Bonnie laughed. “I did try to cut back on the lye.”
Jordan waved her hand, still chewing. “Sorry, it’s just that lavender tastes like soap to me.”
“It can,” Bonnie said. “But you can avoid that by—”
“Grinding the buds and mixing them with the sugar.” The wordswere out of Astrid’s mouth before she could stop them. She remembered reading about the technique years ago, but she’d never tried it.
Bonnie just grinned. “See? A baker through and through.” Then she winked and moved on to another waiting customer, leaving Astrid feeling strangely achy and nostalgic.
“That was... interesting,” Jordan said, crushing the little paper cup in her hands and looking at Astrid expectantly.
“What?” Astrid said. “You’ve never eaten a scone before?”
“I’m not talking about the scone,” Jordan said, her voice so low and gentle, Astrid sucked in a breath, her throat suddenly thick. “I’m talking about lavender sugar and the way—”
“It’s just sugar.”
“—you looked like a kid on Christmas when you were talking about it.”
Astrid shook her head. “It’s... it’s just something I used to do.”
“Used to?”
“Yeah, used to. I’m not...”
“The flour-dusted-cheeks type?” Jordan said, her head tilted, eyes narrowed softly.
“Exactly,” Astrid said, except her desire to cry multiplied tenfold. It didn’t make any sense. Jordan wasn’t wrong. Astrid certainlywasn’tthe kitchen wench type. At all. She’d made damn sure of that her entire adult life.
She met Jordan’s curious gaze, green and gold and one hundred percent maddening.
“Exactly,” she said again and cleared her throat, wiping the scone’s crumbs on her jeans before turning away. “We should go. I’m sure Natasha and Emery are ready to start again.”
“Fine,” Jordan said, the snark back in her voice, which was exactly what Astrid needed right now. “But we’re getting that damn fairy clock and that’s that.”
“Like hell we are,” Astrid said as they started across the grass together.
Jordan grinned, but said nothing.
Forty-five minutes later, Astrid sat in the back seat of the van next to Jordan, a monstrously ugly clock on the lead carpenter’s lap.
Chapter Eight
ASTRID DIDN’T USUALLYattend demo days. She hated the dust, the chaos, the crew tearing cabinets out of walls and wielding sledgehammers haphazardly. But the Everwood Inn wasn’t just any design project, and everything had to be documented forInnside America, including her overseeing parts of the demo—or at least pretending to. Plus, with her reputation already on shaky ground with the lead carpenter, Astrid knew she needed to be involved. Maybe peeling off a segment of wallpaper or two might go a long way to repairing things with Jordan. All she had to do was be her usual collected self.
Except when she pulled up to the front of the inn and spotted Jordan and Natasha standing on the porch, laughing, Astrid’s nerves quickly rebelled. With the giant dumpster situated in the front yard, coupled with the show’s crew mixing among the demo crew, things were getting real.
“You’re here,” Jordan said when Astrid got out of her car and headed toward the porch, her work bag hooked onto her elbow.
Astrid made sure her smile reached her eyes. Jordan’s short hair was flaked with dust and god only knew what else, clear safety gogglesperched on top of her head. A worn tool belt encircled her waist, fastened around another pair of overalls, these a dark gray denim, with nothing but a bright pink sports bra underneath.
Astrid felt her stomach flip—public displays of skin always made her uneasy, an unfortunate by-product of three decades of Isabel’s etiquette lessons. Logically, she knew revealing certain parts of one’s body in a situation that didn’t involve water and a bathing suit was perfectly normal and acceptable for some people, but her gut instinct couldn’t shake off the years of crossing her legs at the ankles, right over left. Still, she found herself tilting her head at the other woman, admiring the smooth skin showing through the sides of her overalls, wondering what it would feel like to be that free.
“Hello?” Jordan said, waving a hand in front of Astrid’s face.
“Sorry, hi,” Astrid said, slipping her sunglasses over her eyes. She felt better with a barrier between herself and this woman, an extra wall of protection. “How’s everything going?”
Her eyes searched for Josh Foster, the contractor the Everwoods had hired and whose crew handled the demo. When they met on jobs, Astrid interacted with the man as little as possible, emailing him design schematics with a curt “Here” in the body of the message and leaving it at that. As her best friend Claire’s ex and the father of Claire’s daughter, Ruby, Josh was an inevitable presence in Astrid’s circle, but she didn’t have to like it. He’d crapped out on Claire enough in the past that his newfound responsibility—complete with contracting business and permanent home in Winter Lake—did little to endear him to Astrid. His crew was here, though, dumping ancient sinks and cabinets into the large green dumpster on the front lawn, so she had to give him that.
