by Maisey Yates
She heard a loud groan from across the kitchen, and turned just in time to see her problem child pulling another sunken cake out of the oven.
She could fire Violet. She could blame it on the cake. No one would ever have to know it was because she thought Violet’s dad was hot.
No. She wasn’t going to do that. The entire cornerstone of her business was helping women. If she compromised that mission because of a man... Well. Hypocrisy, that’s what it was.
“You’re still having trouble, Violet?” she asked, once she had her rogue thoughts under control.
“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.” She looked so distressed that all of Alison’s petty thoughts faded away.
“I’ll tell you what. I’m going to help you. I’m going to spend extra time on this with you.”
Violet shifted uncomfortable, tucking a strand of dark hair that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear. “I don’t know if I can get down here for that. Or stay late or anything. My dad has to get up super early to work and I don’t have my license yet.”
“Okay,” Alison said, feeling determined now. She had been passive, once upon a time. That was not her way now. Now, when she got the bug to do something, she dug her heels right in. “Is there space to cook at your place?”
“I guess so. We’re staying in my uncle Finn’s house, and his kitchen is gigantic.”
“Do you think anyone would mind if I came over after shift and helped you with a few things?”
Violet blinked, obviously surprised by the offer. “No. Probably none of them will be around. Finn will be with Lane, my dad will be... Well, anywhere but in the house. My other two uncles... Mostly I don’t want to know what they’re up to.”
She wasn’t quite sure what to make of the comment about her dad, but it suited Alison to think he wouldn’t be around. “Perfect. Actually, if you want to text your dad and let him know that I can drive you home...”
Violet frowned. “You don’t have to do that. It seems like you’re doing an awful lot for me.” And that clearly made the teenager uncomfortable. But Alison was willing to make her uncomfortable for the sake of proving she was valued.
She’d needed that. And no one in her life had given it.
“Yes,” Alison said. “I am. But you should never feel like you don’t deserve that, Violet.” Alison felt passionate about this part of her job, about this part of the bakery, and her calling. Because she had spent so many years living in a dark hole. Thinking that she didn’t even deserve to see the sun, not after what she had submitted herself to for so many years. It was difficult to ask for help when you’d half convinced yourself that it was your own fault you needed it.
Now that she was in a position to offer help to other people, now that she wasn’t in quite such a desperate situation, she wanted them to feel the freedom in accepting help. In feeling that they deserved it.
Especially somebody as young as Violet. She wanted her to always know that she could ask for extra help if she needed it. That she wasn’t a burden. That she could offer help herself when she saw the need, and she was able.
“I don’t understand why you’re being so nice,” Violet responded.
“This is something that I can do. I’m good at baking. And I’m good at helping other people learn how to do it. Or if not baking specifically, then job skills in general. Why wouldn’t I want to pass that on?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to know. But I do want to help. So after work we’re going to tackle more cake. If you think you’re up to it.”
“Definitely,” Violet said, looking a little more certain now.
“Great.”
Alison attacked the rest of the day with a solid sense of determination. She felt...a renewed sense of something. And she was rolling with it. By the time they closed up shop, she was feeling even more amped up.
Last night’s sense of...whatever that had been had faded. She didn’t need attraction. She didn’t need flirting. She had this. She was making a difference.
“Are you ready?” she asked Violet, grabbing a few of the ingredients she would need to do some more specialized baking tonight and piling her arms high with them.
“Yes,” Violet said. “Do you need help?”
“Yes. If you could get those icing bags and a couple of different extracts—whatever you’re in the mood for—that would be great.”
Violet complied, pausing briefly in front of the various flavored extracts. “What should I choose?”
“If we were making your birthday cake, what would you pick?”
“Lemon. And vanilla. Lemon for the cake, vanilla for the frosting.”
“Then choose those. We are going to make a badass lemon vanilla cake.”
Violet looked absolutely delighted by that. And Alison wasn’t sure she had ever seen the teenager delighted before.
Violet was almost chatty on the drive out of town, up to the ranch that she and her father were living on. Alison had never been to Finn’s house, though given the fact that Lane was almost living there now, she had a feeling that she would have been invited up soon enough.
The house itself was set back from the main road, at the end of a long, winding driveway. A stunning log creation that almost seemed to flow with the nature around it. “This is... Well, it’s beautiful,” Alison said as she pulled up to the expansive dwelling.
“I guess so,” Violet said, her enthusiasm noticeably dampened.
“You don’t like it here?” Alison asked, turning her car engine off and unbuckling.
“I don’t know. It’s not that I don’t like it, I guess.” Except she clearly didn’t.
“An issue with ranch life or small-town life?” Alison asked.
“I don’t know. It’s just different. It’s cold and there’s nothing to do in town. We lived on a ranch in Texas but we were closer to a city.”
