Baked with Love

by Erin Wright

  “I’m sorry,” she told him as he stalked a few feet away and began giving himself a vigorous bath, apparently needing to set his fur to rights after her inadvertent mauling. “I…forgot I was holding you,” she said lamely. “I just…I mean…what if I screw this all up? Dr. Jane says Gage wants to date me because he likes me for me, and I just need to be myself around him, but that seems like a really, really bad idea. After all, ‘me’ means what, exactly? The ‘me’ that freaks out when a plane flies overhead? The ‘me’ that flinches every time I see a sudden movement out of the corner of my eye? I’m pretty sure no one wants to date that ‘me.’ Hell, I don’t even like that version of me, and it is me.”

  She flopped down on the ugliest couch known to man and watched as Skittles changed legs, extending the other one up in the air like a cat version of a ballerina, washing and straightening every hair, nosing and licking them into place.

  “I just wish I could figure out what in the blazin’ hell Gage sees in me,” she mused. “If it made sense to me, it wouldn’t freak me out so much.”

  She looked around the apartment, seeing it for the first time through Gage’s eyes. The lack of personality or color had been just what she wanted when she’d moved to Sawyer two months earlier, but now, it was feeling a little…sterile. Empty. Devoid of personality.

  She had that second bedroom that held not a stick of furniture. She could move her stuff out of her storage unit in Boise and into the spare room. Save herself the monthly charge for the unit and maybe even unpack a few of the boxes. Use the knick-knacks inside to decorate and liven things up. Hang up a few pictures of her parents, even.

  “It’d be nice to have some pictures of Mom and Dad back up,” she told Skittles. “I think—”

  There was a knock on her apartment door just then, and she shot to her feet, almost toppling over from the panicky excitement shooting through her. Skittles stopped for a fraction of a second, trying to figure out if her movement meant wet cat food or pettings and, deciding it did not, resumed his elaborate bathing. Shooting her cat a look that was a cross between a scowl and a laugh, she walked sedately over to the front door, doing her best to appear calm. It was Gage – just Gage. Nothing to get worked up about.

  She opened the front door to find him in a long-sleeve button-up shirt, open at the neck, displaying a tanned triangle of skin that was begging to be kissed, with the sleeves rolled up to just below his elbows, showing off his rippling, muscular forearms.

  Why oh why couldn’t I find a stick to like? A very short, very skinny stick?

  But despite her huge misgivings, she couldn’t help the heavy thump of her heart as she stepped back, letting him in, instinctively breathing in his scent as he went by – flour and sugar and cinnamon mixed with the pine smell of aftershave.

  It was a combination that absolutely shouldn’t work and yet, as was true about everything Gage-related, it did. Real men didn’t bake and work in the kitchen, but Gage did. Handsome men didn’t wear glasses, but Gage did.

  What would it be like to be that secure in who you are?

  She used to know. She would know again.

  Hopefully.

  “Are you ready?” Gage asked, his deep voice rumbling as he casually scratched Skittles behind the ears in just the spot that the cat loved. The cat paused his bath, arching his back and rubbing against Gage’s hand, obviously hoping to coax as many pettings and love out of this human as possible.

  “I think so…?” She gestured down at her short jean skirt and sandals and said, “You told me dressy but comfortable walking shoes. Does this pass muster? Or should I change?”

  She’d already spent hours putting on and taking off and putting on clothes, changing out belts and shoes and earrings, until finally settling on this outfit, mostly because she’d run out of time and had to either choose something, or go naked.

  Gage’s eyes raked her body and for one trembling moment, she felt like she was naked. Guys had thought she was cute before; she knew that. But the look in Gage’s eyes…

  He looked back up at her and said, “You’re good. Excellent,” in a hoarse voice that she almost didn’t recognize.

  She hid her grin behind her hand. “Uh, good,” she said brightly, and turned towards her bathing cat that’d apparently decided that he wasn’t going to get any more pettings out of Gage, and thus should get back to work. “Skittles, hold down the fort. Don’t eat anything I wouldn’t.” He ignored her, cleaning between each toe thoroughly and carefully, as Gage slid his hand into the small of Cady’s back and began steering her towards the front door.

