Desired in December (Spring River Valley Book 12) (6 page)

He took an experimental swallow. The water was so cold it almost burned its way down his throat. He nodded and downed half the bottle. “Perfect.”

“Good. That’s one thing that works.”

“What else needs to be done back here?”

After a dainty sip of her own water, she laughed. “Everything. The place has to be scoured from top to bottom before the health inspection. Then out front, the counters have to be installed, the floor has to be replaced, the walls have to be painted, and the furniture needs to be set up. All before the fifteenth of the month so I can take advantage of Christmas sales.”

“Ambitious plans,” he said, meaning it as a compliment. He’d always been in awe of her drive to succeed, and maybe that was why he’d wanted to join the army, to prove to himself he was as driven and determined as she was.

Unfortunately, her faint smile faded at his remark. “This place isn’t a pipe dream. It’s the logical next step in my business plan.”

“I…sure. I can see that. I didn’t mean—”

“Never mind. I’ve got to get back to my kitchen. I’ve got deliveries tomorrow. Can you lock up when you leave? You don’t need a key if you go out the back.”

Disappointment dimmed James’s
enthusiasm for the rest of the backbreaking work ahead of him. This job wouldn’t be nearly as much fun if Cassie wasn’t going to be right in the next room. “Sure.”

Then again, he probably had a better shot of getting the work finished if he didn’t have sweaty, sooty Sassy Cassie as a distraction.

James was standing in front of the shop at half past ten the next morning when Cassie pulled up in her van. He had his hands on his hips
, and he was leaning back from the waist, looking up at the vacant marquee. Her Buttons and Bows Bake Shop sign would be coming any day now, but right now, only a small, computer-generated poster taped in the front window proclaimed that the store that had once sold bagels and coffee would now be selling cupcakes and cookies.

Normally she would have jumped out of the van and raced across the street, eager to get to work on building her dream. Instead she remained behind the wheel, watching him pace back and forth, torn between wanting to enjoy the play of his thigh muscles as he took each long, determined stride and the desire to bolt and never be heard from again.

Yesterday had been sheer torture. It was bad enough Mr. Walkowski had hired James to do her demolition work. Knowing he was there, just a few feet away, all sweaty and ripped and manly, was one thing, but actually seeing him wielding that enormous sledgehammer had left her barely able to breathe.

Sticking her head in the oven had seemed like a good idea at the time,
but nearly cracking her skull in the process, not so great. She congratulated herself on never having let on that during their last conversation yesterday, she’d been close to passing out from a near concussion. Having him put his hands on her and drag her out of the oven had been torture enough; she couldn’t imagine the shock it would have been to her system to have actually fainted and awoken to find him leaning over her.

Aspirin and a cold compress had cured her minor head injury
, but it was going to take a lot more than that to fix the condition caused by James’s constant presence.

Sighing, she opened the driver’s door, grabbed her sample basket from the passenger seat and steeled herself for round two of
“demolition man.”

He saw her the moment she shut the van door and fixed her with an expectant stare while she crossed the street.

“What?” she demanded when she reached his section of the sidewalk.

“Where have you been?”

“Deliveries.” She held up the basket, all that was left after her rounds to local businesses. “Didn’t Mr. Walkowski tell you I wouldn’t be here until after ten?”

“Ah…no. And since I don’t have your cell
number, I couldn’t call you.”

She shrugged. “Sorry. He knows my schedule. I’m up at five to prep, deliveries from eight to ten, then I can come here and oversee the demolition and construction.”

“Up at five? Every day?”

“Yeah. How else would I get anything done?” She pushed past him and unlocked the front door of the shop. “Don’t look so shocked. Don’t they make you get up at the crack of dawn in the army?”

“Well, yeah…” He followed her into the shop which looked like a truck had driven through it now that the main counters were gone. The space did look ten times larger, but there was debris everywhere cluttering the floor, which had been scraped of several layers of old linoleum and looked filthy and ancient.

“I thought you were done with this,” she said. “I’ve got the new counters being delivered today.”

“I am done. I’m here waiting for the truck that’s picking up the garbage.”

“When will that be here?” The place was a disaster at the moment
, and it dampened her spirits to see how much work still needed to be done. Right now it looked more like a war zone than a place where people would be stopping by to snack on gourmet cupcakes in a few short weeks.

James pulled a cell phone from his back pocket and started dialing. “Any time
, now that the place is finally open.”

While he made his call, she went into the back and set down her basket.
The kitchen at least looked a little better, except that a fine layer of dust had settled over many of the surfaces she’d scrubbed yesterday. Sighing, she returned to the front room and found him pulling on a pair of work gloves. He looked damn sexy doing it, so she averted her eyes.

“The truck will be here in fifteen minutes. The place should be ready for deliveries by noon,” he told her.

She nodded. What more could she say? Despite her worries, everything was still on schedule. She had a shot at opening up before the holidays.

“This is actually a pretty big space,” James said. He turned in a circle in the center of the room as if mentally measuring the place.

“It’ll feel a lot smaller once the new counters are in place. They’re pretty wide.” Arms spread, Cassie paced off the area where the refrigerated display cases would go. “Then there are going to be six small tables all around here, with two chairs apiece, and over here—” She moved toward the front window, which was still covered by a layer of opaque soap that needed to be scraped off. “I have a couple of cushioned benches where people can sit if they’re waiting for an order to go.” She could see it all in her head, the burgundy-checkered gingham curtains hanging from brass rods in the window, the white wrought-iron tables and chairs. She could imagine the oversize ceramic buttons and bows that would decorate the sunny yellow walls. In her mind, the place looked like her grandmother’s sewing room, where there had always been time for a friendly chat and a home-baked snack. That was what she wanted her customers to feel when they came in.

