Chapter 9
“I came for coffee. I stayed for the woman wielding a piping bag like a weapon.” ~ Jeremy
Jeremy
I growl at my computer. Why is this code not working? Crap. I’m going to have to go back to the beginning and check every single line.
And I will. But first. Coffee.
I stand and rub my eyes as I make my way to the kitchen for another cup of coffee. I pick up the container of coffee cups. Crap. It’s empty.
Desperate for caffeine, I check the refrigerator. Maybe there’s a Coke in here. Except it’s empty. Probably because I haven’t done any grocery shopping since I arrived in town. I’ve been relying on the coffee and basket of food Parker provided with the rental.
I grab my phone and walk to the door. There’s no better time than the present to get some shopping done. Except when I’m outside, I realize it’s still the middle of the night. The grocery store won’t be open yet.
But there is a light on in the bakery. And Parker’s coffee is excellent.
Too bad she’ll probably skin me alive with her cake knife after our last conversation. I didn’t mean to upset her. I thought providing for the moonshine would help her out. She obviously didn’t want to front the money for the alcohol.
Instead of thanking me, she threw my offer back at me and tried to kill me with those daggers in her eyes. The woman is the most prickly, the most stubborn, the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever met.
She’s also my one chance for coffee at this time of morning. I knock on the back door of the kitchen.
“Come in,” she shouts. I enter and she frowns at me. “What are you doing here? I figured you’d be long gone from Smuggler’s Hideaway by now.”
I’d planned to be gone. Spend Thanksgiving weekend with Eli and his family. Get a break from coding. And return to work on the Synq app with a fresh mind.
Unfortunately, I’m as stuck on the coding as I was when I arrived. I’m not going anywhere until this app is finished.
I shrug. “I paid for the apartment until the new year. I figured I might as well use it.”
She snorts. “As if the money you paid can even make a dent in your bank account.”
“Hey. It makes a dent.” She lifts an eyebrow. “A very small dent.”
She shakes her head. “What are you doing here at this time of the morning?”
“I couldn’t…” I break off to yawn.
“Maybe you should go back to bed.”
“No can do. I need to work.”
She nods to the café. “Go ahead and make yourself a coffee.”
I don’t hesitate. While I’m at it, I go ahead and make a coffee for her as well. I assume she drinks it black since there was no sugar or creamer in the loft.
“Here you go.” I set the coffee down on the table in front of her.
She groans. “Thank Neptune. I could use a caffeine jolt.”
“What are you working on?”
“A gingerbread house.”
I scan the kitchen and notice there are parts of a gingerbread house – walls, roof tiles, chimneys, etc. – everywhere. “How big will it be?”
She giggles. “Huge.”
“What are you doing with a huge gingerbread house?”
“It’s for the gingerbread contest. The winner’s prize is ten thousand dollars and a contract to supply baked goods to city hall for the year.”
Based on the meeting the other day at city hall, Parker could use the money. “I bet you win.”
“Not if I don’t finish assembling this gingerbread house. Between the assembly, setting, and decorating, I don’t know if I’m going to finish in time. The entries have to be at city hall by ten this morning.”
She glances at the clock on the wall and her eyes widen as she nibbles on her bottom lip. My cock twitches. It wants to feel those plump lips surrounding it.
Knock it off, I order my body. Parker’s seriously worried about this and she needs the money.
“How can I help?”
She blinks up at me. “Help? You want to help?”
“I am an engineer.”
She snorts. “I thought software engineers didn’t know how to assemble things.”
I scowl. I’m not doing great at being a software engineer at the moment – the Synq app is a great example of my failures – but I’m not going to whine and complain to Parker about my work.
“I can take direction.”
“Seriously?” Her eyes widen. “A man who can take direction? Are you certain you’re not a merman?”
“What the hell is a merman?” I tease. I know what a merman is, but I love to watch Parker get all worked up. The woman is serious about her sea lore.
She huffs. “Don’t let anyone else on Smuggler’s Hideaway find out you have no idea what the male equivalent of a mermaid is.”
“I have legs and not the tail of a fish. Pretty sure I’m not a merman.” I kick out a leg before circling it around. “See. All legs.”
Her eyes flare as she stares at me. Little Miss Prickly is interested. She doesn’t want to be, but she is.
She clears her throat. “You can hold the walls while I pipe the icing to glue the pieces together.” She whirls around and gathers several wall pieces before placing them on the thick cardboard tray decorated with holiday-themed paper.
“Hold these two together.” She arranges two walls at an angle. My fingers brush hers as I take over for her and a jolt of electricity hits me. Judging by how Parker jumped away from me, she felt it as well. Interesting.
She grabs the piping bag and leans over to glue the sides together. Her shirt gapes open and I catch a glimpse of her breasts fighting to be contained by her bra.
My fingers itch to touch her. To explore her skin. Will a jolt of electricity hit me if I did?
“Hold still,” she growls and I realize my hands are actually shaking.
“My hands are cramping,” I lie, since I’m not telling this woman who hates me how I can’t stop thinking about touching her. Her cake knife is way too close for that conversation to happen.
“It’s been a whole thirty seconds. Don’t be a wimp.”
“I’ll have you know I work out every day.”
“In which case, you should have better stamina.”
“I have stamina,” I grumble.
I’m not referring to working out. Judging by the blush spreading over her cheeks, she knows exactly what I’m referring to. My cock twitches. Again. It seems to do a lot of twitching whenever Parker is around. Especially considering how much the woman hates me.
“This side is done,” she finally says in a breathy voice, which is doing nothing to help my cock calm down. “Grab the wall there.” She nods toward another piece of the gingerbread house.
We work together in silence for the next twenty minutes to assemble the rest of the walls and roof panels.
“There.” She drops the piping bag on the table.
“We’re finished?”
She chortles. “Finished? Not hardly. It needs to set for an hour before I can add the windows, doors, and other decorations.”
“Coffee?”
“Don’t you need to get back to work?”
I do, but I wasn’t getting anything accomplished anyway. “Nah. I have time.”
We settle at a table in the corner of the café with our drinks. Parker closes her eyes and moans as she sips on her coffee. I notice she has bruises beneath her eyes, and her face is pale. She’s exhausted.
“You need rest.”
“Ha! What I need is to stop changing my mind about the design of the gingerbread house.”
“Is changing your mind why you’re on a time crunch?”
“I kept second-guessing everything. I had a whole plan and then decided I hated it halfway through.”
“Ah. The classic artist spiral. Right before the masterpiece.”
“Masterpiece? If by masterpiece you mean a slightly lopsided gingerbread house held together with desperation and royal icing, sure.”
There’s a long pause. The café is quiet. The only noise is the hum of the coffee machine. I study her face. Her ponytail is starting to come loose, and a dusting of flour clings to the tips of her bangs.
I reach over without thinking and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.
She freezes. Her eyes flick up to mine.
“Flour,” I mumble, drawing my hand back. “You had some.”
“Thanks.”
“Want help?”
“With what? Designing gumdrop shutters or deciding if a sour belt can be a doormat?”
“I’m excellent with candy-based architectural dilemmas.”
“I couldn’t let you. You came downstairs in the middle of the night because you needed coffee to fuel your work, and in the meantime, I’ve stolen you away.”
“I’ll get back to work after the gingerbread house is finished.”
“Fine. You can help. But if the roof caves in because you breathe wrong, I’m blaming you.”
“Deal,” I say, lifting my cup in salute. “But if we win, I’m taking full credit.”
“In your dreams, Holland.”
But her smile lingers as she stands to check the gingerbread structure.
And that might be the sweetest part of the morning.