Chapter 40
The next day, Lauren pulled up outside the lake house and took a deep breath.
She’d double-checked her box of supplies when she’d put it in the boot, and she knew she had everything she and the twins would need for a fun afternoon’s cake baking and decorating.
She couldn’t resist a last look in her rear-view mirror, just to check that the subtle-coloured lipstick and eyeshadow she’d applied hadn’t smudged, and that her hair, pulled back with a claw clip in the shape of an exotic flower, was still in place.
Satisfied that she’d achieved an I’ve tried, but not too much look, she breathed out again and then got out of the car.
This wasn’t exactly a date, especially if Marc was being truthful and it had been the kids’ idea, but she still felt the emotional stakes had raised.
She wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this afternoon, but with the twins very much in evidence, presumably a third kiss would be out of the question.
‘Lauren, hi.’ Marc was out of the front door and hurrying over to help her with the big box she was carrying before she’d made it even halfway up the path. ‘Let me take that.’ His hands brushed hers, sending a jolt of electricity through her, as he relieved her of the box.
‘Thanks.’ Lauren smiled. ‘I’ve got a bag as well, I’ll grab that.’
‘I’ll see you in the kitchen.’ Marc’s smile made her heart beat a little faster.
He looked happy but tired, and Lauren hoped he’d had a good couple of days with his family.
Hurrying back to the car, she grabbed what she needed and eagerly went into the house, discarding her shoes on the coir mat inside the door on the way.
Padding through to the kitchen, she felt a broad smile spreading across her features. There, looking at her expectantly were Liam and Luca.
‘Hey, guys,’ she said brightly. ‘Thanks for inviting me over. I can’t wait to do some baking with you.’
‘Hi,’ one of them said, but she wasn’t quite sure which. The other stayed silent. Although she could hazard a guess from their responses, she was worried she’d struggle to tell them apart.
Marc must’ve sensed this as he rather pointedly said, ‘Liam, can you wash your hands first and then Luca, can you do the same?’ Both boys nodded obediently, and Lauren made a mental note that Liam was the one in the red Adidas T-shirt, and Luca had a blue one on.
Perhaps not being great with faces didn’t matter so much when you were dealing with identical twins, she thought.
Once the boys had come back to the kitchen island, Lauren went over to the sink and washed her hands.
As she did so, she sensed Marc moving up behind her, and she shivered as he put his hands under the tap, too.
‘The boys set me a good example,’ he murmured, close to her ear.
Shielding the movement from the twins’ gaze, he stroked his wet hands against Lauren’s under the warm, running water, until all traces of soap had disappeared.
Lauren leaned back into him, enjoying the contact.
‘Okay, chaps,’ she said, after drying off her hands. ‘Shall we begin?’ Oh my Lord, she thought, I sound like Mary bloody Poppins! ‘I mean, are you ready to get your hands dirty?’
‘Yeah!’ Luca said enthusiastically. Liam, still rather taciturn, nodded but didn’t speak.
Lauren noticed his silence and wondered if he was struggling with having a new ‘friend’ of his dad’s in the house.
It was one thing to have a chat at the café, and to make a birthday cake, but quite another to be invited into their home.
Both boys hadn’t seemed to mind on Christmas Day, but they’d had lots more to occupy them.
She reached into the bag she’d brought, and pulled out four aprons, monogrammed with the café’s name and logo. ‘I didn’t want you to get grubby, so I brought these along.’ She handed the two smaller aprons to the boys and then held out a larger one to Marc.
A little while later she was in a state of enjoyment and exasperation.
The boys were both taking cupcake baking very seriously and were stirring their mixes with solemn movements of their spatulas.
Marc, on the other hand, kept sticking fingers into their cake batter and, to Liam’s annoyance, licking the mixture before going back to his own bowl.
‘Dad!’ Liam protested as Marc did it for the third or fourth time.
‘Any more of that, and I’ll banish you from the kitchen,’ Lauren said playfully.
‘Oh, please do,’ Marc groaned. ‘Then I can have an afternoon nap! Haven’t managed one of those for years!’
