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She closed her eyes. “I’m too tired to think.”
“Me, too,” he agreed stoutly. “So we’ll go on instinct instead of brainpower.”
She began to laugh. This was all so ridiculous. They’d just produced more baked product than she’d ever done before in one day, and now they were going to do more? Impossible.
“Cookies?” he coaxed.
“I guess.”
They made cookies. Pecan lace cookies with a touch of cardamom, pressed together like sandwiches with mocha butter cream filling between them. Chocolate ganache on the base. A touch of white butter cream around the edges, like a lacy frill.
Connor used the mixer while Jill prepped the pans and got the chocolate ready to melt. Just as the first pan went into the oven, they heard the sound of giggling from the next room.
Jill looked at Connor. “Oh, no.”
He nodded. “They climbed out again. We should have known they would.” He looked at her. There was no time to spare and she was the chef. “I’ll take care of them,” he told her. “You just keep baking.”
It took a couple of minutes to catch the boys and carry them back up, and all the while, he was racking his brain to think of some way to keep them in their beds. There was only one idea that just might work, but he knew instinctively that Jill wasn’t going to like it. They didn’t have much choice. He was going to have to do it and deal with the consequences later.
CHAPTER SEVEN (#u1ad57c9d-4828-5ebb-a3c1-a037efa478bd)
BY THE TIME Connor got back to the kitchen, Jill had at least sixty cookies cooling and was beginning assembly of the desserts.
“I don’t hear the boys,” she said. “What did you do?”
“Don’t worry. I took care of it.”
She stopped and looked at him through narrowed eyes. “You didn’t tie them up or anything like that, did you?”
“No, nothing like that. I’d show you, but right now, we’ve got to hurry with this stuff.”
She gave him a penetrating glance, but she was in the middle of the drizzle across the top of each confection and her attention got diverted.
“What do you think?” she asked him.
Connor looked the sample over with a critical eye.
“I don’t know. It still needs something. Something to make it look special.”
They both stared for a long sixty seconds.
“I know,” he said. “We’ve got plenty of buttercream left. Get your decorating thingamajig.”
“Why?”
“I’ve seen the flowers you can make with butter cream frosting. You’re going to make one hundred and two rose buds.”
“Oh.” She looked at the clock. “Do you really think we can get them out in time?”
“I know we can.” He grinned at her, then swooped in and kissed her hard on her pretty mouth. “We can do anything. We already have.”
He took her breath away, but she stayed calm. At least outwardly. She stared at him for a few seconds, still feeling that kiss. Why was he doing things guaranteed to send her into a tailspin if she didn’t hold herself together?
But she went back to work and she kept control and the job got finished. And at the end, they stared at each other.
“We did it.”
“We did, didn’t we?”
“But the delivery...”
“Quick. We’re five minutes late.”
He piled the desserts in boxes and headed for the door. Just before he disappeared, he called back, “Better check on the twins.”
She was already on her way. There wasn’t a sound as she climbed the stairs. When she opened the door, nothing moved. But somehow everything looked a little wrong. In the dark, she couldn’t quite figure out what it was and she hated to turn on the light, but she had to. And what she saw left her speechless.
“What?”
One crib stood empty. The other had been turned upside down. The mattress was on the ground, but the rest of the crib was above it like a cage. And on the mattress, her two little boys were sound asleep.
Her first impulse was to wake them up and rescue them, but then she realized they were probably better off where they were. After all, how was she going to get them to stay in their cribs without the bars?
She went back down, not sure what to do. She started cleaning up the kitchen, but then she heard Connor driving up and she went to meet him at the door.
He came in smiling. “They loved it,” he announced. “People were asking for our card and I was handing them out like crazy.”
She put her head to the side and raised her eyebrows as she listened to him. “Our” card? When had that happened? But she could deal with that later. Right now she had something else on her mind.
“Now do you want to explain what happened to the crib?”
“Oh.” His face changed and suddenly he looked like a boy with a frog in his pocket. “Sure. I, uh, I had to turn it upside down.”
“So I see.”
He gave her a guilty smile. “Are they okay?”
She nodded. “Sound asleep.”
“Good.” He looked relieved. “That was the goal.”
“But Connor...”
“They wouldn’t stay in the cribs,” he told her earnestly. “They kept climbing out. And that was just so dangerous. This was the only thing I could think of on the fly. And luckily, they loved it when I put them into their own special cage. I told them to be monkeys and they played happily until they went to sleep. Didn’t they?”
“I guess so, but...”
“If I hadn’t done it, they would still be climbing out and running for the hills. And we wouldn’t have finished in time.”
“Okay.” She held up a hand and her gaze was steely. “Enough. I understand your logic. What I don’t understand is how you could do such a crazy thing without consulting me first.”
That stopped him in his tracks. He watched her and realized she was right. He thought he was doing what was best for her, but without her consent, it was really just what was best for him. He had no right to decide for her. They were her kids.
He’d goofed again and it pained him. Why was he always putting his foot in it where she was concerned? He had to apologize. He swallowed hard. That wasn’t an easy thing to do. Taking a deep breath, he forced himself to do what had to be done.
“Jill, you’re absolutely right,” he said sincerely. “And I’m really sorry. I was wrong to take your agreement for granted. I won’t do that again.”
Now she had a lump in her throat. Few had ever said that sort of thing to her before, especially not a man. Could she even imagine Brad saying such a thing? Hardly. She felt a small sense of triumph in her chest. She’d asked for an apology and she got one. Wow.
“I guess the first order of business is to figure out how to make a crib they can’t climb out of,” she noted, looking at him expectantly.
