He started to respond but stopped himself to stare at the mixer. A moment later, he said, "I'll deal with that when I'm done cutting the lawn."
I glanced between him and the mixer. "Deal with what?"
"There's a gear slipping. I'll fix it when you're finished here."
I knew better than to ask him to explain. Jude used to stop people from using the electric pencil sharpeners at school, swearing he could hear when they were about to jam and that it would take longer to fix if we let it get to that point. It would've been easy to write him off as some kind of spiritual pencil sharpener medium but he was always right. He could hear it.
Apparently, he could hear my mixer jamming too.
"I really love this mixer," I said. "I'll need it back. Soon."
He stepped closer to the island, turned an ear toward the mixer. With a nod, he said, "It won't take long. But don't turn it to the highest setting. It'll make it worse faster." Then he glanced back at his son. "Want me to teach you how to mow a lawn?"
Percy signed something that had Jude laughing in response.
"Understood," Jude said. "But you'll learn one of these days. I'm not sending you out into the world without survival skills."
"I think you have some time," I said. "A decade, at least."
He grinned at me as he pulled off the cap and ran his fingers through his hair. "While you're assisting," he said to Percy, "make sure you show Audrey how good you are at washing dishes." He crossed the room toward me and moved into my space, a hand low on my hip, and brushed a kiss over my lips. "If he's too much, just send him outside."
"We'll be okay."
He stepped back as he settled the cap on his head. "I don't doubt it."
My gaze followed Jude as he moved toward the side door. He turned the hat backward and hooked a glance over his shoulder, taking in my bare feet and flour-dusted apron before closing in on my mouth. His lips turned up though I wouldn't call it a smile. More like a promise of things to come.
With that promise came a pulse deep inside me. A desperate clench. I was sure he'd be pleased to hear that heavy gaze had landed exactly as intended. He didn't do anything without meaning it. I ran a finger over my lips and stared at the door long after it'd closed behind him.
"All done with the flour."
I startled out of my daydream and back toward Percy. "You're the best assistant I've ever had," I said. "So efficient. I might need you to help me bake every weekend."
"Can I? I'm good at following directions."
"That's really important with baking," I said.
"Why?"
"Because there's a lot of science in baking," I said. "Lots of chemical reactions. If you don't follow the directions—the recipe—you won't get the kind of reaction you want."
Percy asked lots of questions about my favorite breads and baked goods, and then asked if we could make small cakes in the shape of Christmas trees.
"I'm sure we could try." I dropped the ball of dough into the proofing bowl and covered it. "I haven't thought too much about Christmas baking yet."
"Maybe we could make them and you could post a video of us baking together."
I nearly dropped the bowl. Surely he didn't mean a blog video. He couldn't. And why would he? That was just myimagination shifting into hyperspeed. He was talking about a parent filming their kid doing something cute and calling it a movie. That was all. "Tell me more about that. What kind of video?"
"You can take a video when we make the tree cakes together. I'll help you and everyone can see. All the people would love that post."
My eyes were prepared to blink their way out of my skull.
But, wait. There was no way Percy was watching videos from my baking blog. That simply was not possible. First of all, he was a child. A child with an internet connection, obviously, but he wasn't on there looking up seedy multigrain bread recipes. He simply was not.
I was being jumpy. That was all. Paranoid for no reason. If I let myself, I could lose entire months to pointless paranoia. I'd wasted the whole year after my divorce worrying about my husband jumping out of a closet and dragging me back to California.
I left the bowl on the far corner of my counter designated for bread proofing and dumped the roasted squash into another bowl now that it was cool. I handed Percy a masher and put the squash in front of him.