  “So where are we going?” Cady asked breathlessly as they mounted the stairs to head up to ground level where Gage’s truck was parked. The stairs weren’t that steep but still, Cady had a hard time breathing anyway. “You still haven’t told me.”

  “That’s because that’d take all of the fun out of it,” Gage said seriously as he helped her up into the passenger seat of his oversized truck, and then hurried around to his side. “How am I supposed to surprise you if you know what’s coming?”

  She turned and cocked an eyebrow at him skeptically. “I can always be fake surprised when we get there,” she offered. “I’m pretty good at that. Oh my!” she squealed in a terrible impression of a high-pitched Southern gal. “I just had no idea.”

  Gage threw back his head and laughed as he began making his way out of town – towards Franklin, not Boise, which meant that they’d get to whatever it was they were doing as their date in about 30 minutes or so. “Don’t ever take up a career on Broadway,” he said after his chuckles died down. “Whatever you do, don’t do that.”

  She fake glared at him but before she could come up with a suitably hilarious and quippy response – never her strong suit to begin with – Gage asked, “Speaking of what it is that you do, how is the Smoothie Queen coming along? What major projects do you have left to complete before you can open?”

  “Well,” she said, settling back against the comfortable leather seat, broken in by years of gentle wear, “I’ve talked Emma into coming back to Long Valley to help me figure that out – did she tell you that?”

  “Did she tell me that,” Gage repeated, scoffing. “I’m her favorite older brother. Of course she told me that.”

  “You’re her only older brother,” Cady pointed out, confused.

  “Exactly! Which explains why I’m her favorite. If I had competition, I’d probably lose!” He flashed a snarky grin at her and she bust out laughing.

  “You guys sure make me wish I had siblings growing up,” Cady said wistfully, twirling her hair around her finger endlessly. “It would’ve been a lot more fun if I had siblings to play with.”

  “Play with?” Gage said with a belly laugh. “I think we better back up this train before you get some sort of delusional idea of what it’s like to have two siblings. Basically, your childhood is one long WWE wrestling match, minus the training on how to do fancy wrestling moves without killing yourself. The good news is that I’m the oldest, of course, so all I had to do was sit on Emma or Chris when they pissed me off. Turns out, you don’t need fancy moves after all!”

  “But, but, but Emma acts like she likes you,” Cady protested. “She’s not mentioned you sitting on her on a semi-regular basis.”

  “That’s because when we got older, we started sitting on Chris, instead. Both of us. At the same time. As much fun as it is to pick on Chris, it’s even more fun to pick on him with an accomplice.” He waggled his eyebrows at her conspiratorially and Cady couldn’t help the pity welling up in her for this Chris kid. She hadn’t actually met him yet – he didn’t seem to emerge from the basement on any sort of regular schedule – but surely he didn’t deserve two older siblings picking on him.

  “Poor Chris,” she said seriously. “You really should be nicer to your younger brother.”

  “Nicer? Nicer?! To Chris?! Now that’s just crazy talk. He’s the baby of the family and as far as I can tell, my mother would excuse hi
m murdering someone as being ‘just a mistake.’ He gets away with everything. Second, he’s a sibling. If you’re nice to your siblings, they take away your humanity card.”

  “Wha…you…what?!” Cady sputtered.

  “Yup,” Gage said seriously. “The government comes along and takes your human card from you. After all, everyone knows that it isn’t normal to be nice to a sibling. Ergo, you must actually be some sort of alien in disguise.”

  “Okay, okay!” Cady said, laughing in defeat. “You’re right – I definitely didn’t want a sibling growing up. Especially not a sibling like you.”

  “Hey, both of my siblings are still alive,” Gage said defensively. “I mean, there’s that fourth kid that no one talks about, but…”

  “Fourth?!” Cady gasped in horror and Gage let a belly laugh loose.

