Baked with Love

by Erin Wright

  One day he woke up with hormones coursing through his veins and had been a prick ever since. His parents had doubled down on the niceness factor, hoping to sway Chris back into humanity through kindness, but Gage saw over the intervening years that coddling had only made the problem worse.

  If only he could convince his parents to let him be Chris’ boss for a spell. It’d make a damn world of difference, in his humble opinion. Surely couldn’t make him any worse than he was right now, anyway.

  “Is everything okay?” Cady asked, sticking her head out of the dining room doorway, her mahogany curls swirling and bouncing around her angelic face as she looked worriedly past Gage and down into the basement. “Someone sounds really angry.”

  “It’s just Chris,” Gage said reassuringly. “He lost the level he was playing on his video game. He’ll be fine.” He cupped his hand under Cady’s elbow and steered her back into the dining room. His mom had added another leaf to the table, stretching the boundaries of the dining room to its limits and forcing Gage and Cady to sidle around the table, shuffling and knocking into the backs of chairs as they went. “Where’s Jaxson, Rose, and the boys at?” he asked Sugar, who was already crammed up against Emma, as they went. Not that they had any room for them at the table if they had shown up but it only seemed polite to ask.

  “Jaxson’s ex has the boys this weekend, and Jaxson said he wanted to stay home and get some repair work done around the house. With a five-month-old underfoot, I don’t know how much he expects to get done, but I guess we’ll see.” Sugar clearly looked amused at the idea of getting anything productive done with a baby in tow, and Gage didn’t blame her. As adorable as Rose was, she tended to be a mess maker at this age, not a mess cleaner.

  Much like Cream Puffs, actually. That day that she’d found a box of Kleenex…

  Cady and Gage finally squeezed into their chairs – Cady able to maneuver in the tight space a lot easier than Gage was, yet another benefit of being so tiny – and after his father said a quick grace, they dug into the food, passing it around, laughing and teasing each other as the dinner progressed. Gage was impressed to see Cady holding her own, answering his grandmother’s questions about the Smoothie Queen evenly; not visibly intimidated by his grandmother’s stern expression. Grandpa wasn’t saying much, but that was to be expected – he wasn’t much for talking. Chris was sitting sullenly in his chair, picking at his food, clearly pissed at Gage, shooting him death looks whenever he thought their mom wasn’t looking.

  “Jaxson says you’re doing great things at the fire department,” Sugar said loudly, directing the comment in the general direction of Chris but clearly intending the entire family to hear her. “You and Angus have been showing up to all of the training meetings and learning a lot. At least, that’s what Jaxson has been telling me. Are you thinking about becoming a firefighter now that you’ve graduated from high school?”

  Chris’d just graduated at the end of May, and had spent the summer “contemplating his options.” As far as Gage could tell, that’d meant Chris was spending his time debating between playing Call of Duty or Battlefield One. Was Chris going to be 42 and still living in their parents’ basement?

  God, he hoped not.

  “Maybe,” Chris said, straightening up a bit in his seat and looking interested for the first time in the meal’s conversation. “He thinks I’m doing good?”

  “He does,” Sugar said firmly. “Says you’re a natural.”

  Chris grinned proudly at the wife of the town’s fire chief, stunning Gage into silence.

  Chris, smiling? Since when did Chris smile? He threw pity parties for himself and acted like the whole world was out to get him. He had that typical teenager angst in spades.

  But when he smiled, he was…he was almost handsome.

  Gage felt like something in his brain just broke. Surely this wasn’t happening. Chris didn’t know how to be anything but a surly, snarling teenager.

  He looked at Cady to see if she was catching this, if she was seeing the same thing he was, but she just sent him a cheerful smile of her own and then went back to listening to Chris, who’d started talking happily about the National Junior Firefighter training program, pitching in questions about pay and training as she listened, and he realized that she didn’t know. She didn’t know that Chris had had a personality transplant right there at the dining room table. She didn’t know that this wasn’t what Chris acted like.

  Ever.

