Page 11 of Fire and Icing (The Firemen of Waterford TN #1)

Emberleigh

I don’t know how people can fake whole relationships.

I can’t even fake a hello to someone I don’t like.

~ Ziad K. Abdelnour

I run my hand down my apron—again. Dustin is supposed to be here any minute. He said he’d take a break from work and meet me here.

The bakery is usually my safe space, a comfort when the rest of the world feels loud and demanding. I can lose myself in creating sweets and baked goods, and everything melts away.

Tonight the darkened storefront feels empty—almost too quiet. Everything’s wiped down, put away, mixed and prepped for tomorrow.

I submitted my application—our application—to Plated Network after Dustin agreed to be my partner. I wasn’t sure we’d get in, but we did! So, now we’re doing this thing. And I’m beyond nervous.

I look around the bakery, trying to think of something to occupy my time.

Shuffling the already organized coffee supplies, I hum a song my mom used to sing to me when I was little.

I should call my parents. Not now, obviously, but it’s been too long.

Gran would tell me to call them. She’d shake her head and make a tsking sound at me if she knew how long it had been since I initiated a call to Mom and Dad.

As soon as I’m finished meeting with Dustin, I’m going to Gran’s to settle into the upstairs bedroom.

It’s my home away from home for at least the next few weeks.

My house has been going from bad to worse with the restoration work going on in the kitchen.

It’s crazy how something so small can wreak so much damage.

I startle at the sound of the back door flying open.

“Are you okay?” Sydney asks. She’s holding a baseball bat overhead in one hand and a frying pan in the other.

“You scared the living bejeebers out of me,” I tell her, dropping my hand from where I raised it to my chest.

“What are you still doing here?” she asks.

She lowers her arsenal and cocks her head just the slightest.

“What are you doing here?” I deflect.

“I asked you first,” she says. “But I heard the door open and shut and then some shuffling around. So I came down to check if someone had broken in.”

“Broken in? To do what? Steal the sourdough starter?”

Syd laughs. “I wouldn’t put it past Vanessa.”

“True.”

“So,” she says. “What are you doing here? Weren’t you supposed to go to your gran’s and ask her about staying there while your home is in pure chaos?”

“I will. After this.”

“This what?”

“I’m meeting Dustin.”

“Here?”

“To go over the rules and tell him about the contest.”

“Interesting.”

“We’ll need parameters. You know? Boundaries … for our … partnership—or whatever it is.”

“A partnership.” Syd beams.

“For the contest.”

“Would it be so bad if it were for more?”

“Yes.”

I’m still not sure why I agreed to Dustin helping me, or even how the whole agreement came to pass.

It’s all a bit of a blur. All I remember is Syd suggesting Dustin be my partner and us considering Patrick.

The next thing I knew, Dustin and I were talking about when we could meet to go over all the details of the contest and, most importantly, the guidelines for how we’re going to act since the judges will have to believe we’re in an actual relationship.

“I don’t think …” Syd’s thought is interrupted by a firm rap on the front door glass.

“He’s here. Shoo.” I swish my hands like I’m swatting a fly out through the kitchen.

“What if I want to stick around and watch?”

I give her a look that I must have given her a thousand times over the years we’ve been best friends.

She takes the hint. “Okay. Okay. But I want details.”

“Of course. Now shoo. Please.”

Syd heads back out the rear entrance while I approach the front door to unlock it.

Dustin’s standing on the other side, in civilian clothes.

His simple outfit of jeans, a white T-shirt and cowboy boots shouldn’t grab any attention.

It’s nothing special, except I find myself wondering where a man like him finds pants to fit over those thighs.

Two words fill my brain, clouding out everything else: tree trunks .

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a man so solid.

And those arms are nearly the size of my legs.

Maybe bigger. His T-shirt looks like it’s stretched to capacity.

My eyes lift to meet his, my gaze passing over his smirking lips.

I was not checking him out. I was wondering about his shopping habits. I’ll just straighten that out so things don’t get awkward.

I unlock the door and swing it open. “Thanks for coming. I wasn’t checking you out, just in case … uh …” Wow, that sounded much better in my head. “Anyway, thanks.”

Dustin chuckles. “It’s my pleasure.” He pulls a large brown paper bag out from behind his back. “I brought food. Did you eat yet?”

“Um. No. I didn’t. I ran errands after closing and then came back here to meet you. I forgot to grab something.”

