blush that rushed into my face.

  “My dad thinks it’s foolishness. He wants me to ‘stop daydreaming and get a real job.’ My mama swears if I leave the country that I’ll be recruited by a terrorist regime, or sold into sexual slavery, or get lost and never come back. Then again, she thought the same thing when I said I was moving to Philadelphia. I know it sounds very ambitious, but people have done it. I want to be one of them. I don’t need a lot of money to do it. I can work for my room and board and meals.”

  I knew I sounded as if I were trying to convince him. I was so used to having to defend myself and convince others that my dream could be realized.

  “It is ambitious,” Connor agreed with a nod. He smiled at me. “But it’s not impossible. Are your parents the reason why you haven’t started this trek around the world yet?”

  I stared out my window at the trees and houses that we flew by, and clenched my hands into fists to avoid putting one of them to my suddenly aching chest.

  “No,” I said, my voice soft.

  Connor was smart. He seemed to understand immediately. I heard his whispered, “Oh.” It was as if I had shouted the name out loud because it seemed to echo between us, even though I was sure that Connor had no idea what the name was attached to the person in question.

  Caden. Caden was the reason I hadn’t gone. I’d fallen in love, and that love and guilt kept me grounded. He had never specifically asked me not to go, but he said things like, “I won’t ask you to stay, but it’s going to rip me apart to watch you leave.” The sorrow in his voice when he’d said it was palpable. How could I just leave him? It wasn’t an option for Cade to go with me because he had his restaurant, and he had already traveled a great deal. In all honesty, I wasn’t sure if I wanted him to go with me. I didn’t want to leave him, but I didn’t want to take him. What did that say about us? What did that say about me?

  Connor’s voice cut into my thoughts. “I don’t know anything about your relationship, but I would say the same no matter who was holding you back.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “You have to live your life. It’s yours to live, and you only get one.” He paused and gave me a solemn look. “You only get one shot. Do not miss your chance to bl—”

  I waved a hand to cut him off. “Wait, wait. Are you…are you using Eminem’s lyrics to give me advice? Are you talk-singing Lose Yourself?”

  He made a sound of incredulity. “Is there any other way to give advice?”

  I burst into laughter, shedding the veil of sadness that had fallen over me. Connor laughed, too, as he glanced over at me more frequently than he should have.

  “Stop looking at me,” I said, still grinning with amusement. “Pay attention to the road.”

  Connor shook his head almost imperceptibly, and muttered so low under his breath, I almost missed it. “Couldn’t keep my eyes off you if I tried.”

  The butterflies fluttered.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I expected the grocery stores to be crowded with folks trying to stock up before the big storm, but I didn’t expect the damn craft store to be jammed pack with people. Connor and I were squeezed into a small aisle with about ten other people, including a father with a screaming toddler in his cart.

  “Why are there so many people in here?” I asked, irritated.

  Someone bumped Connor from behind, which made the front of his body collide with the side of mine. Reflexively, he put his arms around my waist to keep me from stumbling into our cart, which would have crashed into the cart that held the screaming toddler.

  “Some people like to get snowed in with movies and junk food,” he said absently as he glared beyond me at the retreating man that had bumped him. “Some people want to play with their Mod Podge.”

  As a couple more people wedged into the aisle, Connor’s arms tightened around me, and his body drew closer to mine to make room for the newcomers. A ripple of awareness of his solid body zipped through me and shot right to my heart, making it stutter a few beats before resuming at a slightly elevated rate.

  “I’m impressed that you know what Mod Podge is,” I managed to say and not sound like a breathless idiot.

  I threw piping into the cart and searched for the next item on my list.

  His chest vibrated against my arm when he spoke. “I have a sister and three nieces that make Martha Stewart look like an amateur.”

  I turned my head and peered up at him with a teasing smile. He had been looking around as if he expected someone to attack us with hot glue guns at any moment, but he felt my gaze and looked down at me, a little startled.

  “What?”

  “Admit it,” I crooned. “You have a hidden stash of Mod Podge and glitter.”

  He fixed me with a stern look. “A man’s hidden stash of glitter is his own business, woman.”

