Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Hartford
I wondered how long it would take for Joshua to notice I wasn’t wearing my cast. Until he did, I was going to try to figure out what the array of kitchen equipment I’d just unpacked was for.
I hadn’t a clue how to use ninety-eight-point-three percent of it.
The sieve was familiar. And the mixing bowl. But the rest was way over my paygrade.
“All this was in your kitchen?” Joshua looked as baffled as I felt. I’d dragged him in from next door, where he was “busy” relaxing in his boxers, to help me bake. If he was so adamant that Gerry was right about doing stuff outside of work, then he shouldn’t mind helping me.
“Some of it. I mentioned to Alice on reception that I was going out to shop for ingredients for baking, and when I got back, a huge box with all this in it was sitting at my front door.”
“So we’re here to bake?”
“Yes. You will be pleased to know that I’m not operating on you with a sieve.”
“But why?” He pushed his hand through his hair, looking thoroughly confused.
“Because the sieve isn’t sanitized for surgery, of course.”
It took him a beat to process what I said before he speared me with those blue eyes. “Not why aren’t you operating on me, but why are we baking?”
“Gerry and I had our first meeting on Friday. He was very cross that I couldn’t tell him how I’d been spending my time out of the hospital. He said he wants to speak to me on Monday to see what I’ve done over the weekend. Can you believe it?”
“He’s a man who means business,” he said.
“The only thing I like to do, outside of medicine, is eat cake. So I’m extrapolating.
” I pulled the mixing bowl and scales to the side.
That would be a start. “I bought ingredients for a chocolate sponge cake. And I’ll take the finished cake into the hospital to share among the staff so Gerry is faced with evidence of me having a hobby. ”
I handed him my iPad then rolled up my sleeves. “The recipe’s on there. If you measure out the sugar, I’ll put the oven on.”
“Right.” He prodded at the scales. “Do you know how to work these?”
“No idea. You’re the business whiz.” I turned on the oven and set about clearing a space for us to . . . bake. This was crazy. All those years ago when I fantasized about Joshua, never did my fantasies include flour.
“What have measuring scales got to do with being a business whiz?” He lifted one eyebrow—a maneuver central to his flirting technique since he was sixteen, from what I could make out. “I mean, obviously, I am a business whiz.” He narrowed his eyes at me and I couldn’t help but smile.
“You have a badge or something?”
“Do you doubt me? Because yes, for your information, I have a badge and a matching tattoo.”
“A tattoo?” I scanned his fully-clothed body as if I had x-ray vision.
“A tattoo.” He caught me looking and grinned. “And wouldn’t you like to know where?”
It was as if he’d set my cheeks on fire. The one time I hadn’t been fantasizing about him, and he thought I was. “You are full of shit,” I said, grabbing back the iPad and pretending to read the recipe.
“Maybe I’ll show you one of these days.”
Stand down, heart rate. It wouldn’t matter if Joshua were Herman Munster’s ugly cousin; his confidence would bewitch every woman he ever came near. I needed to power up my forcefield.
“Maybe I’ll have to gouge my eyes out with a spoon first,” I replied. There was no way he was going to get even an inkling of what his flirtatiousness might be doing to me.
I had to keep a clear head and remember that he couldn’t help it. It wasn’t personal; Joshua suffered from a chronic condition: incurable flirt.
I set out our ingredients onto the side along with the equipment I thought we’d need: cake tins, greaseproof paper, spatulas, mixing bowl. This seemed a lot more complicated than I’d thought it would be when I had this idea this morning.
“I think it’s great that you’re going to be embracing life outside of medicine.” Joshua had worked out how to use the scales and was spooning sugar into the bowl.
“Why do you care if I want to work long hours, anyway?” I asked.
For a second, he looked flustered. “I just . . . you know. I told my mum I’d make sure you settled in okay.”
“Right.” Why else would he be interested in what I did? He hadn’t even noticed I wasn’t wearing my cast. I dumped the butter into the sugar. “We need to whisk this, apparently.”
“The butter? Is that even possible?”
I re-read the recipe. “That’s what it says. With an electric whisk, which I guess is this.” I held up a machine like the one my grandma had. “I think maybe you should do it.”
I plugged in the mixer and Joshua began to whisk.
We both watched in silence as the ingredients begin to combine.
Joshua looked intently into the bowl like his entire future hung in the balance.
