Sugar And Spice (35 page)

“…Mr. Sherwood to marry her,” Gary finished the thought.

“Then we win the bet?” It was clear that Spenser could scarcely believe his good fortune.

“What bet?” Delores asked.

“I’ll explain later,” Hannah told her, and then she turned to Spenser. “You lose the bet, Spenser. You bet the girls that Mr. Sherwood and Miss Jansen wouldn’t get engaged until after Christmas was over. Take a look at that ring on her finger. They’re engaged.”

“So you have to do our chores!” Serena crowed, giving Joy and Hope a high five. “We win!”

“No, you don’t,” Hannah said, taking great relish in pointing it out. “You bet that Mr. Sherwood would ask Miss Jansen to marry him, and that didn’t happen. Miss Jansen asked Mr. Sherwood instead.”

“So we both lost?” Spenser asked, looking very confused.

“That depends on your point of view. I think you both won. The important thing is that no one has to do anyone else’s chores.”

“Right!” Spenser said, smiling again. “I don’t think I want to bet on anything again for a really long time.”

“Good idea,” Hannah said, glad that he’d learned something from the experience.

“There’s one more thing we have to do before this Christmas Eve dinner is over,” Andrea said, nudging Bill.

Bill stood up and lifted Tracey onto his shoulders. He walked over to the beam where the ball of mistletoe was hanging, and Tracey reached up to remove it. Then Bill took her over to Matt and Julie, and she leaned forward to hold the mistletoe over Julie’s head.

“You know what mistletoe means, don’t you?” she asked.

“I certainly do,” Matt said, taking his cue and leaning over to kiss his bride-to-be to the accompaniment of cheers from everyone there.

CHRISTMAS DATE CAKE

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.,

rack in the middle position.

Hannah’s Note: This recipe is from my Grandma Ingrid. She used to make this cake every Christmas.

2 cups chopped pitted dates (You can buy chopped dates, or sprinkle whole pitted dates with flour and then chop them in a food processo.)

3 cups boiling water

2 teaspoons baking soda

Pour the boiling water over the dates, add the soda (it foams up a bit), and set them aside to cool. While they’re cooling, cream the following ingredients together in a large mixing bowl: 1 cup soft or melted butter (2 sticks, ½ pound)

2 cups white (granulated) sugar

4 eggs

½ teaspoon salt

3 cups flour (don’t sift—pack it down in the cup when you measure it) Once the above are thoroughly mixed, add the cooled date mixture to your bowl and stir thoroughly.

Butter and flour a 9-inch by 13-inch rectangular cake pan. (This cake rises about an inch and a half, so make sure the sides are tall enough.) Pour the batter into the pan. Then sprinkle the following on the top, in this order, BEFORE baking:

12 ounces chocolate chips (2 cups)

1 cup white (granulated) sugar

1 cup chopped nuts (use any nuts you like—I prefer walnuts or pecans) Bake at 325 degrees F. for 80 minutes. A cake tester or a long toothpick should come out clean one inch from the center when the cake is done. (If you happen to stick the toothpick in and hit a chocolate chip, it’ll come out covered with melted chocolate—just wipe it off and stick it in again to test the actual cake batter.)

Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack. It can be served slightly warm, at room temperature, or chilled.

If you want to be truly decadent, serve it the way Hannah did in the story, with a generous dollop of sweetened whipped cream on each slice.

Index of Recipes

Chocolate Chip Crunch Cookies

Bon-Bon Brownies

Lemon Meringue Pie

Double Apple Crisp

Strawberry Shortcake Swensen

Cherry Cheesecake

Blue Blueberry Muffins

Minnesota Peach Cobbler

Fudge Cupcakes

Multiple-Choice Cookie Bars

Christmas Sugar Cookies

Christmas Date Cake

Baking Conversion Chart

These conversions are approximate, but they’ll work just fine for Hannah Swensen’s recipes.

VOLUME:

U.S.

Metric

½ teaspoon

2 milliliters

1 teaspoon

5 milliliters

1 tablespoon

15 milliliters

¼ cup

50 milliliters

1/3 cup

75 milliliters

½ cup

125 milliliters

¾ cup

175 milliliters

1 cup

¼ liter

WEIGHT:

U.S.

