They worked side by side, their movements gradually falling into rhythm. Conversation around them ebbed and flowed, laughter echoed, and yet they found a quiet sort of harmony within the bustle. Their shoulders brushed occasionally; their hands reached for the same rolling pin more than once. Each accidental touch felt deliberate.
“You’re improving,” Marianne observed at last, eyeing his fifth reasonably shaped gingerbread man.
“I told you I’d been practicing.”
“When, precisely?”
“In my head.”
“Mental baking does not count.”
“It’s theoretical baking.”
“That’s not a thing.”
“It is now. I’m pioneering it.”
“You’re pioneering new ways to avoid admitting you have no idea what you’re doing.”
“That too.”
She laughed again, and on a reckless impulse, he flicked a little flour toward her. Just enough to dust her nose.
“Did you just assault me with baking ingredients?” she demanded, eyes narrowing in mock outrage.
“It was a defensive flour deployment.”
“Defensive against what?”
“Your brutally accurate assessment of my competence.”
“That’s not how defense works.”
“It’s how my defence works.”
Her eyes glinted. She reached for the flour tin, fingers closing around a generous handful.
“Marianne, no,” he warned. “We are in public. The entire village is here.”
“You started it.”
“I was illustrating a point.”
“What point?”
“I’ve forgotten, but it was an excellent one.”
“Your point,” she said, her tone prim as a governess, “is that you are a child who throws flour when losing an argument.”
“I was not losing. I was conducting a strategic retreat.”
“Into flour warfare?”
“Tactical flour warfare.”
And then she simply threw the flour at him.
Chapter 19