  He looked down the table at Emma instead and caught her bemused smile as she stared at their younger brother. Gage knew her; knew she was wondering in that moment if this was all some sort of elaborate prank that someone had paid Chris to participate in, and what the final punchline would be.

  Before the punchline could reveal itself, though, talk turned to the old mill in town – the whole reason Chris and his best friend Angus were involved in the junior firefighter program to begin with. A little over eighteen months previously, they’d been smoking outside of the mill before school one morning and a discarded cigarette butt had accidentally set a pile of greasy rags on fire. Angus had caught most of the flack from the debacle but Gage was sure Chris was just as much to blame. He was happy that both of them had ended up in the volunteer firefighter program. Chris deserved to be a part of the punishment as much as Angus did. It had been just like Chris to avoid the brunt of the blame.

  “Angus and I have been helping out on Saturday mornings at the farmer’s market,” Chris said, jerking Gage back to the present. Chris? Just helping out? Since when?

  “How much are you getting paid?” Gage asked bluntly, refusing to let Chris get credit for “helping out” when it was actually a job. Gage didn’t “help out” at the Muffin Man – he worked there.

  Big difference.

  “Now, Gage—” began Mom.

  “Jaxson says he’s been working hard,” Sugar put in. Gage wanted to glare at his employee and tell her to keep her nose out of this but he knew Emma would get pissy if he did, so he bit down on his tongue. Hard.

  “We got paid a few times—” Chris retorted, and Gage snorted his derision – he knew Chris would only do something if paid, “—but most of the time, we’ve just been volunteering. After what happened…before…it just seemed…” The teenager trailed off, shrugging, staring down at the dining room table like its woodgrain contained all of the secrets of the universe.

  Gage sat back, stunned for a second time that meal. Chris knew how to smile, and he had a conscience and could feel guilty about almost destroying a local landmark?

  The conversation ebbed and flowed around Gage as he stared at his younger brother, lost in thought. They were still discussing something about the previously burned mill and the farmer’s market that now happened there every Saturday, but Gage heard very little of it.

  After the bakery had started turning a consistent profit, about two years ago or so, Gage had bought a house just a couple of streets behind the bakery, thinking he could then walk to work when the weather was nice. Living on his own, he’d missed a lot of the family drama and had been the happier for it – not seeing Chris disrespect his parents at every meal was best for all involved, honestly.

  But had he also missed Chris growing up, even if it was just a little bit?

  Chris caught Gage staring at him and sent him a, “What are you staring at?” defiant look in return. Gage cooly arched one eyebrow and then deliberately turned to listen to Emma talk about an especially awful client at the architecture firm.

  Obviously, Chris may’ve grown up, but not that much.

  “…a bell tower. On top of a bank! I asked the guy point-blank if he was going to ring the bells every time someone was late on their house payment, and my boss kicked me so hard in the ankle underneath the conference table, I had a bruise for a week. But seriously! Bells on top of a bank. Next, he’s gonna want a moat filled with alligators to surround it, to protect the bank from the bank robbers or something.” Emma shook her head in disgust as ever
yone laughed. “People be weird…” she mumbled loudly under her breath. “And rich people are the worst, because no one will tell them no. My boss keeps telling me that I can’t tell clients that an idea is stupid, but if I don’t, who will?”

  Gage hid his grin behind his hand. One thing was for sure – you never had to guess how Emma felt about something or someone. She was liable to tell you, whether she probably ought to or not.

  “How did you end up in Long Valley?” Grandma asked Cady bluntly, over the remaining chuckles. They all died off instantly, everyone’s gaze swiveling to Cady. Her eyes got wide, and Gage knew that she’d been enjoying not being in the spotlight, and was probably wanting to crawl under the table any second now. “For a Boise girl,” Grandma continued crisply in her most intimidating no-nonsense voice, “Sawyer doesn’t offer much. What made you think you ought to move up here? And how do you like snow?”