  “You didn’t have to tell me that you were an only child,” Gage said dryly after he gained control of his laughter. “You’re way too easy of a mark to have had siblings while growing up. Siblings toughen you up – keep you from falling for jokes so easily.”

  “You make siblings sound like a gentler version of war,” Cady said, sniffing her disapproval. “I think I’m going to send Emma and Chris sympathy cards on your birthday.”

  “Oh, please do!” Gage said, clearly delighted at the idea. “They would get a kick out of it. Maybe you’re not a hopeless case after all – sending sympathy cards to siblings on a guy’s birthday is just the sort of thing that would happen in sibling warfare. Stick around me for another ten years and you’ll start sending flower-and-balloon bouquets instead. I think you’ll realize that a sympathy card just isn’t quite enough.”

  “Somehow, I totally believe that’s true,” Cady muttered loudly under her breath, but she was laughing, too.

  Laughing…when had she last laughed like this? It was hard to remember, honestly. Maybe at some point when she’d been Hannah’s roommate?

  Perhaps?

  “As I was saying,” she announced primly, pushing the question of laughter out of her mind, “Emma has promised to come down her next available weekend from Denver. She’s going to help me put together an action plan for the store. She was going to help me the weekend of The Great Birthday Party but then…” Cady waved her hand in the air, summarizing that disaster with a few flicks of her wrist. “Anyway, I feel like I’m kinda going in circles at this point. Which project should I focus on? Which project needs to be completed before I can do the other projects? I need a game plan. I feel like everything is half done…or half un-done, depending on if you’re a glass-half-full or a glass-half-empty sort of person. After she comes through, then I’ll have a better idea of how far away I am from opening day.”

  “Have you been over to the farmer’s market in town yet?” Gage asked, apropos of absolutely nothing.

  “Uhhhh…no?” Cady said, trying to figure out where this was going. “I saw a couple of posters around town about it but I haven’t gone yet. Why do you ask?”

  “Well, I was thinking you might take some smoothies down to the farmer’s market and give them away as samples. Get people excited about the opening of your store.”

  “Ohhh…” Cady breathed. “That’s a great idea. It hadn’t occurred to me to do that. Thank you!”

  Gage shrugged, pink creeping up around his collar. “I’ve been a small business owner for a while now,” he said, obviously a little embarrassed. “Things like that become second nature. I’ve thought about hiring a teen to run a Muffin Man booth down at the farmer’s market every weekend – get new customers through it who aren’t coming over to the store. I just haven’t had the time to do it yet. Do you know Troy Horvath?”

  “Troy…” Cady repeated, thinking. “I don’t think so?”

  “Well, unless you’ve been down to the farmer’s market or had your business set on fire, there isn’t much of a reason that you’d know him anyway,” Gage reassured her. At her raised eyebrows, he clarified. “Troy is the guy who remodeled the old mill and started the farmer’s market, but he’s also on the city fire department. He was part of the crew that helped save Sugar and myself from the fire last year. Real nice guy, but quiet. If you manage to get ten words out of him in a conversation, feel special. The only person I’ve ever seen him talk to is his girlfriend, Penny. That’s how everyone in town knew it was true love – she got him to talk.”

  Cady laughed. “He can’t be that bad,” she said, shaking her head in disapproval at him. She was starting to realize that he liked to exaggerate for comedic effect, and she really shouldn’t believe every word that came out of his mouth. Why, he probably never even sat on his sister. She was so much smaller than him, he would’ve squished her flat if he had.

  Cady made a mental note to ask Emma the next time she came up from Denver.

  “Call him up. Ask him about giving away freebies at the farmer’s market. You’ll see.”

  Cady just shook her head in bemusement. She wasn’t about to fall for Gage’s teasing again. She was already growing wise to his antics.

  “We should probably park here and then walk,” Gage said, pulling into the parking lot for the grocery store. “Parking down there will be nuts.”

  Cady cocked a questioning eyebrow at him but he just shook his head with a grin.

  “You’ll see,” he promised, hurrying around to her side of the truck and helping her down. “You can wait another three minutes, right?”

