Chapter 2
2
CHAZ
T here. The tree was down. Now maybe my boss would get off my case about it.
I sighed and settled the chainsaw near my feet. Then I picked up my cup of coffee and admired my work. All that remained was chopping up the trunk for firewood.
“What the hell?”
A female voice pierced the silent early morning air, threatening to give me a heart attack. No one was supposed to be out here at this hour.
I turned, and my eyes widened at what I saw. A woman with the darkest hair I’d ever seen was walking my way. Maybe it looked darker in contrast to her fair skin and the snow that surrounded us. Whatever the case, I couldn’t take my eyes off her, especially when I saw her eyes. They were blazing with fury, but they were a light shade of blue. She had the kind of beauty that made it tough to look away.
“You just killed my cake,” she said.
I looked around, trying to make sense of her words. A gigantic tent stood behind her, but we were close enough to the lodge that I assumed it was for some special event they were having later in the day. Not at six-something in the morning.
A cake? Who would be baking a cake in a tent at six in the morning? And baking a cake in a tent at the bottom of a ski slope, no less.
“I’m sorry?” I asked.
Those gorgeous eyes flickered again at the question in my voice. I couldn’t help but notice her gaze quickly scanned the length of me, then came back up to my face.
She took a deep breath and stared at me a long moment. I’d been told I had that kind of power over women. And yeah, I’d noticed groups of female tourists staring at me when I walked into Miss Rosie’s Diner or the bar and grill inside this very lodge. I just had no interest in taking up with tourists who’d be gone in a few days. I wanted a forever kind of woman.
A woman like the one standing in front of me.
But heck, she was baking a cake in a tent on a ski slope. My money was on her being a tourist, especially since I hadn’t seen her around town, and I’d spent a lot of time here, even though I lived in the next town over.
“We’re having a baking competition on this property this week,” she said. “I guess you haven’t heard.”
“Baking competition?” I asked, still trying to piece it all together. It didn’t make much sense. “You’re baking on a ski slope at six in the morning?”
“It’s after seven,” she said. “And there’s a big tent right there.”
She pointed to it. Like I could have missed it.
I shook my head. “I don’t know who put that tent there, but this is a construction zone. We’re going to be clearing trees away all week.”
Her expression changed, and she’d hardly been smiling before. But now she went to a full-on frown.
“There are ovens inside that tent.” She looked back over her shoulder. “They can’t exactly move it now. Did nobody discuss this with the lodge?”
She was talking about a lot of stuff I knew nothing about. That was all above my pay grade.
“I can’t say.” I shrugged and looked off toward the ski lodge as I took a long sip of my coffee. “Our crew’s small and we’re just getting started. We missed this tree when we were working here last week, and I was sent back to take it down. That’s all I know for now.”
“Doesn’t your crew talk to the ski lodge about this stuff?” I asked.
Again, something I would have no idea about. “I would assume.” I shrugged. “But if your competition’s starting at this hour?—”
“It’s not,” she interrupted. “I messed up.”
She stepped back then, throwing her head down in defeat. As much as I wanted to get her back inside that tent so I could continue my work, something about this woman was impossible to resist.
And now she was upset. All I wanted to do was fix it for her.
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I said, hoping it didn’t sound like I was dismissing her concerns.
But seriously—if it was about a baking competition, how much could be at stake? It certainly wasn’t life or death. It was cookies and cakes.
“I skipped college,” she said, looking back up at me. “I put all my eggs in the ‘become a baker’ basket and now…”
She crossed her arms over her chest, making me wonder if she was cold. I could put my arms around her to keep her warm, but she didn’t even know me. I was guessing she wouldn’t take kindly to that.
“My cake sank,” she said. “Caved in like a deflated balloon. I assume it was the tree that caused it. My mom always said that I couldn’t run and play in the house when she was baking a cake. I thought she was being ridiculous, but now I see why.”
“Oh.” I turned back to the tree I’d felled just minutes ago. “I had no idea people were baking in that tent. How many other bakers are in there?”
Should I call them contestants? Chefs? I had no idea what the right terminology was.
“None,” she said. “Just me. I’m not even supposed to be in there. Oh God, I’m just trusting a complete stranger. You could go tell everyone in that lodge what I’m doing right now.”
I frowned. “ I don’t even understand what you’re doing, and I don’t know anybody in that lodge. Look, I really need to get back to work. So if you?—”
“Do you know anything about baking cakes?” she interrupted.
Was she really asking me that? I stared at her for the longest time, trying to figure it out. She must be desperate if she was asking a guy standing next to a chainsaw for baking advice. But I did know that a tree falling should have no impact on a cake in the oven.