“Forgetting to eat? Man. I wonder what that’s even like.” He grins a boyish grin.

I don’t have to stretch my mind to imagine what he must have been like as a boy. Trouble, definitely trouble. But always laughing and entertaining everyone around him. I bet he was a handful.

“I got a few things,” he says. “I didn’t know what you’d like.”

Dustin sets the bag on one of the tables along the front windows and pulls it open. Then he starts pulling out to-go containers one by one.

“Let’s see. We’ve got salad. I got Caesar and this other field greens one in case you don’t like Caesar.

” He pulls out two more containers. “Then I got the pasta. It looked too good to pass up. Did you know they make the sauces from scratch? I could smell it when I walked in. So, here’s today’s pasta.

Still hot.” He sets the round tin on the table.

Condensation fills the clear plastic lid, but I can see it’s Gino’s fettuccine alfredo with chicken. My mouth might be watering.

“And then, in case you’re not a fan of pasta, I also got the Monte Cristo sandwich.”

“For the two of us?” I survey the array of containers on the table.

“And tiramisu … with two forks,” he adds, not even flinching over the fact that the food spread out on one of my bistro tables could feed a small family.

Dustin pulls the cream dessert box with Gino’s logo on it out of the bottom of the bag and then produces two forks, holding them up and smiling at me.

“So? What sounds good?”

“Uhhh …” I stammer. “All of it?”

“That’s what I thought!” He chuckles and pulls out a seat. I think he’s going to plop down and dig in, but he steps back, holding my bewildered gaze and smiling that smile—the one apparently no one can resist, not even me, tonight.

I step in front of him, avoiding eye contact.

The air around him is warm. I sit quickly, and before I can take over to help myself, Dustin pushes the chair in, taking his place across from me as soon as I’m settled.

He looks like a parent on back to school night, trying to fit into the child-sized chairs in the classroom.

“Is that chair okay?” I ask.

He looks down at the legs and back up at me. “Seems to be.”

“I meant, are you comfortable?”

“I’m good. Just hungry.” He cracks open the salads and announces, “Let’s eat.”

“Should I get some plates or bowls or something?”

“Nah.” He looks up at me. Boyish. Manly. A strange mix of both. “I mean, if you want to eat on plates, we can.”

“Give me a minute,” I say, standing to grab some proper plates and silverware.

I feel Dustin’s eyes on me as I slip behind the counter and then return to the table.

When was the last time I ate a meal with a man?

Too long ago to remember, that’s for sure.

This isn’t that. This is business. Plain and simple. That’s why we need rules. Lots of rules. Strong ones.

“So, I called you here to set up some rules,” I say, maybe as much to myself as to him.

Dustin grins across the table at me. He reaches over and I nearly flinch. This only makes him smile more.

“Give me those,” he says. “Please.”

I look down at the forks in my hand. I don’t quite have a death grip on them—not exactly.

Dustin wraps his fist around the silverware, and then, with his other hand, he starts to gently pry each of my fingers away.

“Sorry,” he says quietly. “Is this manhandling?”

“Uh. No.” I drop my hand into my lap.

He’s still smiling. I wonder if he smiles in his sleep.

This man is always smiling. I couldn’t tell through that fireman suit he had on when we met, but now that I’m getting to know him a little better, I think he’s the kind of person who always has a smile on his face.

The jury’s still out on that one smile of his—the one honed to disarm.

I wouldn’t mind if he flashed it at me again. Just once tonight.

But that smile? Instinctual. Warm. Inviting.

It has an overpowering but subtle way of pulling a person close.

Of slipping past defenses I didn’t mean to lower.

I forgave him without preparing myself to let him off the hook.

I’m ninety-nine percent sure that smile was more than partially responsible for my change of heart.

Over my lifetime, I’ve learned not everything that comes close stays. Dustin’s the type who could slip out just as easily as he slipped in. And I’m not sure I’d see him going until the space he filled went quiet.

He digs one of the forks into the alfredo and piles a mound of it onto my plate.

“Oh.” He looks up at me, his innocent expression filled with warmth. “I forgot to ask you. Did you want pasta?”

“I love this pasta. And the sandwich.”

They’re actually my two favorite items on the menu at Gino’s, but Dustin does not need to know that little detail. Not at all. He’s already got the invisible upper hand.

How does he do it?