She stands on her chair as a tiny general, overseeing ingredients. She takes her role as Official Taste Tester very seriously. We’ve already had a long moral debate about whether eating a chocolate chip that “accidentally” fell on the counter counts as stealing.
“It’s not stealing if you were going to throw it away,” she’d argued.
Honestly? Hard to disagree.
Now, with muffins cooling and the rest of the kitchen slowly returning to order, I move around the space like I’ve been here more than three days. I’ve started reorganizing things in my head: what needs to be closer to the stove, which drawer should be the measuring cup drawer, where to stash my spices without being obnoxious.
Work helps.
It always has.
But today… it barely dents the insanity in my head.
Because no matter how many spices I alphabetize or how many pans I scrub until they shine, my thoughts keep zig-zagging right back to the same three men.
Boone is off in the office corner, making stressed-out noises at his laptop like taxes personally insulted him.
Caleb has apparently decided the best way to deal with me is to vanish into the barn like I’m an animal he’s trying not to spook.
And Silas?
Silas is the problem I can’t outrun.
I press the heel of my hand to my forehead, because even thinking his name puts a flutter low in my stomach I do not have the emotional bandwidth for.
One night.
One night.
One stupidly perfect, stupidly reckless, stupidly hot night.
Before I knew he lived here.
Before I knew he was one of my bosses.
Before I knew fate had a sick sense of humor.
Now he saunters through this house every morning, owning the oxygen in it, leaning against doorframes with that lazy, wicked grin, the same one he had right before he kissed me against the wall outside The Hollow.
And the teasing… I don’t know how long I can handle it.
“Miss Delaney?” Sadie says, pulling me out of my head.
“Yeah, sweetie?”
She’s drawing with a broken crayon on the corner of my grocery list. “Can I help you organize?”
“Organize what?”
She looks around. “Everything.”
I laugh. “That’s… ambitious. How about we start with the pantry?”
Her eyes light up.
“Not the sacred pantry,” she whispers, as if we’re talking about a dragon’s hoard.
I grin. “I have been granted special permission.”
