Just One Kiss (5 page)

His face shut down again. “It was a celebration in absentia.”

“Oh, I see.” No, she didn’t see at all. Someone was away? Gone? Dead? Was it a family member? Friend? Girlfriend or ex-girlfriend? Wife or ex-wife? She’d ask, but he was looking miserable again, and she wanted the sexy smiling guy back.

“What’s your name?”

He brought his eyes back to hers. Somehow she managed not to pass out. Or giggle. Or shriek and clutch her chest. God he was gorgeous.

“Sorry. I’m Daniel.” He stepped forward and extended his hand across the case. “Daniel Flynn.”

Daniel. Good name. She loved when people didn’t shorten good names to one-syllable nicknames. Christopher. Benjamin. Alexander. And Daniel …

She took his hand, warm and strong with nice long fingers. Men’s hands turned her on. And men’s shoulders. And biceps. And butts. Chests were nice, too, and there was nothing wrong with strong thighs or decently shaped feet.

From where she was standing it looked as if Daniel might have it all.

“It’s nice to see you again. I’m glad you liked the chocolate cupcake. Anything I can get for you today?”

A long, naked back rub?

“Oh.” He glanced around the cases. “I wasn’t really planning…”

“Greek pastry? Italian? French?”

His eyes wandered to her bread shelf. “Maybe a loaf of something.”

“What’s your favorite?”

“Oatmeal.”

“Mine, too.” She glanced quickly at the loaves. “I’m out here, but I have more in the back, can you wait a second?”

“Sure.”

Angela started to turn, when an idea occurred to her. If she got the bread, came back and sold it to him, he’d have run out of reasons to be there. Which would give them maybe five more minutes to talk before he left her with no idea when or if she’d see him again. She needed more time to work around to asking if he was involved with anyone. Maybe not the greatest move—asking out a customer—but Daniel had finally woken her long-dormant interest in dating, and well…here he was. She didn’t know any other guys she’d want to date. Jack and Seth were both sexy, but Seth belonged with Bonnie, though he was too dense to figure it out, and Jack wasn’t her type, nor she his. Besides, going after either of them would be like trying to date one of her brothers.

She turned back to find Daniel studying her curiously. Not surprising since she’d taken one step toward retrieving his bread and then had frozen as if she’d gone into a coma.

“Would you like to come back and see what goes on in a bakery kitchen?” She gave an awkward laugh. Oof. The invitation came out sounding even lamer than it was. A bakery kitchen? Like she was offering him a glimpse of the Holy Grail?

“Sure.” He walked around the counter and joined her without hesitation.

Oh, my. Oh, gosh. He smelled really, really good, and given that she worked among some of the best smells in the world, that was really saying something. She wanted to touch him pretty much everywhere, but mostly she wanted to run her hands down his arms, shoulder to wrist, to see if they were as rock hard as they looked. Not since Tom had she had such a strong physical reaction to a man. And if that weren’t a huge red flag right there, she didn’t know what would be.

Except this time, she was just going to enjoy the attraction as the primal sexual response it was. This time she was not going to start dressing up simple lust with emotions it didn’t deserve, not assign to basic animal reaction any happy-ever-after importance or expectations of True Love. Fool her once, shame on her, fool her twice, she was a total moron.

She led him into her kitchen, feeling a swell of pride, hoping he could see its beauty the way she did. Sacks of flour stacked two and three feet high. Bags of seeds, sugars, specialty flours and containers of nuts and dried fruits. Her fifty-kilo dough mixer, which Alice would be bent over later in the day; the gleaming metal work table where José shaped loaves; her triple-deck oven; tall metal cooling racks where Frank did the baking—all secondhand, but working perfectly.

“This is great.” He stood in the center of the room, tall, vividly dressed, masculine, looking foreign. Angela had gotten so used to seeing everyone in flour-dusted aprons and jeans. “How does it all work?”

“I have a great staff.” She counted on her fingers. “Alice mixes the doughs, José shapes them, Frank bakes and Scott comes here and there to do random cleaning and help man the counter when he’s not in school.”

He turned from perusing the bags of specialty flours. “And you slack off all day.”

“I do. But when I’m not doing that, I develop new recipes, do most of the pastry baking, make up the schedule, balance the books, maintain inventory, try to get new accounts, put out fires…” She knocked wood. “Figuratively speaking.”

“Is this what you always wanted to do?”

“I’ve always loved baking. But it wasn’t until my honeymoon…” She practically choked on the words, then noticed his glance flicking to her left hand and realized what that sounded like. “I mean my ex-honeymoon. I mean my honeymoon with my
ex.
”

Smooth, Angela.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’ve moved on.” Though from the sound of her voice she was still bitter, a sound she needed to change if she were going to do this dating thing again.

“So you decided to be a baker during your honeymoon…”

“I was always a baker. Always had a dream of owning my own place. But in Europe I became really obsessed. I couldn’t go to enough of the shops over there. When we got home, I got a job at a bakery and learned the business. When Jack came to the rest of us with the idea of buying a building together, I jumped at it.”

“Jack? Rest of who?”

Angela made herself slow down. “Jack Shea has the photography studio down the hall. All the business owners at Come to Your Senses went to the U of Washington Seattle and graduated four years ago. We live in the apartments upstairs.”

“Okay, I get it now.” He ran his hand along the edge of her work table. Such great hands. “Must be nice to have friends around. Starting a business is tough.”

“Yes, it’s a huge plus.” She gave a little laugh. “I guess that makes us friends with benefits.”

This attempt at a joke fell as flat as her first croissant. Now he probably thought they were all sleeping together. So much for trying to let him know she was available. “How about you? What do you do? Oh, here, try this.”