He feigned astonishment. “Who? Me? You want me to build a crib they can’t climb out of?”
“Either that, or come up with a plan,” she said, teasing him flirtatiously. “Aren’t you here to help?”
His grin was endearingly crooked and he pulled her to him, looking down like a man who was about to kiss a very hot woman. She looked up at him, breath quickening, and she realized she really wanted that kiss. But a look of regret and warning flashed in his eyes. He quickly released her and turned away.
“You ready for that glass of wine now?” he asked, walking toward the wet bar at the end of the room.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes before she answered. “Sure,” she said. “Why not?”
He poured out two crystal glasses of pinot noir and they sat in the living room on a small couch. There was a gentle rain falling and they could see it through the huge glass windows that covered one side of the room.
“What a day,” he said, gazing at her as he leaned back in his corner of the couch. The dim light left the wine in their glasses looking like liquid rubies. “It feels like it must have lasted at least a day and a half.”
“Or maybe three and a half,” she agreed. “And a few shocks to the system.” She sighed. “But you came through like a trooper. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“I’m glad I was here to help.”
She met his gaze and then looked away too quickly. She felt her cheeks reddening and groaned inside. There was nothing to be embarrassed about. Why had she avoided his eyes like that? She coughed to cover up her feelings.
“So tell me the story of this cooking talent you seem to have discovered in the mysterious East,” she said quickly.
He grinned. “So you can see the evidence of my expertise in my work even here,” he said grandly.
The corners of her mouth quirked. “No, but you told me you were good, so I believe it.”
“Ah.” He nodded. “Well, it’s all the fault of a young chef named Sharon Wong. We dated each other for most of the last year in Singapore. She taught me everything I know.” He made a comical face. “Of course, that was only a small fraction of what she knows, but it was a start.”
A woman was behind it all. She should have known. But it gave her a jolt. Connor had never seemed to have a special woman in his life. Lots of women, but no one special. Had that changed?
“A chef. Great. I’m partial to chefs. What kind of cuisine?”
“She specializes in Mandarin Chinese but she mostly taught me French basics. She claims every chef needs French cooking as a standard, a baseline to launch from. Sort of like learning Calculus for science classes.”
She nodded. “That’s why it’s so important for Trini to go to the school she just left to attend. She’ll get a great grounding in the basics.”
He watched her for a moment, then asked, “Why didn’t you ever go there?”
She shrugged and stretched back against the pillows, beginning to feel her body relax at last. “I took classes locally, but nothing on that level.” Her smile was wistful. “Funny. I applied a few years ago. I got accepted on my first try. A scholarship and everything. But I didn’t get to go.”
“Why not?”
She gave him a bemused smile. “I married Brad instead.”
“Wow, that was a bad decision.” He looked pained at the thought. “You gave up going to the school of your dreams to marry Brad?”
“Yes.” She threw him a reproving look. He was getting a little adamant about her life choices. “And I do regret it. So that’s why I won’t let her give it up for anything. She’s got to go. She’ll learn so much.”
He was quiet and she wondered what he was thinking about. Something in the look on his face told her it still bothered him to think of her giving up her dream that way and she wasn’t sure why he cared.
Everybody had to make choices. Everybody had to give something up now and then. It was part of life.
“I was just thinking about that time we went to San Francisco,” she said a few minutes later. “Remember?”
He looked up and his smile completely changed his face. “Sure I remember. You had set up a weekend to celebrate Brad’s birthday with a surprise trip to San Francisco and then you ended up taking me instead.”
She nodded, still captivated by that smile.
“It was senior year, wasn’t it?” he went on. “You got a hotel just off Union Square and tickets to the ballet—or so you said.”
She nodded again. “That was my big mistake. Once I told Brad that, he suddenly had somewhere else he had to be that weekend.”
She could hardly believe it. What a fool she’d been in those days. “I was so mad, I told him I was going to take you instead. And he said, sure, go ahead.”
Connor smiled, recalling that sunny day. He thought he’d died and gone to heaven. He was walking on air when she asked him to go with her.
A whole weekend with Jill and no Brad. He hadn’t even cared if it was the ballet. But the beauty of it was, she was just setting up a surprise, because the tickets that she had were for the Giants in Candlestick Park. The ballet thing was just a ruse to tease Brad and the baseball game was supposed to be his big surprise. Instead it was Connor’s.
She gazed at him speculatively. “Sometimes when I look back I wonder why I didn’t notice.”
His heart gave a lurch. What was she reading into his responses? “Notice what?”
She shrugged. “How little Brad actually cared for me.”
Oh, that. It had always been obvious to most of those around her. Brad wanted her when he wanted her, but he didn’t confine his activities too close to home. Still, looking at her now, he couldn’t stand the haunted expression in her eyes. The last thing in the world she should do was beat herself up over the past.
“He cared plenty,” he said gruffly. “He wanted you for himself right from the first. Don’t you remember?”
She shook her head and gave him a sad smile. “I think you know what I mean. Anyway, we had a great time in San Francisco, didn’t we?”
“Yes, we did.” He let his head fall back as he thought of it. That trip had planted dreams in his head. You could say he might have been better off without them, but he didn’t think so. His feelings for Jill were a part of that time, even if she never knew it.
“Remember that night? We talked until almost dawn, and then we slept until noon.”
“Yeah.” They had two rooms, but he never went to his own. There were two beds in hers, one for each of them, and he just stayed with her. He never touched her, but he sure wanted to.
And best of all, it was on that night that he knew he was ready to try to have a real relationship. He’d spent the first few years in college wary of making any sort of commitment to any girl. His background had argued strenuously against it.
