“Like your cookies,” I said with a small smile.
“Yes!” she practically shouted. “Exactlylike my cookies.” She put her hands on her hips and looked at me. “I'm still a little mad that you didn't fall to your knees in front of me.”
I mean, I sort of want to right now…
“Everyone has a religious experience with those cookies,” she said and returned to whacking the chicken into strips with a cleaver.
Now's your chance. Ask her to make them.
But I hated admitting I couldn't solve a problem myself. My whole company was centered around solving complex data problems. I was a billionaire. Magazine articles had been written about my brilliance with cryptocurrency. I should be able to make cookies; it was just embarrassing otherwise.
“I'm not a person who like sweet things,” I replied.
“Even after a taste of my Christmas best, you're telling me you don't want to put your mouth on my cookies ever again?” she said with an overly dramatic pout, looking up at me from under her lashes.
“I—” I clamped my mouth shut. Holly looked too kissable.
And fuckable.
But maybe she wasn't actually flirting. Maybe she was just being friendly. Belle would kill me if I scared Holly. But she'd come up here willingly…
“What should I do with all these little spätzle noodles?” I asked her after I had a huge pile of them.
“We're going to brown the spätzle in the pan with the sausage,” she said, banging her spoon on the rim of a cast iron skillet.
I scooped the little noodles off the cutting board. They spattered when they hit the pan.
“Stir that,” she said, resting her palm on the underside of my forearm. Her hand was warm against my skin. I wanted to crush her to me.
I stirred while she finished cutting up the chicken strips then dipped them in a spicy batter. She was humming “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” as she worked.
“How's that oil looking?” she asked. “Hot enough?”
I peered around on the stove top. “I don't see it.”
She pointed. A few feet away from the stove was a container of oil sitting in the countertop.
“That's the garbage can,” I said, confused.
“Oh, sweet winter child, no,” Holly said with a laugh. “I'm about to blow your mind. And maybe you.” She muttered the last line under her breath.
“What?” I said, thinking I must have misheard.
“What? You have a deep fryer in your countertop. You're really living large here,” she said, shaking off the last strips of chicken.
“Aren't you supposed to separate those?” I asked in concern as she dropped the batter-drenched strips of chicken into the oil.
“It's better this way, trust me,” she said.
The smell of fried chicken brought the kids in.
“I just have to make a salad,” Holly told them.
They immediately jumped into action, tearing lettuce for the salad and slicing up the few vegetables I had in my fridge. They even made a vinaigrette.
“I'm very impressed,” Holly said, surveying them. “I always wanted a big family but thought it might be a little too chaotic. But if they can be trained to cook, eh, why not have ten?”
“Seriously, you want this many kids?” I asked her as the young Svensson brothers worked like little elves to set the table.
