Page 78 of Whisking It All

“Thank you for telling me,” Tessa said, turning her hand over under Dot’s and squeezing the old woman’s hand.

“You’ve had a home here your whole life, Tessa Jayne, just waiting for you to come claim it.”

Chapter 24

Tessa was in the kitchen arranging the bouquet of black-eyed Susans Dot had sent her home with when Jamie arrived. He tapped on the door so lightly she might not have heard him if she hadn’t been expecting him.

“Come in!” she called. “I’m in the kitchen!”

A moment later Jamie appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, his jeans clinging to his powerful thighs, the sleeves of his Henley pushed up to display his forearms, and that damn French tuck drawing attention to the taper of his narrow hips. Looking that sexy while just standing there shouldn’t be a thing, yet somehow Jameson Chase managed.

He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist as she continued snipping off the ends of the stems and dropping them into a vase. He pressed hot kisses to the curve of her neck, slowly pulling the collar of her slouchy cropped sweater aside to give him more access to the place where her neck met her shoulder.

“What’s with the flowers?” he asked.

“They’re from Mrs. Blumenthal,” Tessa said, wedging the last flower into the vase.

“I think those are your grandmother’s favorites,” Jamie said.

She turned in the circle of his arms and draped her arms around his neck. “They are.”

She stopped herself just short of telling him about her conversation with Mrs. Blumenthal that afternoon, about the way it left her feeling sad and at peace all at the same time. That wasn’t what she and Jamie were doing—sharing those parts of themselves. Just like when he’d been DDB, those were the types of personal details they didn’t share. The only difference was that now she got to touch him, taste him, feel him. She’d share other parts of herself, instead.

“What’s that?” he asked, tilting his chin towards the counter.

She turned her head, catching sight of the notebook she’d been scribbling in off and on all day. It was open to one of her many lists of restaurants and off-the-beaten-path cafes she’d read about online, names of specific dishes she wanted to be sure to try, a handful of landmarks she’d always wanted to see.

“That’s how I plan all my trips,” she said. “Have you been to Italy?”

He shook his head, a line forming between his eyebrows. “No. I’ve never been abroad.”

“Really? Why not?”

He shrugged. “I just never had a reason.”

“Going is the reason,” she said with a smile. “Seeing what’s out there. Experiencing new things.”

He grunted, his hands tightening and flexing on her waist. “I would have thought Italy was already on your list,” he said.

She smiled. Of course he remembered her list of places she was dying to visit. They’d talked about it at length back when he was DDB and she was Whisky. “It is. Top of the list actually.”

“Right. I guess Italy is a lot more exciting than Aster Bay.”

He began to pull away from her, but she caught his shirt in one fist, pulling him back and kissing him until the tension melted from his shoulders and his hands closed around her hips again.

“Aster Bay’s not so bad,” she said with a smile. She flipped a page in her notebook to show him a different list, one of all the things Kyla and her customers at the bakery had been telling her she had to do and see before she left town.

His eyes snapped to hers, searching. Questioning. She wasn’t ready to answer those questions, so she looked away, her eyes falling on the small toolbox he’d set down in the doorway when he’d come in.

“What with the toolbox?” she asked, arching her eyebrow.

He bent his head and captured her lips, licking into her mouth with lazy strokes of his tongue, like he could taste the answers she wasn’t prepared to give if he kissed her long enough. He pulled back just enough to speak, but she could still feel the movement of his mouth against hers as he formed the words. “It’s time to take care of your ghost problem, princess.”

She laughed. “Oh, no. Not Bob.”

“I’m afraid so,” he said, drawing a line of hot kisses across her jaw, nuzzling into her hair. “I need my girl to be well rested. Can’t have a ghost keeping you up all night.” He drew back to look at her, a wicked gleam in his eyes. “That’s my job.”

She bit her lip, forcing down the wild flurry of butterflies in her stomach. My girl.

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