Chapter 22
VIOLET
Lennox carries me over to a quiet corner of the hall and sets me down in one of the chairs set up out of the way.
My cheeks are flushed, and I’m still more than a little flustered by everything that just happened.
Around us, the crowd is still buzzing from it, even though the auctioneer has moved on to the bidding for another item.
Lennox, Rhett, and Sawyer stand around me, and I look up at them, pushing my hair out of my face.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I tell them. “That was a lot of money.”
All three of them shrug, as if they barely even gave a thought to the cost. And I guess since they are literally millionaires now, they probably didn’t, but the point still stands. It was a huge sum of money they just bid.
“Really,” I insist.
“It was for a good cause,” Sawyer points out.
That stops me in my tracks a bit, and I bite my lip, conceding the point. “The shelter really will be able to use the money.”
“That too,” he says. “But also after seeing you in action at the bakery the other day, I just really wanted to learn to bake the way you do.”
Lennox murmurs his agreement, and Rhett nods along.
My stomach flips over at that, and I fight the urge to squint at them with suspicion. It sounds a little too convenient to be the full truth, but their interest in my skills and knowledge and their support of me means a lot. Especially considering the lack of it from other people in my life.
“If you’re sure…” I say, trying one more time to make sure they don’t feel like they have to do this out of some obligation.
“We’re sure,” Lennox says firmly. “Or do you think we’ll be bad students?”
“I didn’t say that!” I reply, laughing. “I think you’ll be capable.”
“Then there’s no issue, right?”
“I guess not.” I smile up at them. “Well then, just let me know when you’re ready for your lesson then. Since you’re serious about it.”
“What about right now?” Rhett says.
My eyes go wide at that. We’ve been here for two or three hours already, and people are starting to make their way to the doors now that the auction is winding down.
There are always people who hang around until the last minute, scoping out what’s left from the vendors and then helping to break everything down and carry it to the vans and trucks that start to pull around outside once the parking lot has cleared out some.
Some years I stick around to help myself, but after everything that’s happened tonight, I’ve had enough excitement here, and I’m ready to go.
“Okay,” I agree, my heart racing. I thought I’d have more time to put together this lesson, but I remind myself that it’s just the guys. They’re not expecting something formal and stuffy—even if they did spend almost a quarter of a million dollars on it.
I’d been planning to do the lesson at the bakery after hours if a stranger won the bid, but with the three of them, we all just go back to the house. I have everything I need to teach them in my own kitchen, after all.
We drive back to my house together, and after we all hang up our coats, I lead them into the kitchen.
“Alright,” I say, opening the fridge to start pulling things out. “What do you want to learn to make?”
“Maybe we should start with something easy?” Lennox suggests. “Cookies or something like that?”
Sawyer scoffs. “Anyone can make cookies. You have one of the best bakers we’ve ever met here, and you want to learn to make something you can buy at the Shop and Go?”
“What do you want to do then?” Lennox asks, folding his arms.
“Something good like… croissants.”
Rhett snorts. “You want to learn to do croissants at”—he checks his watch—“ten twenty at night?”
“Yeah? Why not?”
“Because even I know croissants take hours to make properly,” Rhett says. “We need to do something reasonable.”
“Like?”
“Like… a tart or something, I don’t know.”
“We could do a tart,” I jump in. “Croissants are fun, but Rhett’s right. We’d be here until tomorrow morning laminating dough. Actually… I have an idea.”
Sawyer grins at me. “Let’s hear it then, teach.”
I stick my tongue out at him, smiling when he mirrors the gesture. “Okay, so it’s not quite a tart, but we could do fruit scones. It doesn’t take as long as croissants, but then we can have them in the morning for breakfast with some jam I picked up the other day.”
I expect a little push back on that, but the guys agree without much debate. Even their bickering seems to have lost some of the sharp edges it had when they first got here. More like they can’t help but banter and challenge each other, less like they’re trying to go for the throat at every turn.
It makes me smile to see them like this because it reminds me of how it used to be. It’s a comfortable atmosphere, and I’m in a good mood as I start grabbing the things we’ll need.
“Rhett, can you get the flour from that cabinet there?” I ask, pointing. Rhett hefts the large container of flour I keep stocked at all times. “What fruit do you guys think? I’ve got blueberries, some oranges, some cranberries…”
“Isn’t orange cranberry a thing?” Lennox asks. “That sounds appropriately festive for the season.”