  “Grandma,” Gage said defensively, “Cady doesn’t need to explain every little decision – Long Valley is beautiful. Of course she’d want to live here—”

  “It’s okay,” Cady said, putting her hand on Gage’s arm, sparks of pleasure shooting up his arm at the feel of her soft hand on him. He instantly shut up. “I was roommates with a girl from Sawyer while we were both at BSU,” Cady continued, looking his grandmother straight in the eye as she spoke. “Hannah Lambert. Teacher over at the elementary school. Anyway, we came up here a couple of times and went hiking together. Just fell in love with the area. I hadn’t been here for quite a while but I came up just after the new year and went hiking up in the Goldfork Mountains; found the empty storefront next to the Muffin Man on the way back to Boise. I didn’t have anything tying me to Boise at that point, so…” She shrugged. “I bought the store and moved.”

  “You went hiking up in the mountains in January?” Emma asked, awe in her voice. “I guess you do like snow, then.”

  Cady laughed lightly, turning to Emma with another light shrug. “A lot of people really hate it but I love it. I struggle with the short days more than I do the cold and the snow. I think I have a touch of S.A.D. but I manage okay.”

  “Sad?” Chris asked. “You mean, you cry a lot?”

  “Seasonal Affective Disorder – S.A.D.,” Cady corrected him. “It means your body doesn’t like winter months when the daylight hours are short. You’re affected by the lack of sunlight, in other words.”

  “We live in a deep valley,” Dad said, speaking for the first time since he’d said grace over dinner. “We have even less daylight here than y’all have in Boise. When the sun sets behind the Goldforks to the west, we have hours of twilight before it actually gets dark.”

  “Winter is coming,” Cady acknowledged, “so I’m just going to watch closely and see how it affects me. If it gets really bad, I’ll order in a special light.”

  At the table of blank faces all staring at her, Cady clarified, “There are special lights made specifically for people with S.A.D. They put off light that’s in the right spectrum. Helps provide enough real light – instead of artificial light – to fool your body into still functioning, even during the winter. They’re pretty expensive but much better than hibernating every winter.”

  Even Grandma looked impressed by this information, which was really saying something.

  As the conversation drifted again, Gage put his hand on Cady’s thigh and squeezed, telling her without words how proud he was of her. She smiled shyly up at him, and he felt his blood heat up.

  It’d been a whole summer now of hand holding that’d slowly morphed into kisses, but never anything more than that. Keeping his hands to himself had been agony, but today’s meeting with his family was testing his self-control to the limits. He wouldn’t have guessed that a family meal could be sexy as hell, but seeing Cady impress the people in his life who truly mattered to him; the people whose opinion he cared about…

  Yeah, it’d made him horny.

  Or, he was just in a constant state of horniness, to the point that watching paint dry would do the same thing.

  He wished he could pull her discreetly down to his old bedroom and show her just how proud he was of her, but there was little chance of that. Dinner was finally ending and Cady was helping clear off the table, chatting with Emma and Sugar as she went, while Dad, Grandpa, Chris, and Gage went into the living room. It was such a bullshit male patriarchy thing – the women did the dishes while the men went and sat on their asses – but Gage was silently thankful that Cady wasn’t protesting, at least openly, about it.

  Traditions were hard to kill off, and Grandpa Dyer was certainly of that generation where men just didn’t do dishes. Even when he and Grandma had owned the bakery, Gage had never once saw his grandfather wash a dish or a pan or even a whisk.

  Gage knew the upcoming conversation would be dull, if it even happened at all – neither his grandfather, father, or brother tended to talk much – so he decided to make the excuse that he needed to take Cream Puffs for a walk so she could have a potty break. Dad waved him off, already settling into his easy chair to read a golfing magazine, so Gage slipped down the hall to the study where they’d kept the dogs locked up during dinner and hooked a leash onto Creamy’s collar.

  Hamlet, thrilled at the idea of getting to go for a walk, danced around, his giant tail whapping and thunking against every surface in the crowded room, his deep excited bark painfully loud in the enclosed space. Moments later, Sugar showed up at the door. “Hamlet, quit it,” she scolded him and with what could only be described as a pout painted on his face, the Great Dane settled down with a low whine, crossing his paws over his nose dolefully as he watched Creamy get ready to leave.

