Soufflés at Sunrise

Readers love

Macarons at Midnight

by
M.J. O’S
HEA
& A
NNA
M
ARTIN

“I read this whole story in a day, it was that good… I literally loved every single thing about this book. It was brilliant and unique.”

—Love Bytes

“This is a delicious story… I really enjoyed this story and found it flowed perfectly; it’s an easy read that was perfectly paced.”

—MM Good Book Reviews

“This story was charming and humorous… If you’re in the mood for a sweet light read with lovable MCs, you may want to check this one out.”

—It’s About The Book

“This book was sweet and fun and gut wrenching and made me hungry… dammit… The overall effect was an enjoyable read with characters I would love to revisit.”

—Prism Book Alliance

“Sweet! In every sense of the word.”

—The Romance Reviews

By
M.J. O’S
HEA

Catch My Breath

Cross Bones (Dreamspinner Anthology)

Corkscrewed

Newton’s Laws of Attraction • Impractical Magic

Stroke!

R
OCK
B
AY

Coming Home

Letting Go

Finding Shelter

With Anna Martin

J
UST
D
ESSERTS

Macarons at Midnight

Soufflés at Sunrise

With Piper Vaughn

L
UCKY
M
OON

Moonlight Becomes You

The Luckiest

O
NE
T
HING

One Small Thing

One True Thing

Published by
D
REAMSPINNER
P
RESS

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com

By
A
NNA
M
ARTIN

Cricket

Cuddling (Dreamspinner Anthology)

Dr. Feelgood (Dreamspinner Anthology)

Jurassic Heart

Kid Gloves

Les faits accomplis

With Tia Fielding
: Solitude

Summer Son

Tattoos & Teacups

Two Tickets to Paradise (Dreamspinner Anthology)

A
NOTHER
W
AY

Another Way

Of Being Yours

To Say I Love You

With M.J. O’Shea

J
UST
D
ESSERTS

Macarons at Midnight

Soufflés at Sunrise

Published by
D
REAMSPINNER
P
RESS

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com

Published by

D
REAMSPINNER
P
RESS

5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886  USA

http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Soufflés at Sunrise

© 2015 M.J. O’Shea & Anna Martin.

Cover Art

© 2015 L.C. Chase.

http://www.lcchase.com

Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.

All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/.

ISBN: 978-1-63216-783-5

Digital ISBN: 978-1-63216-784-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014952120

First Edition February 2015

Printed in the United States of America

This paper meets the requirements of

ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

W
ELCOME
TO
a new season of
Burned
, where we find fresh new cooking talent… and a few culinary disasters! Every season we do something a little different and this time it’s all about the sweet things in life. That’s right. We’re doing an entire season of desserts! Get ready for week one as twenty hopeful pastry chefs and dessert connoisseurs compete for the thirteen coveted workspaces in our
Burned
studio.

This season we’ll have all-new themes and challenges our thirteen finalists can use to show us their chops. And the prizes are huge! Our winner gets a year of specialized pastry training in Paris, a whole kitchen’s worth of top-of-the-line commercial tools and appliances, and a hundred thousand dollars to open his or her own shop or build their current business!

With stakes this big, we ask the one question on everyone’s mind: Do these chefs have what it takes to rise to the top? Or will they get
Burned
?

C
HASE
C
HRISTIANSEN
was screwed. Utterly, totally, and completely screwed. Beyond screwed. Whatever was the biggest and worst word for screwed possible. He knew it too. He’d known it for close to three minutes. Three heart-pounding minutes that could easily kill all the pipe dreams he’d been building in his head for the past two months.

The kitchen had exploded with movement the moment the moderator announced the challenge. Nineteen bodies flying to the supply table, nineteen stations filled with the sounds of chopping, blending, beating… and then him. Frozen. Or in other words: screwed.

Make a dessert that best represents you as a dessert chef and the region you come from
.

God, it was textbook. He’d even expected something like it. For good reason too. Every damn competition show in the universe started with the contestants making something that showed who they were, and this was just like that.

Then what’s my damn problem?

He’d never felt anything like it before. Pure panic, like if someone asked him what his mother’s name was, he’d be at a loss. Maybe even his own name too. Hell. He stared at the continuous flow of frantic energy dancing around him, and then he squeezed his eyes shut. He was frozen. Everyone was moving, moving, moving, fast and efficient and full of confidence, and he was stuck. Chase wondered if he should just walk right off the set, quit, go home, go back to his shop where there were everyday pressures but nothing like the sweat-dripping, hot-lights, everyone-is-staring-at-you pressure of trying to prove himself in front of a room full of strangers.

Something that represents me. Something that represents where I’m from. What do I do? What do I do? Beer and brats? Cheese? I am from Wisconsin.

Chase was sweating profusely; uncomfortable, hot drips slid down his back. His heart pounded faster and faster, and he still just froze. He nearly got the nervous giggles at the thought of plunking a huge block of cheddar down on the judges’ table with some sausages around it. Giggling wouldn’t do him any good. Nothing would if he didn’t come up with something really damn soon.

Think, Chase. Think.

Once he calmed the gripping panic that had nearly taken him down, he knew what to do. The answer was ice cream, of course. Ice cream was what Chase did best. It’s what he did every day of the week, all year long. Chase was the ice cream guy. It’s why they’d picked him, after all. If ice cream could get him to the elimination round, then hopefully it could get him to the final thirteen as well.

Chase jogged over to the supply table, which looked like a scavenged battlefield compared to the perfectly piled stores of fruits, baking goods, creams, milks, and more exotic ingredients that had been there before the buzzer rang. There wasn’t a lot to work with, but he knew he’d need cream, and a lot of it. He tried to think of how he could bring Wisconsin into his ice cream. Just the fact that it was dairy wasn’t good enough. It had to be fun. Ironic. Interesting.

Cheese would be fun and ironic.
Nobody expected cheese ice cream. It still had to taste good, so cheddar was out. Just the thought of chunks of Wisconsin cheddar in a vanilla base made him want to heave. Chase had his answer when he spied a few containers of cream cheese and one of goat cheese as well. He grabbed them and put them in his basket. The mascarpone was too fancy for his tiny hometown. Better stick to what city people imagined the country folk knew.