When Cassie snapped out of her daydream, James was staring at her, his expression unreadable.

Her face heated. He probably thought she was insane. Clearly, he saw only the torn-up flooring, hardened streaks of black glue running in haphazard lines beneath their feet, the broken glass from the old countertops, splintered wood, cobwebs in the corners of the windows, and the scuffed paneling that had to be spackled and painted with probably half a dozen coats of thick primer.

Ambition was a dirty word in her book. She’d always felt it meant overreaching, wanting more than you could handle, and she refused to feel
that way about her business. She didn’t have delusions of grandeur, just a vision of the future she was determined to make happen. That didn’t mean she wasn’t plagued by doubt, and those doubts hit home when she saw the look in James’s eyes.

“I’m babbling,” she said finally. “I tend to get carried away.”

“You’re beautiful.” He muttered the words under his breath, deep and sultry, or at least that’s how her addled brain perceived them.

She probably hadn’t heard him correctly. “What?”

He stepped closer, and his gaze—she could swear—dropped to her lips. “I said, you’re beautiful. For a second there, you were gone. You time traveled to the future when all this mess is gone and your shop is up and running. You could see it all like you were there, and the look on your face was beautiful.”

Cassie gulped air. He’d done it again, left her gasping, drowning. How could he know exactly how she felt? How had he ended up standing only inches from her? Instinctively her eyelids dropped
, and her lips parted. He’d be here in just a second, his hands on her waist, his mouth hovering over hers, and five years of longing and grief would evaporate.

She was ready to give in, to forget, to move forward with him from this one perfect moment on.

But the kiss she was expecting never came.

* * * *

James could almost taste her. How easy it would have been to surge forward that last inch and claim Cassie’s mouth.

Instead he backed up. “How does your boyfriend feel about all this?” He hated that he couldn’t keep the resentment out of his voice. His question came out sounding sarcastic rather than curious. Her half-closed eyes popped open.

Had she really been as close to kissing him as he had been to kissing her?

“Fine!” Her response came out like a squeak, and she cleared her throat before continuing. “He supports everything I do.”

James turned away, nodding, making it look like he was surveying the dimensions of the room again when he really just didn’t want her to see the disappointment on his face. “I’m just asking, because running a shop like this is going to take a lot of time. I hope he’s not the type who needs a lot of attention because you’re going to be really busy.”

“He’s not…the type—he’s…very independent.”

“So he’s not around much?” James already hated this guy.

Cassie scoffed. “That’s not what independent means. Of course he’s around…a lot. He just isn’t…needy. He’ll be fine.”

“What does he do? For a living?” When James turned back to face her, she was gaping, doing that fish-out-of-water face she made when she was rattled. He took her hesitation to mean Mr. Boyfriend didn’t have a great job.

“He’s…he works at—”

An insistent knock on the glass of the front door startled them both, and Cassie practically flew across the room to open it. Two men in gray overalls marched in. They were from the disposal company Mr. Walkowski had hired to clear out the debris from the demolition.

“What’re we taking?” one of them asked while the other pulled on a pair of work gloves similar to the ones James wore. He directed them to the pile
s of wood, torn linoleum, and plates of glass that had to go, his conversation with Cassie forgotten when she disappeared wordlessly into the back room.

* * * *

Cleanup took over an hour and by then the new counters had arrived. James supervised the delivery along with signing for two loads of tile for the floor and six buckets of paint. Mr. Walkowski arrived mid-afternoon and spent a long time with Cassie going over placement of the counters and the schedule for the flooring. When they’d ironed everything out, he asked James to help with the tiling and painting after the electrical work needed for the refrigeration units was complete. Of course he couldn’t say no. A job was a job, but he had the distinct impression Cassie would have been relieved if he left the construction work to others.

When everyone else left and he’d collected all the packing materials from the new counters for disposal, he wandered into the back room where she’d gone, he assumed, to hide out from him. He almost expected to find her with her head in the oven again, but now she was holed up in the small restroom, cleaning it, he decided based on the sounds of mopping and running water.

James was done for the day, but he didn’t want to leave without saying something, so he waited, filling his time by inspecting the kitchen, which sparkled now that she’d spent the better part of two days cleaning it. The huge wicker basket she’d brought with her this morning sat on one of the countertops, a red-checkered cloth spilling over the side.

After a guilty glance at the restroom door, he decided to snoop. He was starving, and though his mother had vowed several dozen times since his return to fatten him up for the holidays, he couldn’t resist spoiling the
home-cooked dinner that would be waiting for him by swiping an authentic Buttons and Bows cookie or two. The desserts Cassie had made for his party had surpassed everyone’s expectations, so he knew he was in for a taste of heaven.

He found everything wrapped in cellophane bags and tied with
red gingham ribbons. The remains of her samples included what looked like a corn muffin, a red velvet cupcake, a few chocolate biscotti and a bag of oatmeal cookies, his favorite. While she sloshed and scrubbed in the bathroom, he carefully untied the ribbon from the bag of cookies and removed one with the skill of a master thief.

They smelled divine, and the first crunchy bite was rapture. He had a third cookie half
eaten when she tapped him on the shoulder.

“
Hmpf?,” he said through cookie crumbs. “Theeth are weally gooth.”