Bake This! (A 300 Moons Novella) Page 4

  “I guess it’s good they can protect themselves then,” she replied, grabbing another apple.

  Will chuckled.

  “What?” she asked.

  “At their age it’s really more about building a foundation of respect and teaching them to enjoy the physical exercise. A few of them are getting pretty good. But you tell the whole class to kick, and a few kick, some spin around in a circle, some of them fall over…” he laughed and his eyes twinkled. “The older kids are more serious, but I only teach them one night a week.”

  “Well it sounds like you enjoy it,” Tess said.

  Will stopped cutting apples and looked over at her.

  “I started doing it and something just clicked. I’ve always liked martial arts. But teaching, it’s… it’s something else.”

  There was a beep signifying that the oven was ready for the pies.

  Tess jumped a bit and then dashed over.

  They loaded it up and Will set the timer.

  Tess headed back to prep more apples.

  Then there was another beep.

  Will slipped his phone out of his pocket and his mouth tightened.

  “It’s the fire station, they need volunteers,” he said.

  “You’re a volunteer too?” Tess asked.

  He nodded.

  “And I’ve got to go now. You know what you’re doing here?” he asked.

  “Sure, of course,” she said immediately. She knew nothing of the sort, but you didn’t stop a firefighter to ask questions.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said, dashing up the stairs.

  7

  Tess had things under control.

  She peeled and sliced enough apples for eight pies, mixed the spices, par-cooked them, and prepared the dough. But the oven hadn’t gone off yet. So she put those pies in the fridge and started again.

  Predictably, the oven timer went off as soon as she was elbow deep in apple peels again. No matter.

  She found some oven mitts and removed the first eight pies and put them on the counter to cool.

  Then she put the fridge pies onto the counter to come up to room temp and went back to her apples.

  More apples, more spices, put the fridge pies into the oven, more par-cooking, more dough, and more pies on the counter waiting to cook.

  The oven timer beeped.

  But this time, there was no room on the counter to put the pans down to cool.

  Damn.

  She put them on the floor, temporarily, until she could load the oven again.

  Once that set was going, she found herself ahead of the game again with pies made but not baked.

  She knew she could keep prepping apples. But…

  There was an old conveyor belt in the corner. Probably came in handy during wreath-making or other seasonal crafts.

  It was a bit dusty - didn’t look like it had been used in a while. But if she could clean it up, she could use the extra surface area to set the pies on to cool. It was even conveniently positioned beneath one of the huge ceiling fans. The pies would be out of the way of her cooking and once they were cooled, they could be boxed up.

  Tess could imagine how surprised Will would be when he came back and she had a huge stack of boxed pies ready to go.

  She grabbed a few rags, a bucket and some soap she found in the closet and got right to work cleaning it up. Humming merrily, she washed the whole thing down. The one good thing about the hot kitchen was that at least the suds she was dripping all over the floor would evaporate fairly quickly.

  An hour later the oven timer beeped.

  Tess quickly loaded up the oven with more pies, and then carried the fresh pies over to the conveyor belt.

  She already had a big pot of apples par-cooking, but they would be another three minutes - plenty of time to set the pies out to cool and maybe even take a break for a drink of water.

  Truly, she was a marvel of efficiency.

  Tess carefully placed each pie on the belt with a hint of pride. They were so pretty.

  She paused a moment to take in the whole scene.

  Tess had always told herself she wasn’t the domestic type. But here she was with an oven full of fragrant pies and more apples bubbling merrily on the stove. It was lovely.

  Picture perfect.

  Until she turned back to the stove and slipped on the still-sudsy floor.

  Thankfully, she managed to grab onto something on the way down to break her fall.

  Unfortunately, what she caught herself on was the side of the conveyor belt, her hand inadvertently pressing the power button. She wasn’t even sure if the old thing still worked.

  It worked.

  Everything after that seemed to happen in slow motion.

  She knew the feeling was just due to a response in her brain’s amygdala region, caused by the perception of a crisis situation. Knowing didn’t help.

  The old motor rumbled to life.

  The belt stuttered, then lurched to life.

  The pies traveled slowly, with a sort of quiet majesty, toward the end of the belt, where they would drop directly onto the floor.

  No.

  Tess pressed the button again, to stop the conveyer belt.

  Nothing.

  So that’s why no one used this thing.

  She scrambled on the wet floor, finally gaining her footing just in time to throw herself to the end of the conveyor belt and catch the first pie.

  The timer beeped for the apples on the stove just as she caught the second pie.

  But the third pie was coming and Tess was out of hands.

  She pushed back against the third pie, but this only caused a jam in the pies behind it, threatening to dump several more off the sides.

  She put the two in her hands on the ground and the third pie smashed onto her shoe.

  There was a hissing sound from the stovetop. The apples must be boiling over. That was too fast - she must have set the temperature wrong.

  No time to worry about it though. She had sacrificed the third pie, now she had to save the fourth and fifth.

  Somewhere overhead a smoke alarm went off.

  Oh, no, no, no…

  In every woman’s life, there comes a moment when the proverbial shit hits the fan. And in that moment she has to choose between two unthinkable outcomes.

  Tess found her moment covered in sticky sweet apple pie at the bottom of the octagonal barn two days before Christmas.

  And she decided that using her magic was worth paying the price.

  Later, Will would say that walking into the barn that day had been like witnessing a Fantasia version of the I Love Lucy episode at the chocolate factory.

  But in the moment, it seemed like all out war.

  Tess took a deep breath and called to something inside the machine, letting her magic flow.

