Zander
I love you. I’ve always loved you.
Text message from Britt to Zander:
Britt
I’m home.
Zander
Cool. Thanks.
Chapter
fifteen
The afternoon of Zander’s return to Merryweather, Britt opened the door of her cottage to find him standing on the threshold. He looked tough and proficient in his lightweight hiking pants and Patagonia fleece pullover. The disordered state of his almost-black hair attested to his disdain of primping. His gaze spoke of his constancy.
At the sight of him, she curbed two urges simultaneously. The urge to punch him. And the urge to throw herself into his arms. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey.”
“Welcome home.” She scooped up her hiking backpack and locked the front door behind her. “Did you have a good visit with Daniel?”
“I did.”
“Excellent.”
They talked about his trip to St. Louis on the way to the mountain to go rock-climbing.
It would be great if she could enjoy their outing by dodging this unceasing troubled tangle of reactions toward Zander. It would be great if she could transition away from the stress of today’s workhours. She’d made another batch of peppermint truffles and failed at mastering the recipe yet again.
He slipped on a pair of classic brown sunglasses that would have looked right at home on Cary Grant. Desire tightened within her. The air inside the car thickened. This wasexactlythe response she’d wanted to have for Reid.
She contemplated the serious way Zander held his jaw. Noted the play of muscles running up his neck.
She’d known him very well for years upon years! How was it possible to see someone she’d known so long in a whole new light?
The familiar scents of chocolate and coffee greeted Zander when he entered Sweet Art the following afternoon.
Three female customers sat together to one side of the room, talking. Maddie was thanking another customer as she passed over a bag printed with the shop’s logo.
He scanned the display case as he approached. The chocolates within gleamed. Truffles in various flavors, each topped with a unique crown—fondant, sprinkles, sea salt, sugar crystals, and more. Chocolate bark. Chocolate turtles. Hand-dipped chocolates. Molded chocolates. Fanciful chocolates. No-nonsense chocolates. Nutty chocolate. Fruity chocolate. Milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate.
When he’d been young, his taste for desserts had run toward Starbursts and Twizzlers. Later, when Britt had first developed a passion for chocolate, he’d done what he’d always done when he’d found himself in a position of ignorance in his life—he’d gone to the library, checked out every book on the subject, and committed them all to memory.
His ability to recall what he read had been the saving grace of his childhood. Books had evened his playing field for as long as he could remember. And so at first he’d studied chocolate the way he’d have studied chemistry. He’d had no personal interest in it. He’d simply been driven to learn what he could for Britt’s sake.
However, during his cooking sessions with Britt, he’d comprehended more about chocolate than books had the power to teach. He’d felt the texture of it against the roof of his mouth. He’d watched Britt’s whisk stirring shiny, dark brown, molten chocolate against the sides of a glass bowl. He’d heard the crunch when she’d ground down vanilla beans and sugar using a mortar and pestle.
Along the way, he’d educated his palate for chocolate the way sommeliers educated their palates for wine. He understood the chocolate-making process. He’d taught himself to differentiate the flavors of the world’s three different types of cacao beans: Criollo, Forastero, Trinitario.
He’d come to love chocolate. And, since the day Britt had opened Sweet Art, he’d felt at home inside these walls. He couldn’t separate Britt from chocolate or from Sweet Art. His feelings for the latter two were knotted up with his feelings for her.
“Zander,” Maddie said warmly in greeting.
“Hi, Maddie.”