  “I guess,” she grumbled good-naturedly. Gage’s boyish teasing was kinda fun, maybe even especially so because she wasn’t used to it. She’d grown up as the only child and had always been “a little adult,” hanging around her parents’ friends and learning quickly to control her boisterousness lest she get sent to bed early. Her parents’ friends had always remarked that she was so grown-up – so mature for her age. Her parents had been loving and caring, but teasing?

  Not so much.

  Gage snagged her hand and began heading down the street, Cady hurrying to keep up with his long legs. She thought about asking him to slow down, but her pride wouldn’t let her. She’d always hated the fact that she was so much shorter than the rest of the world; she wasn’t about to start admitting now that she needed special accommodations.

  “Here we are,” Gage said, thankfully slowing a bit, letting Cady’s breathing slow down too. She looked around, finally able to do more than just concentrate on where her feet were stepping, and realized that they were at some sort of street fair.

  “Wha…” She trailed off as she realized where they were at. “Oh, the art and wine walk!” she said excitedly, grinning up at Gage. “I’ve been watching the posters about this all spring but haven’t come over for one yet.”

  “I was hoping you’d be up for it,” he said with a big grin. “See? I told you surprises wouldn’t kill you. Hold on—” He came to a dead stop, pulling Cady to a standstill next to him. She almost told him that maybe surprises wouldn’t kill her but him jerking her arm out of her socket just might when he asked, “Do you drink wine?”

  “I do,” she reassured him. “As long as I’m not driving, I’m happy to drink a little.”

  “Oh good,” he said, clearly relieved. “I’ll go grab the tickets then. You can go check out that display while you wait if you want.” He pointed to a weird metal art display nearby that appeared to be made out of…bent spoons?

  She squeezed his hand in hers. “I’ll stay with you,” she said. She didn’t want to leave his side. She didn’t want to wander off on her own. With him there, he’d protect her from any weirdos out there – no one would dare touch her with him by her side. Not to mention that she didn’t want to be by herself. She wanted to be next to him because she just plain liked him.

  As a dyed-in-the-wool introvert, this was unusual, to say the least. She wasn’t entirely sure what to think about it – if she was happy with this turn of events or not. Did she want to become that dependent on someone else? What if he disappeared from her life like everyone else had?

/>   Before she could decide if this was something to completely freak out about or not, Gage was tugging her forward to the front of the line, pulling out a wad of cash to pay for the wine tickets they could use to redeem for glasses of wine throughout the evening, and then they were free to wander together.

  They stopped at a wine table and each redeemed a ticket for a glass, and then started walking through the crowds, sipping and chatting and laughing together at some of the more unusual exhibits, and sighing with envy over the gorgeous paintings.

  Is this what it’s like to date someone? Is this what it’s like to be in a big crowd and not be flinching at every movement?

  It almost didn’t seem legal, honestly. Could she be this at home around a man? Since when was that a thing?

  Since now, I guess.

  “Oh now, look at that,” Gage said with such love and enthusiasm in his voice, it jerked Cady out of her thoughts. She followed his line of sight to…a pen full of puppies?

  Tumbling and growling and yipping as they wrestled and played, the puppies had to be some of the most adorable creatures that Cady had ever seen.

  “Ooohhhh…” she breathed. She felt like she was being sucked towards the pen, like a paperclip towards a magnet. They were gorgeous.

  Cady’s heart flipped with delight.

  A large-boned woman stood next to the pen, chatting with another family but they already had a squirming puppy in their hands and as Gage and Cady reached the pen, the family headed off into the crowd, clutching their puppy to them.

  “So, I thought this was an art festival?” Gage asked the woman, clearly confused. “Why are there dogs here?”

  The woman shrugged. “I had someone drop off this load of puppies in the middle of the night and the shelter is just full to burstin’ now, so I asked the head honchos of this festival if they’d let me have a booth for free since I’m not selling these pups for a profit. They said yes. I figured they were so damn cute, there was no way people could pass ‘em on by. Already adopted out three of them.” She turned to Cady. “My name is Michelle Winthrop, and you are?”