Chapter Ten
Idon’t think I’ve ever met a woman who manages to look both extremely cute and devastatingly sexy at the same time.
Before Izzy, that is.
She wraps the ties of the festive apron I’ve handed her, the cartoonish autumn leaves falling all around across the burnt umber cloth, and smiles up at me with a clap.
“Put me to work!”
With a huff of laughter, I do just that, laying out the recipe for Mom’s pan de polvo cookies and letting her measure out the dry ingredients into a giant mixing bowl, while I handle the wet ingredients in a smaller one.
When flour puffs up into the air and sprays all over the front of her apron, and around it onto her dark green shirt, she stands frozen and wide-eyed, lips parted.
The rumble of laughter in my chest is impossible to stop, and I press my lips between my teeth to at least try to keep quiet, only managing to nearly spit my laugh instead when her gray eyes fall on me and those lush lips purse.
“I… I am so sorry,” I manage between my laughter. “You just…” I shake my head before heading to the sink to dampen a towel and return to Izzy. Gently, I wipe the white powder from her chin and cheeks, then her hair, stopping short of wiping the front of her body down.
The fact that I want to so badly sobers me. Part of my brain screams how creepy that is, and that she’s a total stranger and doesn’t know me, while my body longs to pull her close, touch her skin with my fingertips…
Instead, I hand her the dampened towel, which she takes with an embarrassed smile, turning her back on me to wipe herself off.
Things are quieter afterward until I set her up at the standing mixer on the wall opposite the fridge while I set up the baking sheets with parchment paper.
I watch her every so often as she stops the mixer to pour some of the wet ingredients in, wipes down the sides of the bowl with her spatula, then starts it up again.
This is the first time I’m not baking alone for the holidays in a couple of years. Actually, the first time baking or cooking with someone for any reason in all that time.
Asher can’t cook for shit.
I rub at my chest absently as Izzy turns her grinning face up at me, carrying the mixing bowl over to the counter where I stand with prepared baking sheets and a tray of cinnamon and sugar.
After we’ve washed our hands, I pass her a cookie scoop.
“We scoop the dough, roll it into a ball like this,” I tell her, doing each thing as I say it.
“Then, we drop the dough balls into this tray and roll them around to coat them.” When I finish doing just that, I plop the ball onto the baking sheet, flattening the bottom a touch. “And that’s all there is to it.”
“I think I can handle that. You know, without dumping the tray of cinnamon and sugar all over myself.” Her grin is saucy, those eyes narrowing on me, making me laugh again.
As we prep the cookies, I tell her, “For Christmas, we used to use colored sugar crystals.”
“I love that,” she says. “Festive is my jam.”
I peer at her as she works like a machine, rolling, coating, and placing all the cookies on the baking sheet. My heart aches at the thought of her not being with me—with us—at Christmastime, too.
I should be happy she’s here at all, and I know it. I really do. But… already, I know I am never going to want to let her leave. Not even the scent neutralizers have dulled the pull I feel.
How in the world are we going to convince her to stay?
“What’s all this?”
Asher stands just inside the kitchen doorway, dark eyes wide as they track Izzy’s movements before assessing the rest of the kitchen mayhem.
“Thanksgiving cookies!” Izzy tells him, holding up a raw dough ball. “Want to help?”
I laugh as Asher cringes. “I’m absolute rubbish in the kitchen.” He looks at me then. “This is for the charity?”
“Yeah. The drive is tomorrow.”
He nods before gesturing to the kitchen table beside him, where plastic trays, wraps, and ribbons sit with scissors and tape. “May I?”
Last year, Asher handled all the wrapping, and to my surprise, he did it like a professional paid employee at a fancy gift shop. “I’d appreciate it,” I tell him. “If you could do it like last year, with equal amounts of the different cookies, that would be great.”
“Right-O.”
“Last year?” Izzy’s gaze bounces between us.
“Um, yeah,” I say, brow tightening. “I guess Asher didn’t tell you he was here.”
“Sorry about that,” Asher says as he passes us by with a plastic tray and heads for the cooled cookies behind us. “Must’ve slipped my mind.” After he returns to the table, he adds, “When I’d said I’ve been here for over a year, I meant here at the B it’s so low and holds a tinge of growl beneath my words.
When she’d mentioned the “old job” where she met Asher, I didn’t think she’d meant she was currently unemployed.
Izzy doesn’t seem to notice, sighing before leaning her hip against the island and crossing her arms. “Yeah. It sucks. But I’m going to do everything in my power to get back to work.
” A frown. “I mean, I don’t know if anyone is going to be hiring in the industry over the holidays, but I have to keep trying. ”
“That’s what you’ve been doing in your room? Searching for a job?”
A small look of embarrassment crosses her face. “That, and working on a little personal project.”
“Are you finding anything?”
It’s strange, this war that goes on between my thoughts and emotions, part hoping Izzy gets everything she wants and finds a job that will value her, the other hoping she doesn’t find anything and has to stay with us.
And guilt over the selfish thoughts begins to strangle me from within, mixed with the nagging realization that even if she doesn’t find a job, there’s no reason for her to stay here.
Not yet.
“So, Will,” Izzy peers at me before joining Asher at the table where he’s making his gift displays. “Are you expecting any other guests here for the holidays?”
“No, actually,” I confess. “Honestly, most people who come here stay at the big hotel. But that’s okay with me.
” My smile is forced. “There are only four guest rooms here, and with me running the place alone, I usually only advertise two vacancies at a time to keep things more personable and not stretch myself too thin.”
Her onyx brows draw together with unasked questions, and I smile for real this time.
“You want to know how I’m running this place alone.”
She winces, blinks. “I… it’s not my business.”
How wrong she is. Everything to do with me is her business, even if she doesn’t realize it yet.
I head over to the island and sit on the stool closest to her. “Like I said before, I grew up in Crescent Lake. Born and raised. Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Asher pauses his arranging and looks at me, hands on top of the table. Izzy sits sideways in her chair to face me, her eyes warm and encouraging.
“My parents bought this place when I was around ten. It was so run-down that it took about six years for them to complete the renovations, inside and out, then open.” I smile at the memory, how excited my parents were.
“We all lived here together, us in the apartment tucked away in the basement. I’d stayed here to help out, maintaining a few other local part-time jobs.
Went to a college close enough for a driving commute.
Since I went to school part-time, too, I only graduated a couple of years ago. ”
“And you majored in Business Management, right?” Izzy’s head tilts a bit as she leans closer.
I let out a laugh, so pleased she remembered. “That’s right.”
She grins. “Good preparation to run a business like this, then.”
This time, I’m the one wincing. “Not exactly. I didn’t take any hospitality classes.
Everything I know about running this place is from watching and helping my parents.
” I blink and let out a long breath. “The New Year before last, my parents went to a party. It was something they never did because they lived for this place. Too much,” the last comes out as a whisper, my heart constricting, eyes growing hot.
I’d told them to go. That I’d watch the place for them, entertain any guests who stayed in. They deserved to have fun.
“They never made it home.”