“I’ve never lived anywhere but Copper Ridge,” Alison said. “Though I’ve fantasized about running away a few times.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I just don’t know where I would run to.”
“Adults can’t really run away. They just move.” Violet let out a heavy sigh. “They have all the control.”
“That isn’t true,” Alison said. “Adults can most definitely run away. Mostly when they feel like they aren’t in control. Anyway. Let’s get all of the baking stuff.” She got out of the car, inhaling a deep breath of the sweet, pine-scented air. She loved her little apartment on Main Street, right above the bakery. Right in the heart of town. But sometimes, she craved an escape. A sanctuary.
She certainly wouldn’t say no to a luxury cabin in the middle of the woods.
She and Violet collected the ingredients, and the two of them walked up to the porch together. Violet pushed the door open, and Alison followed her inside.
Then she followed the girl into the most beautiful kitchen she had ever seen. The rest of the cabin was nice, but there was nothing like a custom kitchen with a view to get Alison’s heart pumping. For some strange reason, the sight threw her mind back to the tiny house she’d lived in on the outskirts of town only four years ago.
Four years. It felt like a lifetime. Like it had been another person. Pale, beaten down.
For some reason, when she took a step forward she could almost feel that tacky yellow linoleum beneath her shoe. She shook her head. She was walking across a gorgeous stone floor, in a beautiful home that bore absolutely no resemblance to the house she had once shared with her ex-husband, Jared. There was no reason to think of him now. And yet, she found herself thinking of him sometimes at the strangest moments. Moments that shouldn’t remind her of him, but somehow did.
Resolutely, she set the ingredients down on the granite-topped island in the middle of the room, the sudden mo
tion and the noise that it made forcing her back into the present. “Okay,” she said, “let’s get baking.”
CHAPTER SIX
WHEN CAIN CAME back in from his evening chores, the house smelled amazing, and the sound of clattering dishes was filtering out of the kitchen. He wondered if Lane was here cooking something for dinner. That was his favorite part of his brother having a girlfriend. The fact that she fed all of them, and happily. In fact, she saw to it like it was a mission.
Lane owned the Mercantile in town, and specialty foods were her passion. That meant that she simply wouldn’t let any of them go unfed on her watch, or fed on cruddy, frozen meals.
It suited him just fine. Though Finn’s disgusting happiness and constant look of satisfaction got a little bit old. But there was food.
He made his way into the kitchen, and stopped, feeling like he had been slugged in the stomach.
Because there she was, red hair piled on top of her head, bent over in front of the oven, showing off an ass that was even more perfect than he had imagined it might be. He knew it was Alison. There was no one else it could be. Nobody else affected him like this. Wasn’t that a joke?
“What’s going on?”
Both Violet and Alison jumped. “Baking practice,” Violet responded, lifting a red spatula.
“Okay,” he said, but it wasn’t okay at all. Because temptation had walked right into his house, and he was doing his very best to stay away from temptation.
“I thought... I thought you knew,” Alison said.
“No,” he returned.
“Sorry,” Violet said, looking more angry than sorry. “I said that Alison was bringing me home. I didn’t think you needed details. I figured I wouldn’t see you at all.”
What struck him was the way that his daughter’s body language had changed since realizing he was there. When he had walked in she had looked happy, at least the small blips he had gotten of her before his gaze had fixated on Alison’s butt. And now she was back to looking angry. Angry and tense.
So, it was just him, then.
“The cake is almost done,” Alison said. “Do you want to do the honors, Violet?”
Violet gave him a wary look. “I guess.”
“It’s okay that I’m here, right?” Alison asked him.
That woman. She had no problem coming at him from the front. Of course, not exactly the way that he fantasized about her coming at him from the front. He’d like to come at her from behind. He tried to ignore the kick of heat that pooled in his gut at that thought.
“Of course,” he said. “Have you had dinner?”
He didn’t know why he was testing this line. Or maybe he did. Because she was here. She was here in his house. Baiting him with her perfect ass. And if she was going to do that, then he was going to push right back.
“No,” she said. “But that’s fine.”
“What’s fine?”
“You don’t need to feed me.”
He crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame. “I didn’t offer to.”
“Dad,” Violet said, jerking him out of the interaction, and out of the haze that had descended upon him. “What’s your problem?”
“Nothing. But I do think that Alison should stay for dinner. And then we can enjoy the cake afterward. I was just giving her a hard time.”
“Whatever. You’re weird. Can I...” She shot a sideways glance at Alison. “I just want to talk to my friends until dinner.”
“You’re not on the clock,” Alison pointed out. “But thanks for asking.”
“Well, I didn’t want to deprive you of my company,” Violet added.
“Go talk to your friends,” Cain said. “We’d hate for them to experience Violet deprivation.”