Metric

1 ounce

28 grams

1 pound

454 grams

OVEN TEMPERATURE:

Degrees

Degrees

British (Regulo)

Fahrenheit

Centigrade

Gas Mark

325 degrees F.

165 degrees C.

3

350 degrees F.

175 degrees C.

4

375 degrees F.

190 degrees C.

5

Note: Hannah’s rectangular sheet cake pan, 9 inches by 13 inches, is approximately 23 centimeters by 32.5 centimeters.

Shirley Jump’s White Chocolate Raspberry Thumbprints

½ cup butter

½ cup shortening

½ cup granulated sugar

½ cup powdered sugar

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon cream of tartar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 egg

½ teaspoon vanilla

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup seedless raspberry jam

1 cup white chocolate chips

Red sugar sprinkles

Trust me, these ones are so good, you won’t have any left for guests (and whoever invented that rule about sharing your cookies, anyhow? It’s Christmas, indulge yourself a little). In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and the shortening with an electric mixier (or use a stand mixer and let the machine do the work), then add the sugar, powdered sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar, and the salt. Beat just until combined.

Add the egg and vanilla, then mix in the flour gradually. Cover the dough and refrigerate for 3 hours. I know, it’s a long wait, but it’ll be worth it later. Heat the oven to 375 degrees F. Roll the dough into ¼-inch balls and put them on an ungreased cookie sheet. With your thumb or the end of a wooden spoon, press a circular indentation into the center of each cookie. Drop a ¼ teaspoon of jam into each thumbprint. Bake cookies for 8 to 10 minutes, then cool on a wire rack for 5 minutes.

Meanwhile, pour yourself a glass of milk and get into serious cookie-eating mode. Skip lunch if you have to—there’s no way a tuna on rye can compete.

Put the white chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave on high in 30-second bursts, stirring each time, until the chips are melted. Pour the white chocolate into a resealable plastic bag and snip off a tiny bit of one corner. Drizzle the white chocolate over the cookies. Sprinkle cookies with red sugar to add a festive flair.

Now you’re ready to indulge—don’t worry about the calories until January 1st. Makes 3 dozen, just enough for you and a very special, handsome friend!

Natalie Harris knew exactly what Santa could bring her this year. Jake Lyons. Wrapped with a red bow—

And nothing else. No need for a stocking or, hell, so much as a piece of tissue paper. Boxers—or briefs—all completely optional.

If she woke up December 25th and found Jake beside the tiny tabletop tree in her breadbox-size apartment in Boston, she’d grab him by that bow, haul him off to her bedroom and make sure he made a few of her bells jingle. Many, many times over.

Blame it on hormones. That peppermint mocha latte she’d bought at Starbucks this morning. The fact that he’d worn the blue shirt that set off his eyes. There was just something…different about Jake today, something that had taken her interest in him from bemused curiosity to full-out cubicle-born fantasy.

“What did he do after that?”

The little voice reminded her she wasn’t supposed to be staring at the man five feet away. She was supposed to be reading Bear’s Christmas Wish and focusing on G-rated material instead of the NC–17

thoughts of a woman who had clearly gone way too long without a little something under her tree.

Natalie cleared her throat and refocused her attention on the book, dipping her head to read the words from above the out-turned pages. “And then, the bear cuddled up with the boy and went to sleep, all snug in a bed. The very type of bed he had dreamed about when he’d been sitting in McGuffy’s Toy Shop, waiting for someone just like this boy to take him home. The bear’s Christmas wish had come true. He had someone to love and someone who loved him in return.” Natalie closed the book, laid it across her lap and faced the circle of children at her feet. “The end.”

The book might be finished, but her hormones sure weren’t. Every single one of them was zeroed in on Jake, like some kind of estrogen sonar. He had one hip against a scarred wooden desk, his intent blue eyes watching her read to the children of Our Hope Shelter. His dark hair was a bit longer than he usually kept it, which made one lock sweep across his brow. Beneath the well-pressed, slightly starched shirt lurked a pair of six-pack abs and a trim, tight waist.

In other words, one manly slice of heaven.

