Chapter 27
It’s late when Henry drops me at my car after we catch the ferry home from Seattle.
He ends the night with a single sweet kiss, lingering on my lips for a moment before pulling back and thanking me for a wonderful evening.
He brushes his thumb down my cheek, gazing at me admiringly in the warm glow from an overhead streetlight.
I tell him it was one of the most magical evenings of my entire life.
And it’s true. It was a magical night that has somehow knocked me off-kilter.
After Henry drives off, I turn and head for the shop.
I need to grab the things I left there earlier.
As I walk along the quiet, deserted main street of Poulsbo, my mind is whirling.
What does it mean that I am doubting if what I saw in my vision is really what I want?
How could my traitorous heart play tricks on me like this?
The visions always show us our true purpose in life.
So how can I have such grave doubts about mine?
Wincing in my pinchy heels, I quietly let myself in the kitchen door of the shop and click on a dim light over the sink.
I gather my work clothes and my big mom purse from the office where I stashed them.
It’s almost midnight, and everything is silent.
The town slumbers around me, but I am buzzing with energy and anxiety.
Setting my purse on the counter, I take a Tupperware container and start to transfer the chocolates I was working on earlier so I can store them.
The espresso ganache truffle is coated in ground espresso beans from a local coffee roaster, and then I finished each one with a few of the gold sprinkles.
The result looks and tastes posh and decadent.
I’m so busy with my thoughts that I must not hear the soft knock at the kitchen door. I glance up to find a large, dark figure looming in the doorway in the dim light. With a shriek, I stumble back, knocking my purse and a handful of truffles onto the floor.
“Sorry, Emmie, it’s just me.” Jakob steps into the room and holds up his hands placatingly. He’s dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his hair pulled back in a little man bun.
“What are you doing here? It’s late,” I chide him, scooping up the chocolates and my clothes and purse, the contents of which are strewn everywhere across the kitchen floor.
Jakob crouches down to help. My heart is pounding, and not just from fright.
I’m hyperaware of Jakob’s nearness as I stuff tampons and lip balm and a pack of tissues back into the purse willy-nilly.
I can never find anything in this purse.
Everything that goes in it seems to mysteriously vanish, as though my purse is a black hole.
Gus would like that analogy. I need compartments.
I need to get organized. I need to stop thinking about Jakob Kristensen, which is difficult because he keeps popping up everywhere. Case in point.
“Couldn’t sleep, so I figured I’d get some work done at the bakery. I just stopped by to leave these.” He straightens and holds out a small green plastic berry basket. “I found them when I was mountain biking today.”
I take the basket and get to my feet. “Salmonberries?” It’s early in the year for the berries that grow wild in the Pacific Northwest woods. They look like bright orangey-yellow raspberries. They’re rare, with a mild, delicate flavor.
“Thought maybe you could use them for your chocolates,” Jakob explains, his tone clipped. For some reason he won’t meet my eyes.
“Oh.” I’m touched by the thoughtful gesture. “Thank you.”
I touch the fragile berries gently with a fingertip.
What if I replaced the huckleberry gelée with salmonberry in my dark chocolate and huckleberry bonbons?
And maybe add ginger? Crystallized ginger for a crunchy little kick?
It would be unique, and very Northwestern.
I glance up from the salmonberries, and realize we’re standing quite close together. Jakob doesn’t move. Neither do I.
He clears his throat. “Guess I’d better get going.” He seems ill at ease. He still doesn’t move.
I nod and set the salmonberries on the marble slab. I’ll figure out what to do with them tomorrow. It was kind of him to bring them to me. “I should go too. It’s late.”
Neither of us leaves.
“Want to try my newest experiment?” I ask him, handing him one of the truffles that did not fall on the floor.
I take another one, savoring the rich ganache as it melts on my tongue.
I can taste the gold sprinkles too. I watch him roll the truffle around in his mouth and feel the sparks of anticipation and courage and desire low in my belly.
Why did I choose to eat courage sprinkles now?
What do I need courage to do? The smart thing would be to march out of here and take myself home right now. I don’t budge.
Jakob is watching me, his expression difficult to read.
He has a little gold sprinkle stuck to his lip.
I almost reach out and brush it away, then stop myself.
Cut this short, Emmie, I instruct myself firmly.
It can only lead to trouble. I’m so aware of him in the darkened kitchen space with only the hum of the refrigerator and the dim glow of the light over the sink.
I can almost feel the warmth of him radiating toward me.
“I’d better go.” I make myself move, grabbing my purse and brushing past him, heading toward the door. He reaches out and grips my elbow.
“Emmie, wait.” The words stop me in my tracks.
I turn, looking up, up. He stares down at me with a potent blend of frustration and longing that makes me shiver.
I should not be here, with him. This is too tempting.
He’s too tempting. My eyes stray to that gold sprinkle perched on his lip like a little beacon.
My fingers itch to trace the shape of his mouth.
“What are you doing?” he asks gruffly. I can’t tell if he means what am I doing to him, or what am I doing here so late at night, or maybe what am I doing with Henry.
“What do you mean?” I whisper. I don’t even realize I’m doing it, but I find myself moving closer to him, pulled as if by a magnet. He smells like sawdust and fresh-baked bread, a woody, yeasty scent that makes me hungry for him.
“Emmie,” he says again, half groan, half warning. And then his arms close around me and I push myself up on tiptoe, wincing at the blisters on my heels.
“Are you okay?” he asks, noticing the flicker of discomfort. Instantly concerned, he holds me by the biceps, eyes scanning my body for the source of my pain.