Violet walked out of the kitchen, pulling her phone out of her pocket as she moved away from them to head up the stairs.
His stomach tightened, a strange sense of anticipation stealing over him. Oh, yes, he remembered this. Very vaguely. That crackle of possibility that sizzled over your skin when you were near somebody that you wanted. When you wondered if you were going to have them.
It had been a long time. But he still remembered that.
And he wondered where all his common sense was. That common sense that told him he needed to steer clear of a woman who was so involved in his daughter’s life.
But then, flirting wasn’t sex.
It had just been so long since a woman had looked at him like that. With color in her cheeks. Since he had felt this kind of excitement. Since he had wanted.
“I hope she’s better for you than she is for me,” he said, not really meaning to lead with mention of his daughter. But then, he supposed that was a pretty fitting metaphor for his life. Violet came first. No matter what. Even when he would rather just be a man, just talk to a beautiful woman, he couldn’t really. Because he was a father. First and foremost.
His ex-wife might have forgotten that. But he hadn’t. He never would.
“She’s fine, honestly. I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you, but with me she’s fine.”
“Normal teenage stuff, I guess.” he said, making his way over to the fridge and opening the freezer. There were several meals that had been premade by Lane there, ready for them to heat up when necessary. “Did you like your parents when you were a teenager?”
“No,” she said. “Not even a little bit. But I don’t like them very much now either.”
“That...isn’t encouraging.”
“Do you have a better relationship than that with your parents?”
He laughed. “Hell no.”
“Right. Well, then.”
“Do you have a food preference?” he asked. “It looks like there’s pasta, pot roast and...meat loaf? All made by Lane Jensen.”
“Then all of it will be good,” Alison said. “Lane is one of my best friends, so I’ve eaten most of her food.”
“Right,” he said, “I know that she’s a good friend of yours. She talks about you a lot. And she kind of helped Violet get the job at your bakery, right?”
“Oh,” Alison said, leaning against the island in the kitchen, tucking a stray curl behind her year. “Right. What else has she... She talks about me?”
She looked concerned by that. Which seemed strange to him. “She hasn’t told me anything.”
“Okay. Good to know.”
“I’m voting for pasta,” he said lightly, taking a metal pan out of the freezer. “I had a long workday.”
“Have you always been a rancher?” she asked. “I mean, Lane did tell me a little bit about you. Or, I mean about Violet. But I applied some of it to you.”
“Right. Well, then you know we just moved here from Texas. And yes, I have always been a rancher. I sold the spread back in Dallas. That was beef, this is different. But I like different. Violet not so much.”
“Well, you know what they say. You can please some of the people some of the time... But you can’t please teenagers ever.”
He laughed, making his way over to the oven and sticking the pan of pasta inside. “True. Very true.”
“Really though, she’s not bad as far as teens go. She’s a good kid.”
He felt a momentary flash of... Something. Jealousy almost? That this woman, this stranger, got something from his own child that he didn’t. And then, he was just pissed. Pissed that he was standing here with a beautiful woman, the first woman he wanted to touch since his divorce, and he couldn’t.
Because of his daughter who hated him anyway.
“Do you want to come sit in the living room while that warms up?”
That was better than inviting her up to his room, which was what he actually wanted to do.
“Sure,” she said.
They bo
th walked into the living room, and he took a seat on the couch. She took the chair across from him. Probably for the best.
“She’s a good kid,” Alison repeated, keeping her eyes focused on the window, on the view outside. Which was pretty spectacular. His grandfather had had the custom home built a few years ago, if Cain understood the timeline correctly. It was nestled in the center of the mountain, taking advantage of the scenery of the valley and the fields below.
“You said that,” he responded.
“Yes,” she said, “I did. And I mean it. She’s a good kid. But I think she needs to take a little more of her own responsibility. She could be driving herself to work. And she can definitely get herself up in the morning.”
Irritation streaked through him, heat that rivaled the heat of attraction that had been firing in his gut just a moment before. “Excuse me?”
“She can take more responsibility than she is. I understand that you’re feeling protective because you just moved here...”
“Look, I know you think that you know the situation because Lane told you some things, but you don’t. I do feel protective of her. Very protective. She’s been through enough.”
“Yes. But I have a feeling that part of the reason she’s sometimes surly with you is that you’re hovering a little too much.”
“No. That isn’t it. Just ask her. She feels like she doesn’t see me. She’s mad at me because I have a job, and because I don’t talk to her, which she doesn’t actually want. Because she hates me.” He was not going to let this woman, no matter how sexy, tell him anything about his relationship with his daughter.
Because you’re such an expert about your relationship with your daughter?
He ignored that obnoxious inner voice.
“Hovering over her and driving her to work, and coming in to talk to her boss when she’s late isn’t the same as spending time with her,” Alison said calmly.
