Page 30 of Whisking It All

Her eyes went wide, the way his words had wounded her visible in her gaze for a fraction of a second before she wiped her expression clean. He closed his eyes and forced himself to take three deep breaths before he said anything more. It wasn’t her fault that he was on edge every time she was near, like his nerves were misfiring, bees buzzing beneath his skin. She was his best friend’s daughter, for Christ’s sake, and the more time he spent with her, the more confident he was that she had no ulterior motives for being in town. For Ethan’s sake, Jamie should be making her feel welcome. Wanted. As a part of the town, a colleague, nothing more.

“I just meant—”

“I know what you meant,” she muttered. “Don’t worry. I’ll go exploring on my own. I won’t waste any more of your valuable time. Chef.”

Fuck.

She swiped her notebook from the table and stormed towards the spiral staircase that led down to the main floor of the vineyard. Jamie cursed under his breath and strode across the room after her.

“Tessa, wait.”

“It’s fine,” she said without looking at him or slowing her stride. She was halfway down the stairs before he even began descending. “Don’t you have to get back to the restaurant anyway?”

“Will you slow down?”

How the hell did she walk so fast?

At the bottom of the stairs, Tessa turned and pushed through the French doors into Sugar Grapes. Jamie followed, just catching the door before it smacked him in the face. The lights were all off, café chairs stacked neatly on top of tables, the display case empty.

He pulled up short, his leather shoes squeaking on the black and white tile floor, as his gaze fell on the wall behind the counter. Giant glass jars lined the back wall, each filled to the brim with a different color of sprinkle, arranged in rainbow order. One jar contained nothing but edible pearls. Another was filled with tiny nonpareils. Above the row of jars, a series of brightly colored paintings hung on the wall, each one a close up of a different fruit or vegetable rendered in messy brushstrokes and paint splatters. A bunch of rainbow carrots, an assortment of berries, a perfectly ripe peach. They were somehow at once childlike and sophisticated, unpretentious subject matter and exuberant art.

“Tessa…”

She turned to look at him, her face falling when she noticed the way his eyes darted around her redecorating.

“Please just…don’t.” He turned a questioning gaze her way. “I don’t want to hear it if you hate it.”

“Why would you assume I hate it?”

He followed the counter around the corner to a series of Fiestaware cake stands, each a different height and glossy color, each waiting for a creation as outrageous as the lime green and mauve porcelain. At the end of the counter, next to the station where cakes would be cut and plated, a stainless-steel cylinder held an assortment of spatulas and cake servers, each with a robin’s egg blue handle. For a moment he thought of Whisky, stocking her kitchen with oven mitts and dish towels in the same color.

Tessa crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him, though her glare was more sad than angry. He took a step towards her, compelled to touch her, but stopped himself, shoving his hands into his jeans pockets.

He held her gaze and dropped his voice, hoping she could hear the sincerity. “I don’t hate it.”

“You kinda do, though. A little bit,” she said.

“Not even a little bit,” he said, taking another step towards her. He tilted his head towards the painting of the peach. “Though that one’s borderline obscene.”

She barked out a surprised laugh, and he couldn’t help but smile at the sound.

“If we’re going to do this—be partners for this festival—you need to trust me,” he said.

“And you need to respect my process.”

“Okay,” he said. He held out his hand to her. “Partners?”

She gripped his hand in his and gave it a firm shake. “Partners.”

Jamie pulled his hand away, that buzzing feeling overtaking his skin, and shoved it back into his pocket. “If you want to be inspired by the local ingredients, you aren’t going to find them in an art gallery or on the beach.”

Tessa rolled her eyes. “I thought you were going to respect my process.”

“Will you listen for two seconds?”

“Will you talk faster?”

He bit the inside of his cheeks to keep from laughing and met her challenging stare with one of his own. Mistake. He had a feeling he could stare into her eyes for hours and still not discover all their secrets, the way the color shifted like water beneath moonlight.

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