  “That is one picked on and abused dog,” Gage said to Sugar, laughing. “I’ve never seen such sad eyes in all my life.”

  “He’s the master of guilt,” Sugar admitted, rolling her eyes. “Emma and I will take him here in a minute. He’ll live. He just gets so damn excited every time he sees a leash in someone’s hands. Are you going to take Cady with you?”

  “I hadn’t planned on it. I was just going to hurry out for a quick stroll around the block – keep Cream Puffs here from peeing on Mom’s carpet. Do you think I can sneak Cady away from the kitchen?”

  “It’s super crowded in there. Your mom’s kitchen isn’t a bad size, but it isn’t meant for that many people. Not to mention that I think your grandmother has come up with more questions to grill Cady on. You might want to save her.”

  “Shit,” Gage muttered under his breath. “Okay, thanks. See you at work tomorrow?”

  Sugar nodded as he wound his way out of the room, careful to keep Hamlet in the study as he closed the door behind him and Creamy. “Let’s stop by the kitchen real quick,” he told the puppy that was busy straining at the leash, trying to smell and lick every surface she could reach. “You can stop licking the end table leg now,” he told her dryly. “Really, it’s not necessary to taste everything you can reach, you know.”

  Cream Puffs was busy burrowing her way into a decorative basket of blankets and shawls, though, and obviously didn’t think Gage’s advice was worth worrying about as she emerged from the basket with his mother’s prize cashmere shawl clamped tightly in her mouth, tail going a million miles an hour, a look of pure pride on her tiny face.

  “Shit!” he yelped, dropping to his knees and trying to slowly pry the tiny puppy teeth off the shawl without hurting the fabric in the process. “Mom will kill you if she sees you chewing this thing up,” he told the dog seriously, finally managing to extract the shawl without destroying it. Thank God. He lifted the small animal out of the basket and snuggled her against his chest, figuring there was only so much damage she could cause while wrapped up in his arms.

  “It’s a damn good thing you’re so cute,” he told her as he worked his way towards the kitchen. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t last a day. Hey, Mom,” he said, poking his head into the kitchen, “mind if I steal my girlfriend away and we go for a walk?”

  His
mother’s eyes lit up at the word “girlfriend” and he knew that in that moment, she would’ve said yes to any request at all. She’d badgered him for so long to bring home “a nice girl,” he wasn’t sure if she’d know what to do with herself now that he’d introduced Cady to the family.

  Hmmm…Probably badger him about popping the question, actually. And then she’d be badgering him about when the wedding date would be. And then it’d become the question of when would she “finally” be able to get her hands on some grandchildren.

  His mother was impossible, honestly.

  “Of course, of course,” Mom said brightly, shooing Cady towards the door, snatching the half-washed frying pan out of Cady’s startled hands. “Us old married women don’t need help anyway. Emma, come back here!”

  Emma, who’d been oh-so-casually heading out of the kitchen alongside Cady, turned back to their mom, a guilty look on her face. “You said the married women didn’t need help,” she protested even as she began scooping up leftovers and tossing them into a Rubbermaid container. “I’m not married.”

  “And you also don’t have a boyfriend here,” Mom retorted. “Nice try.”

  Gage snagged Cady’s still-wet hands and pulled her towards the front door, not daring to put Cream Puffs down until they got outside. Once the puppy got her short legs underneath her, she took off like a rocket, chasing a leaf that was lazily drifting down from the sky. Cady had been right – it was starting to cool down and the leaves were changing. Soon, it’d be white as far as the eye could see.

  “Sorry about that,” Gage said, waving his hand back towards his parents’ house as they set off down the sidewalk, tugging Creamy back onto the sidewalk every few steps as the overly excited pup tried to tear off in a new direction to chase something equally as fun and amazing as the leaf; rolly pollies, a grasshopper, and a moth all being chased down by the ferocious predator. Gage rolled his eyes at the dog’s antics and then grinned down at Cady, snagging her hand in his and squeezing it. “My family can get sort of…overwhelming at times. They don’t mean to be.”