Laura's Big Break (11 page)

Laura was speechless. She stared at the leaflet, which explained in perfect English that the deep
appelgebak
sold in most cafés was a Dutch staple and to master that was to master the beginnings of Dutch cuisine.

“You like baking?” she said.

“No, stupid, but you do and this looks like fun.”

He jumped to his feet as he averted his eyes.

“Don’t make a big deal out of it. I need a break from cycling and it was this or clog dancing.”

“Good choice,” Laura said. “Your dancing is rubbish without wooden shoes. I couldn’t risk my toes with you wearing them.”

“Exactly.’

He bent over and rummaged in his tent allowing Laura time to smile at him without him seeing. It wasn’t every day someone thought of her. It might not be a big deal to Charlie, but Laura was touched. And then he blew it.

“If I have to cook all day, can you wear that Kaftan thing again without the underwear?”

She threw the leaflet at his head.

The cooking lesson took place in the kitchen of a farmhouse that just happened to be attached to a microbrewery.

“How self-sacrificing,” Laura said as the host offered them a selection of beers to taste.

“I do what I can,” Charlie said solemnly as he pounced on the tray.

After a long winded lecture from the owner of the brewery on the different types of beer - which no doubt became more interesting for people the more they sampled, although Laura didn’t know about that, she didn’t like beer – they were led into a wide farmhouse style kitchen.

There was enough space for eight people, two to a bench. There was one other English couple, two Japanese girls who giggled a lot and an older German couple who corrected everyone around them. Charlie helped himself to a pink frilly pinny and tied it round his waist. Although it brought a smile to Laura’s face, the apron had the unnerving effect of making him look more masculine rather than less.

“I wore something like this for a kinky Swedish girl once,” he told her out of the side of his mouth.

“Yuk.”

Laura elbowed him in the ribs making him yelp.

The woman at the front of the room explained how to make a basic sweet pastry. Charlie looked at the mixing tools as though they’d fallen from a space ship.

“Like this.”

Laura showed him what to use. Once he knew what to work with he was quick to learn.

“Don’t work with the dough too much, you’ll ruin it,” she told him. “You want to keep it cold.”

He played with the dough as though it was plasticine.

“I like how it feels.”

He popped a piece in his mouth.

“I like how it tastes.”

Laura gulped.

“I suppose you’re going to tell me you like how it smells too.”

“Nope,” he leaned in towards her. “I can only smell you.”

Laura froze as he nuzzled her hair.

“And you smell good.”

She looked up at him wide eyed.

“Bet you taste good too,” he said.

Her mouth fell open slightly. Was he flirting? Charlie winked. Her world shifted. Yes. He was.

“Good work,” the woman said from the other side of their bench.

She was pointing to Laura’s beautifully lined deep pie pan.

“You want to put it in the fridge to keep it cold while you work on the apples.”

Laura nodded as though that was something she didn’t know.

“As for you young man,” the woman said to Charlie. “If you don’t stop playing with the dough you won’t get any tart.”

Charlie looked over the woman’s shoulders to Laura and grinned widely.

“I don’t know about that,” he said.

Laura stuck her face in the fridge to cool down.

“Peel the apples, slice finely and mix with custard powder and sugar,” the woman was saying. “Then you can work on the raisins in orange juice…”

“So what’s your favourite cake?” Charlie asked Laura. “Chocolate right? Women always go for the chocolate.”

She rolled her eyes. He was standing close to her. Bumping into her with every move he made. A stroke here, a hand on the back there. He was deliberately trying to make her hyper aware of him. It made her dizzy.

“It’s a genetic thing. There was a woman on base who would go mental for chocolate once a month. We took turns supplying her so that she wouldn’t take a knife to anyone’s throat while they slept.”

He grinned. It took her breath away.

“Chocolate was easy to get in Afghanistan?” Laura said.

“Care packages.”

She remembered, she’d helped Maddie on several occasions to send some to Charlie.

“People liked to send food; we always had loads of food kicking around. Sometimes we played poker with boxes of tea and coffee that no one wanted.”

Laura marvelled that he was talking so freely about his time away. She filed all the details he was giving to use as colour in her article.

“What was your favourite thing to receive?”

“Maddie always sent comics. They were great. Took my mind off things, but didn’t stretch the brain. You could pick them up and put them down a million times and not miss anything. Comics were good.”

Laura felt inordinately pleased with herself. The comics had been her idea. Okay, so she’d said it derogatorily, something like – send the Neanderthal some picture books it’s about his level – still it counted right?

“Some of the guys liked to read romance novels.” He gave her his goofy grin. “If that gets out I’m a dead man.”

“Understood.”

She found herself grinning back.

“You read that stuff too,” he pointed out to her.

“I like to believe it’s possible. Passionate love that doesn’t mean treating each other like rubbish.”

She got the impression she’d said something more than she’d intended because Charlie’s face darkened.

“You know what your parents have isn’t love right?”

Whoa, heavy topic alert! She arched an eyebrow in an attempt to inject humour.

“And you’re the expert?”

“No, just not an idiot. There may be passion, but it isn’t love. Mum always said that they thrived on the high drama. She put it down to them being creative. It looks more like selfishness to me.”

Laura brushed her hair away from her face and tied it in a band, to give herself something to do. She’d always known her family were a hot conversation topic, but even Maddie had steered clear of telling her what people said about them.

It had been a long time since Laura had felt the need to explain or excuse their behaviour, but it didn’t mean she was comfortable talking about it. So she changed the topic.