She and Jake had been coming to the shelter in Boston for four months, always on the third Wednesday at eleven. While Natalie hurried to be with the children, Jake usually stayed away from the room’s pandemonium, opting for the director’s office. There, he lent a hand in balancing the shelter’s books, saving them the cost of a CPA, and often made a corporate donation while he waited for Natalie to finish story time. But today—of all days—he’d followed Natalie into the vast, open “family” room of the shelter.

Making her nervous as hell and sending her thoughts down Under the Sheets Lane.

“Didn’t the bear have a name?” asked David, who was sitting at her feet, as close as he could get without actually climbing in her lap. David Wilkins had latched onto her from the very first day. His was a story much like that of the others in the room—raised in a single-parent home that had slipped through the cracks of government-support programs and ended up here, after spending an entire season living out of a car. His dark brown eyes were sharp and attentive, yet tinged with a weariness that seemed sadly very grown up. Natalie wanted to reach out, tug him into her arms and stuff him full of cookies.

“The author didn’t name the bear in the story,” Natalie said, smiling down at David. “So you can make up your own name.”

Ariana popped her thumb out of her mouth. “Let’s call him Teddy!”

“No, Buster!” piped up Jacob. The towheaded five-year-old had read every book in the popular Arthur series at least three times and thought everyone in the world should be named after the aardvark’s best bunny friend.

A name debate sprung up among the two dozen children, rising in volume with every idea. Natalie tried to restore order, looking around hopefully for the shelter’s assistant director, who usually did crowd control. But there was no sign of Kitty Planter, which meant she’d probably taken advantage of story hour to grab a few minutes of peace or to check in on the job-hunting class most of the parents were attending in another room. “Children,” Natalie called to the scattering, chatty bunch. “If you don’t sit down, I can’t read you another story.”

They didn’t listen. Filled with cabin fever from the freezing December weather, they’d been antsy the whole story hour. Natalie’s voice had about as much impact as a gnat trying to hold back a herd of elephants. Plus, they all knew Natalie was a complete pushover who’d do encore readings until the director kicked her out. “Children, I—”

Jake pushed off from the desk and crossed the room. He had the walk of a man who had the world at his fingertips—but the confidence not to flaunt it. Natalie’s eyes met his, and for a second, she forgot to breathe.

“Want some help?” he asked.

“Sh-sh-sh…sure.” Oh hell, there she went again. Whenever she got near a man, particularly one who gave goose-bumps a whole ’nother meaning, she stuttered. Not just stumbling over a couple of words, but full out Porky Pig babble.

It had been that way since she’d been a kid. Only then, she’d stuttered with everyone and everything. A couple dozen years of speech therapy and she’d learned coping techniques. They’d always worked—

Until she got around Jake.

But if Jake noticed, he didn’t show it. Instead, he smiled, then pivoted toward the children. At six-foot-two, he towered over them, like Gulliver in the land of Lilliputians. “Everyone who sits quietly and listens to Miss Harris read another story,” Jake said, his deep voice automatically commanding attention, “gets a dollar.”

En masse, the group scrambled back onto their carpet squares, hands clasped, faces upturned, waiting and expectant.

“You’re p-p-paying them to be g-g-good?” Natalie whispered. Or rather, jerked out like a complete social moron.

If Jake noticed her vocal ineptitude, he didn’t mention it. “Money talks a hel—” he cut off the curse before the curious ears around them heard it, “a whole lot louder than words.”

“Yeah, b-b-but…”

“Your audience awaits, Miss Harris,” he said, sweeping a hand toward the children. Then he smiled at her.

Holy cow. Natalie had thought he looked sexy in a blue shirt. Found him mesmerizing when he stood across the room and watched her. But when he smiled…

The unnamed bear wasn’t the only one dreaming of a bed tonight. Only her thoughts involved a whole lot more than cuddling.

As Jake dispensed the promised George Washingtons, Natalie moved toward the chair, about to sit down with another book from the stack on the table, when Bobby tugged at her sleeve. “We want him to read to us.” He pointed at Jake.

“I really think Miss Harris is a better choice.” Jake gestured toward her.

If she hadn’t known better, Natalie would have sworn Jake looked nervous. But Jake never got flustered, never lost his cool, no matter what idiot decision his CEO cousin had made that day at the accounting firm where she worked. “Here,” she said, pressing a book into his hands. “You’ll do fine. They’re an easy audience to please.”