“Taryn.”
“That's my name…” I whisper.
Then he kisses me like he's been thinking about it as long as I have. His hand spreads across the small of my back and pulls me in tight. His mouth is slow and sure. I rise up onto my toes, my fingers grasping his shirt. He walks me backward until the walk-in door is cool against my shoulders, and he's warm everywhere else. A low sound rumbles in his chest. It runs straight through me, from my scalp to my core, and makes my knees quiver. I say his name into the kiss and his fingers slide into my hair, cradling my head like I'm something delicate and precious.
One more minute of this and I'll be suggesting we test how sturdy the worktable is. Then he stops. Hawk pulls back, his hand still cupped behind my head. We're both breathing hard.
“That shouldn't have happened,” he says, his voice rough.
“Funny. It felt like it was going to since I first ate that pie you baked.”
“Taryn, you got a letter a coupla days ago that knocked your whole life over, and you're stranded in a town you've known for five minutes. And I'm a lot older than you.” He straightens up. His hands leave me slowly and that's the only reason I don't throw the saucepan at him. “I won't be the bandage you wrap around what that man did. When you pick somebody, you'll do it with your feet under you. Not because you washed up here and I was standing closest to the door.”
“That's the stupidest thing anyone's ever said to me.”
“It's not stupid.”
“Hawk, I'd been eyeing you up for an hour before I knew Keith wasn't coming.”
For a second I think the door he closed is going to swing open. Then he steps back, lifts his jacket off the hook, and the shutters come down over his face.
“Don’t forget to tell Marvin about the venison,” he says at the door.
The lock clicks behind him. His bike starts on the first kick and the engine fades up the mountain road. I stand alone in the warm kitchen. My lips are still humming, and my body aches in a strange way, like it wants to be pressed against his chest again.
I pick up the jar and turn it in my hands; he thinks I kissed him because I'm stranded, or lonely, or bored, but he’s wrong.
I'm not spoken for anymore. But Hawk is. He just doesn't know it yet.
Chapter Six
HAWK
My plan is simple. Bake the pies before the town wakes up, do my shift on the mountain, and stay the hell away from Taryn until my head's screwed back on straight.
The plan survives until five on Friday morning. I've got the first pies in the oven when a key turns in the back door of Marvin's kitchen. I know it's her before the door's halfway open; that light step and the strawberry scent of her shampoo.
“Morning, handsome!” Taryn sounds delighted to see me. She dances into the kitchen, ties on an apron, and starts pulling butter out of the walk-in like we’ve done this a million times before. “Marvin gave me a key. I've got six pies and a cake to bake for tomorrow, and this oven's bigger than Viv's.”
I brace for it. Women always want the conversation, and I kissed her against that walk-in last night and then walked out like an asshole.
But it doesn't come.
Taryn hums along to the radio and weighs out flour. She asks me to pass the salt. She works her side of the table and I work mine, and the kitchen fills up with pies, hers and mine in rows. At some point a mug appears at my elbow. Black, one sugar, exactly how I take it, which means Lila's big mouth strikes again.
In the second hour we reach for the bench scraper at the same moment. Her hand lands on top of mine and neither of us moves. Then she pats my knuckles and goes back to her cake, and I stand there like a fucking idiot reeling from that one touch. My cock’s hard and it takes an effort not to sweep her up into my arms and kiss her.
When the lattice she’s making rips, I move next to her.
“You're rolling it too warm.” I gather the dough back into a round and flour the pin. “Just chill it for ten more minutes. Cut your strips wider, too… it’s more forgiving.”
“Is your advice based on the haunted recipe? Am I being haunted by your grandma right now?”
“This is the free part. Rest is secret.”
She pouts and it’s damn sexy. “What's the secret part?”
I should keep my mouth shut; Grandma's recipe has been mine alone for twenty years. “A splash of almond essence in with the cherries. Almond liquor works even better. And a pinch of black pepper in the crust.”