She handed him a piece of her chocolate-orange pistachio baklava, a new recipe she had high hopes for.

He bit, chewed. Both eyebrows went up. “Hmm. Nice. Thanks.”

Nice? She wasn’t after nice, she was after
wow
. But maybe he was shy about being effusive, or thought it wasn’t manly. Tom had barely ever let a compliment pass his lips, as if he were afraid strengthening someone else would weaken him.

“Glad you like it.”

“I work at Slatewood International.”

Angela’s ears perked up, even as she hated herself for letting Tom’s words get to her. Slatewood was a huge manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Seattle. She’d tried, admittedly lamely, to get noticed at some of the larger local companies but without luck. Maybe having an employee to get her in the door would help. Landing a corporate account would be a coup even Tom couldn’t sneer at. “Really. Slatewood. Doing what?”

“Security specialist. Trying to keep one step ahead of scammers, hackers, phishers and so on.”

“That’s a big job.”

He shrugged modestly. “I enjoy it. Kind of a good vs. evil battle.”

“And you get to be the superhero. One of these?” She passed him one of her most popular cookies, based on the lowly oatmeal raisin, changed by supplementing the cinnamon with allspice and cardamom, and substituting dried currants and cranberries for raisins. Pretty basic, but good.

Another bite. More chewing. His jaw slowed. His eyes closed in bliss. “Oh, my God, that’s amazing.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Angela plunked her hands on her hips, forcing herself to look pleased. So he wasn’t afraid to compliment. Apparently for some tastes the baklava recipe wouldn’t fly as is. She’d need to do more fiddling. “Would you like to take some home?”

“Absolutely.”

“Just for you or is there someone…living with you?”

“I have a roommate.”

A roommate. “How many do you think he—” deliberate pause “—or
she
can eat?”

“He can eat a lot.”

He.
She hid a grin as she packed a dozen cookies, freshly baked, into a box. “That’ll last an hour or two. Those are on the house, by the way. You can always come back for more.”

He took the box. “Thank you, Angela.”

“You’re welcome.” They stood there for way too long, both holding the box, gazing at each other until it got really awkward and embarrassing.

“Um. My oatmeal bread.”

“Right. Yes. Okay.” She didn’t move or look away. He didn’t, either. He was so beautiful… .

Oatmeal. Right.
Let go of the cookies, Angela.

She made herself relinquish them, forced her eyes away from his. Headed for the wrong rack. Had to stop and change direction. Picked up a multigrain loaf. Had to put it down. Picked up another. Oatmeal! Her brain had apparently rebooted.

She slid the fragrant fine-grained loaf into a paper bag, aware that she was ostensibly handing Daniel his walking papers. If she were going to suggest they get together again, she would have to do it now, and make it clearer than a general invitation to come back for more cookies. Otherwise she was going to stand behind the counter all day, every day, for the next who-knew-how-long hoping he’d come by again, which was pathetic.

Angela slid the bread on top of the box of cookies he was carrying, stood too close and looked up coyly. “Daniel. I was wondering…”

His eyes widened. He took a step back she could only hope was involuntary. Not a confidence builder. Had she only imagined the pull between them?

She let the sentence hang, nerves fraying. If he turned and left now, if he changed the subject, if he took another step back, she’d drop the idea entirely.

He didn’t. He stood, somberly, waiting, apparently, for the ax to come down.

So be it.

“I don’t usually do this. I mean I’ve never done this. It’s not really my habit…I mean you’re a customer and it’s not really right for me to…that is, I was wondering if you’d like to get together sometime. Somewhere. For…something.”

Oh. My. God. The all-time worst invitation that had ever been issued since the dawn of time. Why couldn’t she be cool and collected, say something like, “Hey, wanna catch a movie sometime?” Or, “I hear the bartender at such-and-such makes a mean mojito, care to join me?”

No. She’d asked the most exciting man she’d met in years, if he’d like sometime, somewhere to do something.

Shakespeare, eat your heart out.

“Angela.”

She was annoyed now. At herself, and perversely, illogically, at him. “That’s me.”

“I really can’t.”

Big surprise. “You’re involved with someone.”

“No.”

“Gay?”

He looked appalled.
“No.”

“Not interested?”

“Definitely not that.”

Oh, my.
Her once-mighty irritation turned tail and ran. That was nice. Really very nice.

“Your mom won’t let you?”

That incredible smile broke free again, accompanied by a deep laugh she could curl up in all night long.

“Nothing like that. The truth is…” He shuffled the bread and cookies, shifted his weight, then back. “The truth is, Angela, I promised someone a long time ago that I wouldn’t date anyone. For a while.”

She blinked. Blinked again.
What?
“How…long of a while?”

“It’s been a year and a half so far.”

She nearly choked. A year and a half! “And…this is supposed to go on how much longer?”

“Another six months.”

Good God.
Two years
of celibacy? What kind of person would extract a promise like that? “Is this a possible priesthood thing?”

“No, no, it’s not about religion.”

She simply stared.

Daniel glanced impatiently at the ceiling and sighed. “I guess I better tell you the story.”

“You don’t have to.” Of course he did; she was dying to hear. “It’s not really any of my business.”

But tell it anyway.

“I was engaged. She passed away. And I promised her…” He had the grace to look sheepish. “Okay, it sounds odd now.”

Angela was pleading the Fifth on that one.

“But it was…she asked me not to date until our planned wedding date passed. Which is six months from now.”

Good God. Angela’s first try at dating and she’d managed to stumble over an unbelievably sexy, magnetically masculine, completely dysfunctional weirdo who’d engaged himself to a controlling, selfish horror of a person whose hold on him was even more diabolical than Tom’s on her.