Page 54 of Whisking It All

“Picture it,” she said, setting her nearly empty coffee cup down and holding her hands out as if they were the lens of a camera. “Bonfires all up and down the beach, lots of cozy flannel blankets to snuggle up in, everyone wearing knit hats and mittens and puffy coats. I have a killer red wine hot chocolate recipe. Oh! We get an artist to sculpt a giant gingerbread house out of sand and everyone can help decorate it with seashells and beach glass.” She dropped her hands and turned to him, practically dancing with the excitement of it.

“That sounds…amazing.” He furrowed his brow, confusion marring his finely shaped features. “How did you come up with that?”

She shrugged, suppressing a smile at the unexpected praise. “Don’t ask me to explain my genius. I couldn’t even if I tried.”

He barked out a laugh, the first unselfconscious sound he’d given her all day. She wanted more.

She grasped his hand and tugged. “Come on. Let’s go check it out.”

He fell into step beside her, but he didn’t release her hand, though their grip on each other was so loose that, had he been anyone else, she wouldn’t have even noticed the warmth of his skin against hers. It was at least ten degrees cooler at the water’s edge, but between the man beside her and the sun on her back, she didn’t care.

At the bottom of the stone steps, she plopped down in the sand, pulling off her sneakers and socks.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“What does it look like?”

“It’s too cold to—”

“Are you always so worried about the cold? I haven’t been on a real beach in years. You better believe I’m digging my toes into the sand.”

She set her shoes aside, socks tucked neatly inside, and burrowed her feet beneath the sand. Jamie was right—it was too cold. But she didn’t care. It felt like drippy ice cream cones and the stiffness of salt water drying on skin, the smell of sunscreen and hot dogs on a charcoal grill. Like playing cards with Gramps and helping Grama make cookies. It felt like home.

The thought planted itself deep in her gut, roots wrapping around her vital organs. Home. How had she forgotten that this was how home felt?

“Hey.” Jamie’s voice, soft and concerned broke through her thoughts as he knelt down beside her. “Hey, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she said, looking up at him with a watery smile. When had she started crying?

“Then why are you crying?”

“I don’t know,” she laughed. She drew in a deep breath of salty ocean air as her hair whipped around her face, sticking to the wet places on her cheeks.

A moment later, Jamie’s large shoes landed with a thunk next to hers and she looked over to see him rolling up the legs of his jeans and digging his toes into the sand beside her.

“I thought you said it was too cold,” she teased.

He shot her a glare, but she caught the twitch of his lip, the way he clenched his jaw to keep from smiling. She laughed, knocking his shoulder with hers.

“What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the small tattoo on the outside of her ankle.

“It’s a whisk,” she said, moving her foot closer to him so he could see the delicate lines of grey-green ink.

“Why a whisk?” he asked, his voice strangely stiff.

“Why not?” At his exasperated glance she took pity on the man and continued. “I like what it represents.”

“Baking?”

“No. I mean, yes, obviously baking, but it’s more about what a whisk does. How it’s used.”

“It breaks things down,” he said slowly. “Pulls them apart.”

She shook her head. “No, you’re thinking about it all wrong. It doesn’t pull them apart; it winds them together. It incorporates ingredients until they can never be separated again.”

He ran his thumb over the small tattoo, his finger wiping the last grains of sand away and making her shiver. When he spoke, the words were nearly lost to the crash of the waves. “I don’t know how I didn’t notice it before.”

“Before,” she repeated. He glanced up at her, the low simmering heat there making it clear exactly what before he was thinking of. “You weren’t exactly focused on my ankles before.”

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