“So, were you in the same place in Afghanistan or did you move around?”

Charlie studied her as though he could see right through her. For a moment she thought he wouldn’t let her off the hook by answering the question.

“I moved around,” he said stiffly.

“Your raisins are burning.”

She leaned over and switched his hob off. He grabbed her hand and held it. Laura looked up into his eyes and felt the room begin to fade. She held her breath.

“When you love someone you don’t sleep around on them, and you definitely don’t allow someone you love to do that to you.” She tried to pull her hand away, but he held her tightly. “And you never, ever get your kids involved in that sort of sick set up. Don’t confuse their games with passion and love. They’ve got it all wrong. When you want someone you don’t go off with someone else.”

He was so close she could see his heart beat out a rhythm in the base of his throat. For a split second she entertained the thought of kissing him there. She pulled away instead, forcing an easy smile.

“Aye, aye captain,” she said with a salute.

He waited a beat as he studied her, his shoulders relaxed, he was going to let her lighten the moment.

“It’s lieutenant to you,” he told her as he stirred his raisins.

Laura let out a quiet sigh.

“Well la-di-da, Lieutenant Lewis.”

She gave him a little curtsy. Charlie winked at her.

“Don’t you forget it.”

Laura brushed a stray strand of hair from her cheek, which felt as though it was on fire. Charlie watched her from behind eyelashes most girls would kill for. He reached for a cloth and stepped towards her.

“What is it?” she said, her voice hoarse.

“Apple on your cheek.”

He sounded equally strained as he reached up with his cloth to wipe her face. Half way he stopped. He put the cloth on the counter and wiped away the apple with his thumb. Slowly he licked it off his thumb.

“Yum,” he said.

And just like the women in some of the sillier romantic stories she read, Laura went weak at the knees.

Charlie stepped closer, making her back into the counter. She could feel the edge of it nip her lower back.

“If we weren’t here,” he said softly, “I would eat you all up, Laura Prentice.”

“What makes you think I would let you?”

He cocked an eyebrow before leaning in to nip a tiny kiss below her earlobe. The world went out of focus as her breath hitched in her throat.

“I think that answers the question,” he whispered, his breath on her ear made her shiver. “I think we need to finish what we started that night in the tent. What do you think?”

Laura struggled to find her voice. When she did it was embarrassingly breathless.

“But you call me the Iron Maiden when you think I can’t hear.”

His smile was slow as his eyes darkened.

“Yeah, it’s a mystery to me too.”

He brushed his fingers across her bottom lip, making her breath catch, before leaning into her.

“I’m taking a leaf out of your book. I’m laying my cards on the table. I want you.”

“Oh,” was all Laura could manage to say.

He kissed her neck again before whispering in her ear.

“I want you Laura.”

He slid his fingers into her hair at the base of her skull and gently pulled her towards him. His kiss was slow and easy. It reminded her of the way she ate a cheesecake. Every mouthful a wonder.

“Hey,” a loud German voice called out. “This is a kitchen. Take it to the bedroom you two.”

Charlie scowled at the man while Laura flushed like a teenager caught necking. The Japanese girls giggled. The woman running the class beamed at them and waved her wooden spoon in their direction.

“Apple tart is known to be the cake of love,” she told them proudly.

Laura made some non-committal noise while she busied herself with her ingredients. Charlie gave her a smile that signalled he wasn’t through with her. She swallowed hard. She felt like she was in the eye of the storm, first phase over, but the rest of it still to come. As his broad shoulders hunched over the counter she bit her bottom lip to stifle a groan. There was no use pretending otherwise. She wanted him too. Badly. When it came to Charlie Lewis, her body had a will of its own. It always had.

She wasn’t sure if he brought out the worst in her, or made her a more interesting person. It didn’t really matter. She felt like she was stuck on a roller coaster, she couldn’t get off. She looked at Charlie, as scary as it was, she may as well enjoy the ride. They worked in silence, preparing their tarts for the oven, sharing secret smiles and touches like lovers. Anticipating later when they would be alone. It was exquisite torture. As they waited for the oven, sipping thick Dutch coffee, Laura couldn’t stand the silence any more.

The sexual tension had her wired ready to snap. She grasped around for something to say. Anything to say.

“So,” she said at last, “did you meet William or Harry when you were at Sandhurst?”

Charlie rolled his eyes.

“Women always want to hear about those two.”

“Well,” she prodded, nudging his big feet off the stool they were resting on.

“Fine.” He threw up his hands in surrender. “I did hear a funny story about them from a guy who trained with Harry.”

Laura loved the way his eyes sparkled with mischief as he spoke.

“Do tell, I promise you’ll still get first billing in my story, but the public do love to hear about Harry. Especially now William is taken.”

“I bet they do, but I’d forgotten about the story, so I better wait to share my info until you’ve written yours. Wouldn’t want the Palace on my tail.”

“Tease,” she said.

“I can be.” His eyes darkened.

Laura flushed and turned away from him. She wasn’t sure what had shifted or why he was coming on to her. She couldn’t think straight from the electricity that crackled between them. From the slow lazy smile he gave her, he knew exactly what he was doing. She was out of her depth.

Charlie couldn’t keep his hands off Laura. They were wedged side by side in a booth in the bar, but it still felt too far away. He’d tried for days to keep away from her, to put what had happened in the tent out of his mind. But he couldn’t. Not thinking about it made it worse. The only way he was going to get her out of his system was to finish what they started. It was the only thing that made sense.