Page 18 of Fire and Icing

The bell over the door rings. It’s still early enough that the stream of customers is constant. I look toward the door, a ready smile on my face. “Welcome in …” My words trail off when I see the man standing in the doorway, holding it open for a mother and her two children to pass him.

“Go ahead,” he says, as if he’s always considerate of people’s God-given volition.

Dustin, the rookie who hauled me out of my house during the kitchen fire, strides to the counter and leans his forearm on the glass I just wiped down only minutes ago.

Sydney appears at my side, nudging me. “Uh, Emberleigh? A word?”

She steps back toward the coffee station. I follow her, holding my pointer finger up to Dustin. “Give me a second, please.”

“What’s up?” I ask Sydney.

Her voice is barely hushed. Dustin definitely hears her exclaim, “Wowzah. Oh. Goodness. I mean, yes. Yes, indeed.”

“Get a grip,” I mumble to her. “I think you’re drooling. And did you just call me away from the counter to freak out over a man—thatman?”

“The bigger question is, why aren’t you drooling?” Sydney whispers to me. “That brawny, chiseled, walking wall of muscle had you over his shoulder!”

“Without my consent,” I remind her.

I look over at him. If I hadn’t been the one standing in my kitchen one minute and then whisked off my feet and viewing the world upside down the next, I could see the appeal. He’s smiling a nonchalant smile. Warm. That’s what it says. Not, I’ll lift you and spin you without your permission. If we had met in a normal way, maybe I’d see what Syd’s seeing.

Syd puts the back of her hand on my forehead. I jerk back, glancing toward the customers who are waiting at our counter.

“What are you doing?” I ask Sydney under my breath.

She’s not nearly as discreet when she answers me. “Taking your temp. You must be ill. How else would you explain resisting him? You totally undersold the hotness factor in the retelling of your house fire.”

“We’ll take this up later,” I mutter.

I return to our customers, intentionally avoiding Dustin’s eyes, which are definitely riveted on me and Sydney. “Good morning, Melissa. Hi, Peyton and Libby.”

“Morning!” Melissa’s twins greet me. “We want the smiley face cookie,” Peyton tells me. “We each get our own one.”

“You do, do you? Well, let me check with your mom on that.” I look at Melissa and she nods.

“Can I throw in a few of these baby donuts?” I point to the stack of donut holes in the glass case. “For another day?”

“That’s so sweet of you, Emberleigh,” Melissa says.

I may have recently lived through a fire that’s going to cost me an arm and a leg to repair, but I’m not about to stop handing out free treats to my favorite customers. I’ll figure out other ways to pinch pennies—I’m going to have to figure out something. The bakery won’t close this year, but our expenses have exceeded our income over the past few months and you can’t keep running a business in a deficit.

I set all thoughts of our bottom line out of my head and smile at Melissa.

“How about a latte?” I ask her.

“I’d love one.” Her eyes drift to Dustin.

He smiles a winsome smile at her. Then he glances over at me and our eyes lock. I busy myself with getting the twins their cookies. “Syd, can you help the rookie?”

“Gladly.” She nearly bounds to the spot next to me at the counter.

“I’m Sydney … Syd … Call me Syd. All my friends call me Syd,” she blurts to Dustin, tilting her head and doing everything short of batting her lashes at the man taking up the space of two normal-sized humans in front of our counter. “It’s so good to finally meet the hero who rescued my partner from her house fire.”

“A minor kitchen fire. Mostly contained before he arrived,” I mutter.

I ring up Melissa’s order, passing the bags of cookies and donut holes to the twins and setting her coffee in front of the register.

“Oh!” Melissa exclaims to Dustin. “You’re the new fireman in town?”

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