I didn’t wake up until the next morning when the movement of the truck startled me awake. Shane had tucked the blankets close around me and we were driving slowly back toward the main path. The limo was waiting for me when we got there and Shane led me over to it, offering a gentle kiss before walking away into the predawn purple. I knew that he would be changing his clothes and heading to work the ranch, but all I could think about was going back to sleep, which I did promptly upon settling into the backseat of the limo. I woke up again when we stopped in front of the cottage.
Noah was walking toward the short hallway that led to the kitchen when I stepped into the cottage. He turned and looked at me, shock registering in his eyes.
“You’re just getting back?” he asked.
I nodded sleepily.
“I think I’m going to go try to get a little more sleep.”
“I won’t bother you by bringing breakfast,” he said.
“No,” I said quickly. “It’s OK.”
Noah shook his head.
“It’s fine. You need your rest. I’ll just have something waiting for you in the kitchen. You can let Fawn know when you wake up.”
He disappeared into the hallway and I started to my room, hoping that the strange feeling I had in my chest was just the tiredness.
Chapter Eighteen
Snow
Thursday two weeks later I still hadn’t gotten my box for my next date and was starting to feel anxious. I lay in bed and stared up at the ceiling of my bedroom, watching the gentle swirl of light that emanated from the lamp that I had gotten. It looked like a wash of tiny stars. I let it soothe me to sleep and by the next morning I was filled with resolve. Packing my luggage, I headed to the retreat even without a date box. It was my weekend there and I wasn’t going to be swayed from going.
I had left for the retreat slightly later than I usually did, which got me there after supper. I wasn’t surprised that Fawn wasn’t there to greet me, but I was when I found a small box sitting on the table in my room. It was pink rather than the usual white of my date boxes and tied with white string. I opened the card on top.
“Tomorrow.”
I’ve been reduced to a single word.
I untied the string and opened the pink box. I couldn’t imagine what type of clothing might be tucked down into the tiny box, and was relieved when I saw that it wasn’t clothing at all. Instead, there was a small chocolate cupcake. I lifted it out of the box and admired the perfect swirls of frosting and tiny pink sprinkles. My heart suddenly felt like it skipped. There was only one person who I could think of who would have left this for me.
I looked at the clock and settled the cupcake back into the box before leaving my room and scurrying toward the kitchen. Noah was wiping one of the brushed metal tables when I peered inside.
“Noah?”
He looked up at me.
“Snow,” he said, his voice holding a hint of the surprise that I had felt when I found the cupcake. “I thought that I wasn’t going to see you until tomorrow.”
“So, you did leave that cupcake for me.”
He nodded and I stepped into the kitchen with him. I hadn’t been all the way inside it and was temporarily silenced in awe of the pristinely clean, sparkling space.
“I’m sorry that I didn’t have time to get one of the usual boxes to you. I was hoping that you would come here this weekend anyway.”
“I’m confused,” I said. “You’re my date?”
“I am now,” he said.
“What do you mean ‘now’?”
“I’m kind of a fill-in,” he said. “Your original date had to cancel. Fawn wanted to find a replacement, but she didn’t have time to go through all of her files to find someone she thought would work for you, and she was running out of time. I volunteered.”
“You did?” I asked, my heart leaping slightly. “Isn’t this incredibly against my contract?”
Noah shook his head.
“Fawn said that it was extenuating circumstances. To be fair, though, I don’t think that she knows how much time we’ve spent together.”
I didn’t want to contemplate that too much and I moved ahead.
“Does the date you have planned have anything to do with that cupcake?”
“You already know that I’m a baker. I thought that you might like to see some of that.”
“You’re much more than a baker,” I said, thinking about all of the delicious foods that he had prepared for me over the weeks. “Maybe,” he said, “but baking is what really matters to me. Tomorrow I’ll teach you some.”
He walked out of the kitchen behind me and I said goodnight to him at the door to the cottage before rushing to my room, wanting to spend as much time as I could pampering myself before the date.
Noah came to my room early the next morning and I was waiting for him.
“You’re up early,” he said. “I thought that I was going to have to wake you up.”
There was a hint of disappointment in his voice and I briefly regretted that I had gotten up. The thought of waking up to him seemed like a wonderful start to the day. He offered me a cup of coffee and I sipped it happily.
“What are we making today?” I asked. “Cupcakes?”
“I thought that we would start with bread since you apparently believe that it springs out of the air fully risen and baked.”
I made a face at him, but then smiled.
“I would really like that.”
We walked out of the room and went into the kitchen. He took one of the aprons from a hook on the wall and draped it over my head, reaching around my waist to tie it in place. I felt my breath catch slightly but I tried not to show it. Noah slipped into a white chef’s jacket and buttoned it. I followed him around the kitchen as he gathered ingredients, trying to make note of them in my head as if I would be able to recreate it later. Finally, we had everything and I stood by his side at the table as Noah guided me through adding the ingredients into a bowl and mixing them. Dough formed beneath the wooden spoon and I felt strangely accomplished when he turned it out onto the counter, sending up a slight puff of flour. He told me to knead the dough and I pressed into it. Noah laughed quietly and stepped behind me. He wrapped his arms around me and rested his hands over mine.
Noah’s body pressed against mine as he used his hands to help me knead into the dough. We massaged it deeply, turning and folding it. I let my hips push back slightly so that they could nestle harder against him and was rewarded by him pressing slightly closer to me. The muscles in his arms tensed and relaxed as he kneaded the dough and his breaths became deep and suggestively rhythmic. I could feel those breaths on my neck and my lips tingled in desire of his kiss, but he didn’t lean in. Too soon, the kneading was finished and Noah stepped away from me. He scooped the dough off of the counter and put it into a bowl that he had oiled before we started.
“This has to rise for about an hour now before we bake it.”
“What are we going to make in the meantime?” I asked.
“I was planning on making ice cream for dessert tonight. Would you like to help me make that?”
I nodded.
“That’s another one of those magical foods that no one makes.”
“Well, I do,” he said.
Again, we gathered ingredients and then stood side-by-side by the stove. It had never occurred to me that ice cream was cooked in any way and I watched in awe as Noah stirred sugar into cream and vanilla. He took a tasting spoon out of a metal canister beside the stove and dipped it into the mixture, tasting some of what was on the spoon before offering the rest to me.
“It could be sweeter,” I said.
He nodded and reached into a bowl of sugar. The granules sprinkled down from his fingertips like snowflakes and the thought crossed my mind that sugar had never been so sexy. We combined the mixture with lightly warmed eggs in a huge glass bowl and then Noah lifted the bowl to pour the mixture into the ice cream machine attached to the wall. I thought that he was going to guide me into another project, but instead he turned to look at me, his face slightly drawn.
“I need to talk to you,” he said.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I just need to tell you something.”
“OK. Go ahead.”
“I didn’t just volunteer to do this as a favor for Fawn.”
“You didn’t?”
“No. I’ve been attracted to you since the first moment that I saw you. I was jealous when you spent the night with that other man and when I heard that there was an opening in your experience, I didn’t want to think about another man taking it. I wanted the chance to spend more time with you.”