Chapter 3
THREE
CHASE
By dinner, I have plenty of reasons to be annoyed by Katelyn Baker.
Off the top of my head, these are at the top of the list:
One: She’s good at pretending she doesn’t notice me noticing her.
Two: Customers will forgive almost anything if you hand them fried dough with a smile that belongs on TV.
Three: If she calls my famous corndog “cute” again, I’m going to invent a new level of crispy just to spite her.
I see it all.
How she resets her cutting board without looking.
How she wipes the lip of a caramel tub before snapping the lid.
How she tells a mom with a fussy toddler, “you’re doing great,” and slips the kid a warm donut hole like it’s medicine for both of them.
The line at the window swells and thins and swells again. “Two apple ciders, a fritter, and—what’s a pumpkin cronut?” the dad in a flannel asks.
“It’s fall falling in love with Paris,” she says.
He buys three.
“Two more slices of apple,” someone barks from outside.
I slice them, run the garnishes like muscle memory—whip, dust, drizzle, done. Coffee flows. Fryers hum. The kitchen is like a synchronized dance when it’s working.
Our celebrity chef is fast. I’ll give her that.
Her pastry cream sets right, her lamination is basically perfect, her caramel is so good I want to punch someone.
And every time I don’t want to be impressed, she does something I respect, like her ease with the customers.
Which just makes it more annoying.
She’s cheerful. Efficient. Too damn good at winning people over. And she’s somehow turned my kitchen crew into her fan club.
Every time I glance her way, she’s laughing with one of my staff, teaching them something, handing a customer a warm cronut and getting a smile big enough to power a small town.
Hannah and Tyler—the same teens who drag their feet cleaning fryers—are suddenly polishing trays because “Chef Baker likes a shiny surface.”
And don’t get me started on how they gushed when she started following them online. Barf.
I don’t even have a TokTik, Facegram, or whatever the hell they’re all on these days.
I should be grateful.
Business is booming, which is what we need.
But every time someone orders one of her stupidly perfect pumpkin cronuts, it feels like a personal attack against my recipes and me.
She’s making me competitive, which is ridiculous. This isn’t a competition.
Except it is.
“Crowds like a gimmick,” I say when the first rush breaks. “Cronut, cruffin, crookie. Give it a Frankenstein name and watch the phones come out for the ‘gram.”
I think I said that right.
She cocks her head, still smiling, still friendly, but her eyes are sharp.
“To be fair, I didn’t invent the cronut. I just make a good one.”
“Hmm.”
“And you’re right, crowds love a gimmick. That’s why your ‘corndog with a twist’ sold out before lunch was over.”
I glance at the empty pan like it betrayed me.
“That’s not a gimmick. That’s my grandmother’s recipe with a better name.”
“So… branding.” She cocks her head to the side. “Or would we call that a variation on a Frankenstein name?”
Katelyn bites into one of my apple pie scraps—because of course she took a scrap while I wasn’t looking—and closes her eyes to hum in satisfaction.
My dick makes an unexpected twitch.
“Okay, Mr. Not-A-Gimmick.” She opens her eyes. “Where’d you learn to make your pie crust?”
“My grandma,” I say, flat. “And the Army.”
Her eyebrows jump. “The Army taught you to make perfectly buttery pastry?”
Despite my irritation, I can’t help but perk up a little from her compliment. Damn it.
“The Army taught me food service. If you can feed eight hundred hungry people without poisoning one of them, a Saturday rush is nothing.” I slide a lattice top onto a pie and crimp by instinct. “Grams taught me to care about making something people could remember.”
Her voice softens in that way I didn’t invite. “She sounds amazing.”
“She was.” I don’t elaborate. I don’t owe her that. “How about you? Culinary school?”
Her mouth curves. “YouTube.”
I blink. “No. Really?”
“Completely really.” She pipes a line of custard as straight as a ruler.
“I couldn’t afford school. I watched videos.
I trial-and-errored. I burned a lot of caramel.
Then I worked in three kitchens that did not care what my diploma said as long as I could keep up, keep clean, and keep my costs down. ”
I want to not respect that. But my resolve is slipping.
I’m loading fritters when Tricia leans in the side door, tablet under her arm.
“FYI, the photos and videos of your dishes are killing it online. I even had a couple of tweens who saw you to bickering ask if you’re dating or enemies as they were leaving.”
I glare. “Neither.”
Katelyn looks up, wicked smile ready. “Oh, I think we’re rivals.”
The kitchen crew laughs. I don’t.
“We’re not even playing the same game,” I tell her. “We’re two different worlds.”
“Then let’s find out which one people prefer.”
She’s teasing. Probably. But my brain snags on it like a hook.
“Fine,” I say, wiping my hands on my apron. “Want to make this more interesting?”
Her brows lift. “Interesting how?”
“Sales. This weekend. My signature item against yours. Whoever sells more wins.”
“Wins what?”
I shrug, though the corner of my mouth betrays me. “Bragging rights. Maybe a favor.”
She grins, that spark in her eyes pure trouble. “Define ‘favor.’”
“Nothing illegal. Nothing that affects the business.”
“I’ll take that bet.” She sticks out her hand. “We have a deal.”
I take her hand. The second our palms touch, the air changes. I pull back, as if I’ve just been burned.
“Tomorrow,” I say, pretending the air around me hasn’t heated up. “We’ll see who comes out on top.”