I try to nod but I shake my head, unexpected tears pooling in my eyes. I’m not okay. I’m confused and frustrated and drawn to the wrong man. It’s all wrong, and I don’t know what to do about it.
“I can’t do this. I should go.” I put a hand to his chest, willing myself to step back.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” I push away from him and turn for the door, but then his big hand suddenly clasps mine, and instinctively our fingers thread together like two halves of a whole.
He spins me back around to face him. There’s a desperate sort of confusion in his eyes.
“Don’t,” he whispers, his voice gravelly with desire.
“I can’t…I can’t stop thinking about you,” he confesses.
“I’ve tried, God knows I’ve tried. For years I convinced myself I’d forgotten you, that I was over you, and then I came home and you walked into the bakery and I realized everything I thought I’d forgotten was just waiting under the surface until I saw you again.
” He stares at me unhappily. He reaches out and brushes a wisp of hair back from my cheek, the calloused pads of his fingers grazing my cheekbone.
His other hand is still holding mine, big and warm and so safe feeling. I never want him to let me go.
“Emmie, what are you doing to me?” he groans. His eyes lock with mine. “Tell me you don’t think of me.” It’s a demand, a challenge. “Tell me there’s nothing here.” He gestures between us. I shake my head and swallow hard. I’m not a liar.
“I can’t,” I rasp out finally, a confession I don’t want to make. It seems we’re both finding the courage to tell our truth tonight. I wonder briefly what the consequences will be.
There is a brief flash of relief and victory in his eyes.
“Thought so,” he says, and then he pulls me flush against his body, his arm banded tightly, protectively across my back.
I catch a whiff of him, sawdust and soap and sweet bread dough.
I give a little gasp as his mouth comes down over mine.
The kiss is not sweet, not gentle. It’s pent-up longing and desire and a touch of despair.
He tastes of espresso and dark chocolate, with the faintest floral hint from the sprinkle on his lip. I arch into him hungrily.
He gently rakes his fingers through my hair, pulling me closer to him, his mouth devouring, and mine meeting his.
I nip his bottom lip and he growls softly, cradling my skull between his hands.
My knees buckle and he turns me, walking me back a few steps until I bump into the marble slab table.
Effortlessly he hoists me up and sets me on the smooth, cold marble, pressing against me, his fingers big and warm on my thighs, steadying both of us while he kisses me so thoroughly I can’t think straight.
I can’t breathe and I don’t care. I never want this kiss to stop.
We’re pressed so close together, straining to get closer, completely lost in each other.
I wrap my legs around his waist and he pulls me closer still.
I feel like my veins are filled with sparklers, shooting desire down through my body all the way to my toes.
I can’t deny this any longer. I want him more than I’ve ever wanted anyone before.
He breaks the kiss first, stepping back with a groan, dragging himself away from me. I lean back on the table, panting a little, disheveled and weak-kneed. My head is spinning. Who knew Jakob Kristensen could kiss like that!
“You want to know why I can’t sleep?” he asks, his voice soft and rough at the same time.
“That’s why. I can’t stop thinking about you—all the time.
And tonight you came out wearing that dress, looking so beautiful it scrambles my brain.
” He runs his hands through his hair, messing up his little man bun.
“And then you left with him, and all night all I could think about was you with him, what you were doing, if he was touching you, kissing you…it’s driving me crazy.
I’m tired of trying to fight how I feel about you, Emmie.
I want you, pure and simple. I always have. ”
And all of a sudden like a pail of cold water, I realize what I’ve just done. Henry. This is all wrong.
“No!” I put out a hand, sliding off the table and inching around him toward the door, feeling panicked.
What am I thinking? “No, this is not how it’s supposed to go.
” I am kissing the wrong man. I am falling for the wrong man.
“I can’t do this.” I can sense the temptation to tell him how I feel rising up in me, the words balanced on the tip of my tongue, but I bite them back.
I cannot allow myself to open up to him tonight.
I should be kissing Henry, opening up to Henry.
I see the hurt and confusion in Jakob’s eyes, but I force myself to gather up my purse and clothes again. “I’ve got the competition coming up and a lot on my plate. I can’t…I just can’t do this right now.”
He shakes his head, a look of disbelief replacing the desire and longing.
“Really? Why are you fighting this, Emmie? Am I so revolting to you? It sure didn’t seem like that a minute ago.
” He gestures to the marble slab table where sixty seconds ago I was ready to climb him like an apple tree.
My face flames. Now I can’t get away fast enough.
“It’s just not the right time. It’s not the right thing,” I babble, putting my hand on the doorknob, feeling shame and desire and confusion all rolled into one.
I’m tempted to tell him the truth, but he doesn’t know about the vision and I can’t spill the secret.
Besides, how absurd would it sound to him, that I’m trying to orient my life around a vision I had for a few brief seconds?
But he doesn’t understand the weight these visions carry in my family.
They’re infallibly true, held up as beacons and road maps and inspirations.
My mom and I and generations of women before us have oriented our entire lives around what we see in those brief moments.
The visions are our North Star, true and immutable.
I cannot go against what I saw after I blew out Signe’s birthday candle, not even for Jakob.
He is standing there in the dim light of the kitchen, hands at his sides, looking frustrated and confused, but I can’t fix it. I have to keep my distance. It’s for the best.
“Jakob, I’m sorry,” I tell him earnestly. And then I turn on my heel and slip out the door, almost breaking into a run in my haste to escape temptation as fast as I possibly can.