“And cut!” Tammy hollers. She yanks her headset’s mic down, getting it out of her face. “Perfect, Mason. Good job.”
Oh sure, he doesn’t have to do it again.
Tammy strides in front of us. “When we begin again, you will scramble to your baskets and then hurry to your workstation. We won’t be filming this a second time. If you trip and fall on your face, it will be on the show.”
“Do the baskets contain different ingredients?” Anne, Jessica’s cousin, asks.
“Not this time,” Tammy assures us, and then she steps aside. “But we want to keep it interesting, so hurry like the prize money depends on it.”
A cameraman moves right by my side, the lens practically in my face. I give him a sideways look.
“Just ignore me,” he says with an Australian accent.
“Yeah, okay.” I laugh and shake my head.
With several cameras trained on him, Mason tells us to collect our ingredients. We make a mad dash to the table. As if we really are racing for something good, Chrissy shoulders past Sadie, just about knocking my partner on her rump. BeforeSadie falls, Cole grabs her arm, steadying her. She gives him a grateful smile and glares at Chrissy.
I grab a basket, and we hurry back to our station.
“What’s in here?” Sadie asks, peering inside.
“Molasses, spices—nothing unusual.” I’m relieved to see several cookie cutters as well. At least we won’t have to fight the other teams for the ones on the shelf.
Sadie and I are prepared. We have several dozen recipes in our arsenal, and we knew we’d eventually find ourselves making ginger cookies.
“The sandwich cookies?” Sadie asks, facing me as she’s walking backward, heading toward the ingredient carts.
“Yep.” Wasting no time, I’m already measuring sugar into the mixing bowl. “And the gingerbread cutouts and the spicy gingersnaps.”
“On it.” Her blond ponytail swings as she whips around, off at a quick walk.
We’re not even five minutes in when Charlie calls for a medic. He must have nicked himself with a knife. Lindsay only shakes her head, not the slightest bit fazed that her partner is already bleeding.
There’s a little bickering between teams, but I do my best to block it out. Sadie returns and immediately hands me the butter so I can cream it with our sugar blend.
The ovens have already been pre-heated to 350 degrees, but we need 375 degrees for our ginger sandwich cookies. Before I can remind Sadie, she’s already resetting the temperature. After sharing a kitchen with her as much as we have in the last week, we’ve learned we work well together, despite the obvious reasons we shouldn’t.
Sadie is focused and quiet while she works, and I appreciate that. She moves through steps methodically, unlike some of thecompetitors who are running about their stations like chickens, and we are able to each focus on our own tasks.
I glance up from my dough and find she’s already started on the ganache for the sandwich cookies. She flashes me a hesitant smile and returns to her project.
We just might have a chance to win this thing.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It’sthree o’clock in the afternoon on the longest day known to man. The cookies are waiting for judging, and we just finished with our second interview. My feet ache, my neck is sore, and I am exhausted.
But I’m confident in the cookies we made, even if I’m not looking forward to the judging process.
“You’re a bit shiny,” one of the makeup girls says, patting my forehead with powder before I can so much as blink.
“Thanks.”
She nods and moves off, ready to spread her talc-like fairy dust with the rest of the competitors.
Sadie sits across from me at the table, looking shell-shocked. “I had no idea.”
Judging from the exhausted, nervous expressions the other competitors wear, they are feeling the same way.
