Page 40 of The Strawberry Patch Pancake House

‘No, I’m really curious, because I’ve never felt that about anything, really. I’ve never just known what I wanted to be or what I wanted to do and I’ve just kinda drifted around, but you,’ again that little scoff, ‘you know exactly what you want to do. You’re a big important chef and you’re the expert, so?—’

‘I’m not,’ he said, his voice sharp, cutting through her little speech. ‘Not anymore. I’m barely fucking holding on here, Iris.’

She held his gaze, those green eyes zeroing in on his every insecurity. She lifted her chin. ‘I’ve lived here my whole life,’ she said. ‘And a lot of things have changed because things always do, but those pancakes have been the same for my whole life. There’s comfort in that, Archer. People like that. They need it. I need it.’

‘You do?’

She shrugged, like she’d let him see more than she’d intended when she’d started this conversation. ‘The diner is one of the few places left in town that the old folks remember going to when they were kids. It’s important to them, so it’s important to me.’

‘I don’t think it’s true.’

‘What?’

‘That you don’t know what you want to do with your life, that you’re not confident. Iris you’re amazing at what you do. At everything you do.’ He had yet to see her struggle with anything. From where he stood, Iris didn’t drift, she floated. She floated and she danced and she laughed and she just made everyone’s lifebetter.She made his life better. Even when he felt like everything was falling apart.

‘Nah.’ She shook off his compliment. ‘You know what they say—“Jack of all trades, master of none”—or something like that.’

‘Nobody’s a master of anything. Look at me. I can’t even make pancakes.’ He gestured to the mess on the counter, wanting her to forgive him, wanting her to see the truth of him.

She relented, giving him a small smile, the soft light of the kitchen catching the gold in her hair. And she was just so…

Tempting.

‘What’s that from?’ she asked. Her eyes had flicked down and she was pointing to one of the scars on his arm, a long one that ran across the top of his forearm, right above the wrist.

‘Oven.’ He’d been moving too fast, desperate to prove himself to his professor, and his arm had hit the hot oven rack as he was pulling out a fresh batch of croissants. They came out terribly, just to add insult to injury, and his professor had actually spit a bit of one out in front of the whole pastry class. Archer hadn’t slept the rest of the week. He ate and breathed croissants, baking batch after batch until they were perfect. Because he didn’t fail.

Or at least he didn’t in his old life.

He felt exhausted just thinking about it.

‘And this one?’ Her finger hovered over his arm, pointing to another scar.

‘Cast-iron skillet.’

‘And this one?’ She trailed a single finger over the scar on the underside of his wrist and her touch sparked along his skin. She was looking at him again, her head tilted, eyes curious.

And suddenly his old life didn’t exist.

The only real thing was this kitchen. This kitchen and Iris’s fingertip leaving a trail of raised hairs along his arm.

He wanted to take her to bed.

He wanted to tuck her in.

He wanted to…

‘Broken glass,’ he said, his voice rough with everything he wanted to do to her. That hecouldn’tdo to her.

There were too many things he couldn’t do right now. He wanted to growl in frustration.

‘I didn’t know cooking was such a dangerous job.’ Her finger was still on him, tracing back and forth over that scar.

‘Restaurant kitchens can get intense,’ he ground out, struggling for control. ‘A lot of fast-moving parts. Add heat and sharp objects, and it can get dangerous sometimes.’

She took her hand away and Archer had to bite back the shuddering sigh he felt building in his chest. He’d known it was a bad idea to hire Iris as his nanny. He knew he was attracted to her. He knew how precarious a situation it was to have a single woman living under his roof, for both of them.

But this was so much worse than he’d thought.