I looked away so he didn’t see in my eyes how utterly adorable I found it.
I couldn’t remember seeing him trying hard at anything.
Everything seemed to come so easy to him.
Not baking, apparently. Well, that made two of us.
Joshua switched off the machine and I handed him an egg, being careful to keep my hand from touching his. My forcefield didn’t need further testing today.
“Now we have to crack in the egg and whisk again.” So far so good. “Here’s me getting us both elbow deep in butter. What are your hobbies?”
“I prefer whipped cream over butter.” He shot me a wickedly sexy smile, his dimple shifting into fifth gear.
My forcefield creaked and groaned and I turned away, busying myself at the sink.
I’d let go of my crush on Joshua a long time ago and I wasn’t about to go backward.
No matter how tempting that grin and that bloody dimple might be.
“But seriously . . .” He glanced at me as I came back to the counter. The mixture was starting to take on a glossy sheen—we were baking! “Outside of work, I have a tight circle of friends who I spend a lot of time with. I like to use the gym and . . .”
“And what?”
“And, nothing specific. Just, that kind of thing. You know, spend time with human beings. Outside of the people I work with.”
“How long have you been single for?” I tried to think whether or not I’d ever heard about Joshua having a girlfriend.
“Didn’t you almost get married once? What happened there?
” My mother had mentioned it the summer after I applied to medical school, but I hadn’t wanted to hear anything about it.
I didn’t even want to think about Joshua after the accident.
“I spend time with women.” His voice was clipped and tight and the normally laid-back Joshua I was so used to turned sharp-edged and defensive. “I don’t need a girlfriend to complete me. Or a wife.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, almost flinching at the way he spat out his words. “I just meant—you have a lot of—and I thought—” I hated that I’d said the wrong thing and didn’t even know why. This was why I shouldn’t be allowed to people.
“I’m happy as I am.” As quickly as his mood had turned sour, it flipped back again. He smiled. “I have a very full life. And I don’t lack female company.” Just like that, his dimple was back.
“Good.” I smiled, relieved that familiar-Joshua was back.
“You’re glad I’m getting laid regularly?”
I laughed as I shrugged. “Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”
We worked in happy silence as we combined the ingredients, poured the mixture into cake tins, and put them in the oven. I set the timer on my watch for twenty minutes as the recipe instructed.
We both leaned against the countertop, watching the opaque oven door like we expected something clawed and snarling to emerge from it.
“It’s weird,” I said, breaking the silence finally.
“I’ve never had more free time than I do at the moment.
I have working-hard muscles but not life-outside-of-work muscles.
” One of the things I enjoyed most about medicine was there was a lot to learn.
Lots of exams. Lots of stuff to think about.
It meant I wasn’t thinking about things I wanted to forget.
“Didn’t you used to do a lot of ballet when you were a kid?” My stomach roiled as he reached up to his head. “You used to wear your hair up a lot. Like all the time. I remember an omnipresent bun. Have you thought about doing some adult dance classes?”
I wanted to erase the past ten seconds and pretend he’d never asked, but life didn’t work that way.
“I haven’t been able to dance since I broke my leg the first time,” I said, as quickly as I could get the words out.
“Not properly. Not how I’d want to.” Memories tumbled into my brain about the night of the accident—the way I’d been so determined that driving in a thunderstorm was no problem.
The way I’d been so sure I’d be able to rescue Joshua and Patrick from where they were stranded at a New Year’s Eve party.
It had seemed like a great idea in my teenage head, even though I’d only just passed my test. I’d have done anything to get Joshua to notice me.
I had my heart pinned on the idea that if I drove to get them both, he’d suddenly realize I wasn’t just a kid sister anymore.
If only my seventeen-year-old self could have seen what laid ahead—the black windscreen that was impossible to see through, the water-soaked roads the tires couldn’t grip. The turn I’d taken too late.
The ditch.
The paramedics.
The broken bone poking through my skin.
And months later, the bitterness when I lost my place at ballet school because I just couldn’t dance like I used to.
The alarm went on my watch, pulling me out of my memories. I swiped it to turn it off. Saved by the cake.
I pulled in a breath and focused on what was in the oven.
“You okay?” Joshua asked.
“Fine.” Reminiscing did nothing to turn back the clock. It just reminded me why it was important to stay busy and keep my forcefield intact.
“You don’t seem fine.”