  I giggled and went back to my search. Some of the customers had cleared out of our aisle by the time we were ready to move on to the next one. Connor had unwound his arms from my waist, but he kept a hand on the small of my back. Strangely, I felt protected, although there wasn’t much to be afraid of in A.C. Moore.

  The grocery store was a different story. There was an air of violence in the dairy aisle. People scrambled over each other like ants as they reached for eggs, milk, and butter.

  “We’re going to have to split up,” Connor said, his brow furrowed with thought as we gazed at the melee. “I’ll go for the eggs and butter. You go for the milk. You’re little but wiry. You can get through. Bat your beautiful blue eyes at the men and that takes care of half the crowd—unless any of them are gay.”

  I bit my tongue to keep myself from laughing. He looked so serious, but there was a gleam of amusement in his eyes.

  “I’m not little.”

  Without any warning, he put his hands on my waist and lifted me as if I weighed nothing. I swallowed a shriek and slapped at his arms.

  “Connor!”

  He put me back on my feet and smirked. “Little.” He clapped his hands together before I could object. “Okay, Little Beauty. Let’s do this.”

  I sighed and rolled my eyes dramatically as we moved to the edge of the craziness.

  “Good luck, soldier,” Connor said and slapped my ass!

  Before I could yell at him, he dove into the crowd. I smiled to myself and went in for the milk.

  Later, after the success of our dairy missions, I asked Connor about dinner.

  “What about it?”

  “You’re going to make it for me, aren’t you? What are you going to make?”

  He looked horrified. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I am not cooking for you, not yet. I don’t want to be judged like that yet. I’d rather wait until you know me better and think I’m worth keeping around despite my lack of culinary genius.”

  I gave him a sympathetic look. “I won’t judge you. Much.”

  His head shook from side to side as his fingers stroked my braid. “No way, gorgeous. I will order you whatever you want for dinner, but I am not making it. That’s entirely too much pressure.”

  Why did he bring you here instead of cooking for you?

  Caden had asked me that about my date a long time ago. He believed in the power of showing love, appreciation, desire, and a wide range of other emotions through cooking, but Connor wasn’t a chef. Con
nor worked with computer programs for the state of Virginia. Connor was not Caden, and I didn’t want to think about Caden any more until I got home to Philly.

  “I know a great pizza place,” I offered.

  Connor smiled. I smiled. He gave my braid one last stroke and said, “Okay. Let’s attack the baking aisle.”

  He casually draped an arm over my shoulder and led us through the crowded store.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Connor’s one-story house sat on fifteen acres of prime Virginia land. There was a large clearing behind the house still covered in the last snow, but the rest of the property was undeveloped and woodsy. Most of the trees were still bare, but Virginia was so damn pretty that even the bare trees clustered together with the mountain behind them made a breathtaking landscape. As much smack as I talked about my hometown, I did miss the beauty of it.

  I had taken Connor up on his offer to use his kitchen. It was the two ovens that did me in, and all the prep space. And the unobstructed view of the mountainside through the tall windows that lined the rear of the house. And maybe Connor himself.

  Usually, when I had a baby shower order at the bakery, I was able to spread the process out over as many days as I needed. I also had all the machinery and equipment I wanted to help things along, and at least one other set of hands. For my sister’s baby shower, however, I had about twenty-four hours. I only had maybe half of the equipment I was used to and only the extra hands of a guy who knew zilch about making cakes and confectioneries from scratch, but I didn’t mind. Sometimes all of the fancy machines took the love from a product that only good old-fashioned elbow grease could provide.

  Flour. Sugar. Eggs. Butter. Baking powder. Kosher salt. A little bit of vanilla and a touch of champagne made the perfect Vanilla Champagne cake, except contrary to popular belief, the alcohol usually doesn’t evaporate while baking. Since the cake was for a pregnant woman, I had to improvise and use a champagne flavored oil instead.

  The cake batter was the easy part. It was everything else that I had to make for the Winnie the Pooh themed shower that consumed my time. The chocolate bowls filled with vanilla honey mousse to resemble honeypots. The pretzel rods dipped in an orange candy melt and drizzled with chocolate to resemble Tigger’s tail, and of course, the biggest task of all, decorating and assembling the cake. I had my work cut out for me, but I reveled in it.