Chapter 25 #2
Except it wasn’t. Anyone who’d spent those two weeks here in November would have immediately recognized the porch as the one they’d decorated a Christmas tree on that second day.
She couldn’t admit that, but when he looked around, he saw that several of the other contestants were looking back at him knowingly.
Harper was smirking. Zara went so far as to waggle an eyebrow.
“And the owl and the fish?” Pat asked. “Do they have any significant value?”
“Well, if I was staying in a place like this, I’d want to be with a friend.”
That got the group in the cafeteria murmuring and Candace blushing as Pat and Leta joked about that, but Laurin’s heart sank as he realized they were about to move on.
“What is it?” Pauline whispered.
“It’s the gingerbread challenge,” Laurin groaned, “and she never told them how much of it is gingerbread!”
“And this is all a mountain of cake?” Leta asked.
“Of course not!” Candace laughed. “That wouldn’t have stood up at all. That’s a gingerbread tower stuffed with cake.”
Laurin beamed as she explained further, shocking both judges with the incredible structure, and even Pauline’s whisper of, “We’ll figure something out, maybe move into a smaller house outside town,” couldn’t take a chip out of his pride.
He knew it would embarrass her terribly, but as soon as Candace joined them in the cafeteria, he was going to kiss her like crazy.
Except she never joined them in the cafeteria.
Candace was surprised at how much colder December was than November in North Georgia — it just didn’t seem right that the south would get this cold — but that didn’t get her to turn around.
She didn’t have anyone waiting for her in the pavilion except Laurin and his family.
She was used to having no one at all, and this was so much worse.
Before, she was a lone wolf. Now, she was .
. . pathetic. Not deliberately so, of course, but how would it look to everyone else?
And how lame would she look to Laurin’s family to not have any family or even a friend close enough to invite to the finale?
She had good friends, she wasn’t that freakish, but the divorce had hit that pool hard, and it was Christmas Eve. They had their own families.
It was what it was.
But she was as good as her word, and this time when she wandered out into the woods while the judges deliberated, she felt okay.
She wasn’t going to win, and she shouldn’t have said everything she had, but it was cathartic.
If Food2Love ever invited her back in any capacity, they’d have a better understanding of what they were getting.
And she’d spent the month working in boutique bakeries in the tri-state area.
A guest spot of sorts. Some had invited her to stay full-time, or she could make her own niche using her name to do a bakery tour.
She wanted her own bakery again, but she’d survive without it.
She’d be okay.
She rested a hand on a scrubby, distinctly unattractive pine tree that had a holly pacing-distance away. She doubted it was the one she’d punched, but it could have been. “Well, ugly pine,” she said, looking up at the sparse canopy, “I made it this far. Bet you didn’t expect—”
She was interrupted by the buzzing of her phone. Laurin.
Candace sighed. Why had she even grabbed her phone on her way out?
She was not about to admit to herself that she’d hoped he would text her. That would be lame. Pathetic, even.
And she was absolutely not going to return to the pavilion just because he told her to—
LAURIN
You’re all anyone can talk about. Your mountain and what you said.
Oh.
Because that thing AND I are so ridiculous!
she typed back. I can’t believe I said all that.
Hopefully they won’t air it. I doubt they have that much time for it so that’s good.
At least they didn’t call me out to my face about how oversized the build was or how it’s not even really a gingerbread house, more cake than anything.
Sometimes they get really mean about people who make a giant entry to compensate for how rough it is.
If they’re just not mean to me, that would
She tilted her head back and addressed the tree. “I shouldn’t be rambling over a text, should I? It looks crazy.” She hit the backspace button and changed her response to the sweaty laugh emoji.
There was a short but melodic ding behind her.
She wasn’t surprised to find Laurin approaching with a plate of sweets.
The entries wouldn’t be cut up until after the winner was announced — the competitors would be lined up next to their gingerbread houses for the final shots — but there were always mountains of scraps to snack on while everyone waited.
“You should be with your family,” she said as she selected a slightly smushed chocolate petit four.