Lauren looked at him and noticed that, despite his smile, he did look tired. ‘Well, I don’t mind if you want to slope off to the living room,’ she said. ‘What do you think, boys? Should we give Dad a break? Can we handle this mission alone from here?’
‘Oh no, I wasn’t being serious!’ Marc interjected hurriedly. ‘I, er, I mean we didn’t invite you round to do all the hard work. We were supposed to be treating you, remember?’
Lauren tried not to feel too smug that Marc had let slip that this had been his idea, after all.
She met his gaze for a long moment, trying to make clear that she understood, and was flattered.
‘It’s fine,’ she said gently. ‘You deserve a little break. I’ll help the boys get the cakes in the oven, and then we’ll come and wake you up. ’
‘If you’re sure?’
‘Go and put your feet up!’ Lauren laughed.
She’d been feeling nervous when she’d arrived, but spending some time in this charming kitchen, with the winter sun streaming in through the large window that, like the living room, looked out over the lake, had rapidly begun to relax her.
The boys had been sweet, even if Liam had been markedly less friendly than Luca.
Liam hadn’t said much, but Luca had made up for his brother with an endless stream of chatter.
Marc threw her a grateful glance and as he passed her on his way to the living room, he reached out and brushed her hand with his.
The brief contact sent a run of gooseflesh down her arm.
There was no doubting that she was attracted to him.
A pleasant kind of anticipation settled in the pit of her stomach at where this might lead.
‘Lauren! Luca’s licking my spatula!’ Liam’s shrill voice interrupted her reverie.
‘No I’m not!’ Luca shot back. ‘It’s mine.’
‘No it isn’t.’ Liam gave his brother a shove, and Lauren saw the other boy’s eyes fill with tears.
‘Hey,’ she said, gently but firmly. ‘We’ve got cupcakes to put in the oven.
I can’t have the two of you messing about when we’ve got such serious things to do.
And we haven’t even thought about how we’re gonna decorate them yet.
’ She hurriedly grabbed the silicon cupcake moulds she brought with her and popped them in front of the boys.
‘Here you go. Try to spoon equal amounts into each mould, and then we’ll end up with cakes all the same size, which will be easier to decorate. ’
The boys were young enough to be distracted by this task and Lauren inwardly breathed a sigh of relief.
Child wrangling was something she’d had to learn whilst running the café, even if most of the time the parents who visited with their children did manage to keep their little ones under control.
Usually, a hard stare from Lauren was enough to keep fingers out of sugar bowls or from venturing under the cloches on the counter, but this baking lesson would need a slightly firmer hand, she now realised.
She spun out the mould-filling task as long as she could; Marc would appreciate a little more time alone. But, eventually, she helped Liam and Luca put their cake trays into the oven and then pulled out the other weapon in her baking arsenal: sketch pads.
‘Here you go,’ she said, handing a pad to each boy, along with a small pack of colouring pencils and one to draw with.
She’d pilfered the small sketch pads from her mother’s studio, and managed to dig out some sets of pencils, too.
Myriam worked mostly in paint, but every so often, when she was coming up with a rough concept, she liked to sketch things out before going to the canvas.
Lauren was sure her mother wouldn’t mind being a couple of pads down.
‘While the cakes are baking, why don’t you have a think about the designs you’d like to put on them?’
Luca smiled at her. ‘I want to put dinosaurs on mine,’ he said quickly. Grabbing out the HB pencil from the pack, he eagerly began drawing out his version of a stegosaurus.
‘What about you, Liam?’
Liam glanced at her and then looked sullenly down at his page. ‘Dunno.’
‘Well, what do you really like? We can try to recreate that on top of a cake.’
Liam ignored her. Lauren got the distinct impression that he didn’t like her very much; that he was merely tolerating her because his dad had invited her over.
‘Would you like me to draw something out for you? How about a picture of Minecraft Steve, like you had on your cake?’
‘No!’ Liam snatched up the pad and pencils and stomped off to the window seat on the far wall of the kitchen. Lauren watched as he flumped down, chucking the pad and pencils on the floorboards.
Glancing towards the direction of the hallway, Lauren simultaneously wanted Marc to come in and mediate, but also to try to build a tentative bridge towards Liam herself. This is definitely out of my comfort zone, she thought to herself.