“You think I caused your cake to fall?” I asked.
“When I looked in the oven window, the cake was all caved in on one side,” she said. “You explain how that happened when it was just fine seconds before.”
“Something in the way it was mixed?” I asked. “The ingredients? Have you made that cake before?”
“Yes.”
So much was packed into that one word. Defensiveness, annoyance, and something else. Something that told me that I’d struck a serious nerve.
“It has a big hole in the middle,” she added after staring at me silently for a long moment. “I can’t work with that.”
Fuck. What I really needed to do was get rid of her and get back to work. I could do that with just one sentence.
But I didn’t do that. Instead, I just stared at her, trying to figure out why she had taken hold of my brain like she had.
“You have to see for yourself,” she said. “Come on.”
She turned and walked back to the tent. I stood there, admiring the way her hair bounced as she walked. Had I ever seen a woman so beautiful? I couldn’t remember one.
And that was why, against my better interests, I followed her into that tent with no idea what to expect once I got inside. After entering, though, I came to a stop, gaping at the room around me.
“It’s useless,” she said.
Curiosity pushed me forward. I joined her on the other side of the room, where a pan of some kind sat on a table. I should be firing up the chainsaw and chopping up a trunk right now, but no. Instead, I was inside a tent, staring at a damn cake.
“You just need a center filling,” I said with a shrug.
She looked up at me with a frown. There was an adorable line between her eyebrows when she looked at me like that, and up close, I now spotted a tiny mole on her cheek.
Damn, she was hot. A woman like this could melt even an ice-cold heart like mine.
“I don’t have any kind of filling,” she said. “And that’s not the kind of cakes I make.”
“Every problem has a solution.”
Yep. Those were the words that actually came out of my mouth as I stared at her. I’d lost my ever-loving mind.
She said nothing, just staring at me and blinking like she was trying to get something out of her eye. Or like she couldn’t figure me out.
I couldn’t figure me out right now, either. None of this was like me, but I’d followed her in here like a lost puppy.
“It’s something my pops always said,” I blurted. “If you’re going to win this competition, don’t you need to be the kind of person who can handle any baking disaster?”
Was that even a thing? A baking disaster?
“I’m sure it was something I did,” she said. “I checked the recipe. I must have left something out.”
She headed over to a phone on the counter, lifting it and staring at the screen. I rounded the end of the table to take a closer look at the cake. It was definitely caved in the center. Normally, I’d say ice it up and grab a fork, but for a competition, it probably needed to look good.
“The funny thing is, I’ve made this cake at least a hundred times before and this has never happened,” she said, still staring at her screen. “I can’t figure out what I did wrong.”
“You’re going to ice it anyway, aren’t you?” I asked, noting the bowl of ingredients with a spoon next to the cake.
That brought her gaze back to my face. My body instantly warmed at the eye contact. Yeah, this woman was definitely doing something to me—something I hadn’t experienced before. Ever.
“Yes, but I need to slice it, so it has to look decent,” she said.
“Take the higher part of the cake, cut it off, and use the icing to hold it all together.”
Her face changed again. She seemed to go through a series of emotions before finally tearing up.
No. Not tears. I didn’t want to see this woman cry.
“Or you could just start over,” I rushed to add.
She shook her head, and a tear fell from her right eye, making a path down her cheek. “I don’t have enough ingredients, and I’m running out of time. Any minute now, people are going to start showing up. Everything starts at ten o’clock.”
That last part got my attention. “It’s seven, you said. Plenty of time to run to the store and come back.”
She glanced at the cake before returning her attention to me. “Too risky. I’d have to pack everything up, throw out this cake somewhere, then drive to town and come back and start over. By then, people will be awake and looking out their windows and stuff, right?”
She was asking me? Like I’d know.
“Thank you.”
Those words from her shocked me. Her eyes were no longer teary, but they were filled with warmth. It was doing things to me that I didn’t like. I felt far more comfortable battling an erection when I took in that gorgeous face and the curves I could make out beneath that long puffer coat. This was doing something to my heart. It was like a magnetic force was pulling me toward her.
I had to get to know this woman better.
No, I couldn’t let that happen. Not with a tourist who was just going to fly out of town as soon as her business here was over. No way was I going for a short-term fling. I was done with that. For good.
“Good luck with your competition,” I said, lifting my coffee cup in salute. “I’m rooting for you.”
And with that, I tromped across the tent and pushed my way through the flap, not bothering to zip it back. I had to get out of here while I still had my wits about me.