“As should you.” Laurin proved himself a true baker by digging into a chunk of carrot cake with his fingers, nicking it just right to get some of the cream cheese icing as well as the cocoa-coconut mixture she’d spread over the top of it to give it an earthy look.
She wasn’t averse to food dyes in general — that would be insane on a show like this; Harper was lucky to make it as far as she did with even the all-natural dyes — but with dirt, she liked to go more for color-adding flavors than chemical dyes.
“Mmm,” Laurin rumbled, his eyes rolling back, no doubt hamming it up for her.
“I always wondered how your carrot cake would be. Now I know. This might be giving me an erection.”
“Laurin,” she tsked with a shake of her head as she nibbled the petit four.
She did not need to be thinking about Laurin’s erection right now.
She’d been having enough of her own issues with that today.
It was crazy that her mind could have been anywhere but the challenge today, but her panties were telling a different story.
“You’re right. It’s you.”
“Laurin!” She nearly choked on the petit four, but it was sinfully good.
She hadn’t been able to listen in on his description of it and had expected a chocolate-on-chocolate-on-chocolate profile, but there was a bright, sour burn to it.
“Is that kirsch? Is this black forest?” She lifted the miniature cake up to inspect it but only got a flash of white mousse and red gel between the chocolate layers before Laurin snagged it away from her with his tongue.
Sucked the chocolate ganache from her fingertips.
“Laurin,” she attempted to admonish him again, but a flash of a memory of him sucking her fingers clean after she’d touched herself had her breathless and wondering if they had enough time before they had to go back.
Wondering how badly her sweater would be ruined if he pushed her up against a tree and wrapped her legs around his waist and—
“Why did you send me all those texts?” she asked as his lips meandered from the chocolatey fingertips to the back of her hand, where any pretense of cleaning was lost. He was clearly trying to seduce her, a strategy he’d had great success with in the past.
“Hmm?” he murmured as he closed the gap between them by holding the plate behind her and reaching around to grab another treat for her.
He’d made clever bonbons for his lights, even creating a lattice of cherry licorice rope to suspend them from so they wouldn’t interfere with the roof.
She’d meant to tell him that she thought his dollhouse structure with four walls but a roof that slid back and forth to reveal either the kitchen or the café was ridiculously clever, but now didn’t seem to be the time, what with that lemon chiffon bonbon at her lips.
She accepted it with a chomp and a withheld moan of pleasure, glad in this moment that she couldn’t also be betrayed by an erection, before she shook her head. “The texts. I never responded, but you kept sending them anyway.”
He ate the other half of the bonbon, the act of sharing the candy as intimate as the hours they’d spent naked together.
“Laurin, I think you need to back off a—”
“You did respond.”
“What? No, I—oh God, did Manon make it look like I was responding?” She’d be mortified if Laurin thought he’d been having a conversation with her the entire time, but never had there been a comment from him that looked like a response to something that hadn’t been said.
He grinned, stole the briefest kiss, nothing more than a peck on the lips, and fished his phone out of his pants pocket. “See, look.” He held it up, showing her his lock screen.
It was a screenshot of the show, of the two of them working on the dinner together, her offering him a spoonful of cranberry sauce to sample.
They weren’t standing all that close in that moment, she remembered it clearly, but the camera angle made it look like they were a breath’s width from each other.
Candace pursed her lips, refusing to let him see any reaction as he unlocked it.
His home screen was Candace squatting down to give Vivvy a cookie. This morning.
“This could be construed as stalking,” she said.
Laurin just shook his head and pulled up their texts, this one her official Food2Love headshot.
“See this, here?” he said, pointing at the extra little bubble her picture sat in next to his text about everyone talking about her.
He turned the phone back to himself to type in a short message and spun it back to her. “Now watch that bubble when I send—”
“Laurin!” she cried out as her stomach butterflies turned feral and the blood rushed to her head.
“No no, don’t look at the text, just the bubble.”
But it was too late. She’d already read the three words.
He stared her hard in the eye, unblinking, his smile melting with the intensity of his gaze. “I’m sending it now, Candace.”
She shook her head. “No, please don’t.”
“Too late.”