“Good answer,” I say. “That leads me to a good point, too. Seasonality.” I launch into a spiel about when baking with fruits, it’s a good idea to keep the season in mind because bad fruit makes a bad pastry.
“You can use frozen stuff, of course,” I tell them.
“But it’s nice to get fresh when you can. ”
They all nod, like they’re taking this seriously, and it’s weird, having these three intelligent, successful men looking to me for guidance. But this is my element, and I thrive in it, so I keep going, pulling butter out of the freezer.
“Why is the butter frozen?” Rhett wants to know. “I thought you usually used room temp butter for baking.”
“For some things, definitely. But scones are kind of like biscuits, where a lot of the flakiness and lift comes from butter melting. So you want it to be as cold as possible before it goes in the oven.” I explain that pie crusts are the same way and that’s why it’s so flaky and golden if done right.
“We’d do the same kind of thing for a tart crust.”
I take them through the basics, showing them how to measure dry ingredients. “Never scoop your measuring cup directly into the flour. It can get packed down and you’ll end up using double as much as you think you should. It’s best to weigh it. We want 250 grams of flour for this.”
I squint at the scale, dumping flour in until it reads 224, and then add a tiny handful more. The scale ticks to exactly 250.
“Impressive,” Sawyer says, grinning. “You’ve got the touch.”
“I just do this a lot. Can you add the rest of the dry ingredients?”
They add salt, sugar, and baking powder to the bowl, and then I show Rhett the best way to zest an orange. The kitchen fills with the scent of citrus oils, bright and sweet, and that gets added to the bowl too.
“I didn’t know Rhett could do delicate shit like that,” Sawyer teases. “I thought he was all burly mountain man these days.”
“It’s zesting an orange, not brain surgery,” Rhett mutters back, but he doesn’t seem annoyed. There’s still a relaxed, easy atmosphere. He throws the orange at Sawyer, who catches it with one hand and a shit eating grin.
“Don’t manhandle the ingredients,” Lennox says.
“Don’t manhandle the ingredients,” both Sawyer and Rhett mimic back in unison.
I can’t help but laugh. “Lennox is right,” I say. “We need the juice from that orange for the glaze.”
“So there,” Lennox says, flicking flour that spilled on the counter at his brothers. I laugh again, and he flicks some at me for good measure.
“Hey!” I protest. “I’m on your side here.”
“All’s fair in baking and war,” he replies calmly.
We move onto grating the frozen butter into the bowl, and the guys take turns doing it while I instruct them. It saves my hands, since I always manage to grate my knuckles at least once.
“I should hire you guys after this lesson,” I tell them. “It’s nice having other people do the hard work sometimes.” I measure out heavy cream and cranberries while the guys toss the butter and dry mix together.
Some of it ends up on the counter, and I give them a mock stern look that has them laughing and scooping it back into the bowl with sheepish looks. “Sorry, Teach,” Sawyer says.
“You’re all very silly.”
“I don’t know what you mean.” He sidles closer to me, and then all of a sudden he’s very close. I open my mouth to ask what he’s doing, when he smears a bit of flour across my cheek.
It surprises a laugh out of me, and I flick flour onto his black dress shirt before he can back away. “Don’t turn my kitchen into a war zone.”
“I’ll behave!” he says, holding his hands up in surrender.
“You don’t know the meaning of the word,” Rhett deadpans.
Lennox just snorts.
“Betrayal,” Sawyer declares. “I can be on my best behavior. You believe in me, don’t you, Peaches?”
The nickname makes my cheeks go a little pink, and I put my hands on my hips, looking up at him. “I don’t know. You have a mischievous face. Like you’re up to something.”
Sawyer makes his eyes very big, batting his lashes at me as he puts on his most innocent expression. It’s comical on his handsome face, and I laugh harder. “Who me?” he asks, fluttering his lashes faster. “Me? Mischievous? I’m hurt. Wounded, even. How can I go on, et cetera, et cetera?”
“The et ceteras really sell it,” Lennox tells him.
Sawyer flicks more flour his way and then glances at me. “I’m still behaving.”
“Uh huh, sure. Less flour on the floor and each other, more on the counter for shaping these scones when the time comes.”
“Do you bake like this for yourself a lot?” Lennox asks me as the lesson moves on.