  It felt so right.

  Instead of stopping, the belt jerked forward, and the fourth pie was flung off the conveyor belt where it miraculously landed on the countertop a few feet away.

  The fifth pie was shooting toward the counter as well, so Tess moved quickly to shove the fourth one out of its path.

  She heard the door opening and her heart sank, but it was too late now.

  Sliding her mind out to the stove top, she closed the gas valve that fed the flame.

  Then she reached out to the smoke detector, feeling inside it until she could convince it to eject the battery to get it to stop beeping.

  Tess turned to catch the sixth pie just a second too late and it crashed against her chest, covering her with warm apples and a latticework crust.

  She could have made it back to the belt to catch the seventh and eighth pies by hand, but she slipped in her own filling and hit the ground hard on her bottom.

  Ruined. They were almost all ruined.

  But Will Harkness, moving practically at the speed of light, grabbed the two pies off the belt before slipping on the filling himself. He hit the ground and slid across the tiles until he slammed in
to her.

  Without letting go of the pies.

  8

  For one golden moment, Tess wondered if she could just get up and run away before he asked her anything.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Too late.

  “Yes,” she said. “Except my butt hurts and I’m very embarrassed.”

  Will looked a little surprised, then he laughed.

  “Well, your story checks out. What happened?”

  “I tried to make pies but I made a lot of mistakes,” she said. “Then I used magic to try and fix them.”

  “I thought that was magic, very cool. So you’re like your sister, huh?”

  He thought her magic was cool?

  “Yes, except that her magic makes her sexually attractive and mine makes me tell the truth,” she said, wishing like hell she hadn’t had to admit that last part.

  Stupid price of her stupid magic.

  “It makes you tell the truth?” he echoed.

  “Yes. Even when I don’t want to,” she said. “But only when I use my magic - it’s the price I pay for using it.”

  “That’s awful,” he said.

  It wasn’t a question, so she didn’t have to speak. Better to say as little as possible. She bit her lip and nodded.

  “Well, I guess you’re pretty uncomfortable and you just want to get cleaned up. Want me to help you up so we can go back to the house?” He offered her his hand.

  “No. I don’t want to go back there when I’m… like this,” she said.

  “You mean the pie, or the… problem?” he asked.

  “I don’t want to have to tell the truth. I might hurt someone’s feelings or say something that makes me ashamed.”

  She’d ruined more than one friendship that way.

  “Come on, let’s go in the break room and find you something to put on then,” he said, offering his hand again.

  Tess took it. His hand was warm and dry.

  They walked to the break room. There was a large and lumpy sofa, as well as a couple of chairs, and two big, wood plank tables. In the back corner stood a set of old metal lockers next to a sink.

  Tess headed right for the sink, anxious for the chance to get some of the pie out of her hair. She turned on the water and was briefly grateful that there wasn’t a mirror over the sink. She knew her imagination of how dreadful she looked probably had nothing on how bad it really was. Though she shouldn’t care so much. Will wasn’t interested in her anyway.

  Behind her Will banged around in a locker and then she heard his footsteps headed back to her. His nearness gave her a tiny shiver of awareness.

  “Oh, wow, you’re a mess aren’t you, baby?” he murmured.

  She wondered if he had noticed his endearment, even as the magic caused her to say, “Yes, I am.”

  His hazel eyes crinkled as he smiled.

  “Sorry. I shouldn’t ask you questions,” he said.

  She shrugged.

  “I don’t see a way for you to get that off without getting pie all in your hair. Do you want me to help you take it off?” he asked, gesturing to her t-shirt.

  Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no.

  “Yes, I want you to take my shirt off,” she said clearly.

  He froze for a moment, seeming to consider her words.

  Then his hazel eyes were on hers and she felt her cheeks redden.

  “What else do you want from me?” he asked with a sly smile.

  “I want you to kiss me and call me baby again. I want you to have the same look on your face when you talk about me as when you talk about teaching kids karate,” she said as plainly as if she had been making a grocery list out loud. She squinted her eyes shut, too horrified to look at him.

  He didn’t reply, so she snuck a glance up at him.

  His lips were parted slightly. He really was devastatingly handsome.

  It was enough to make her want to throw herself on the ground and weep that she had mortified herself this way in front of him.

  “You want me to kiss you?” he asked softly.

  “Yes,” she said immediately, hating her curse.

  “You want me to call you baby?” His voice was a purr as he closed the distance between them.

  “Yes,” she said.

  She willed herself to tell him to stop asking her questions, but the words wouldn’t come. Maybe because they weren’t really true.

  “Oh, I’m glad to hear that. I’ve wanted to kiss you since we first met, baby, while we’re being honest with each other,” he said. “What do you think of that?”

  “I think it’s the hottest thing anyone’s ever said to me,” she observed.

  “I like this magic,” Will said in a low voice, wrapping his large hands around her upper arms.

  “I like you,” Tess replied.

  Will laughed.

  The sound was deep and reassuring somehow. Tess had never felt reassured while still in the grips of her magical price.

  No, reassurance was for later - curled up watching reruns of Murder She Wrote and eating ice cream, telling herself she could just get a cat instead of having friends or boyfriends and it wouldn’t matter that she had said something she shouldn’t have. Cats were very forgiving that way.

  “How long does this last, normally?” Will asked, brushing a piece of hair behind her ear in a tender gesture.

  “It depends on how much magic I’ve done. Probably only a few more minutes now,” Tess said.

  “I think I’m going to wait to kiss you until I’ve used up all your honesty. Isn’t that a good idea?” he asked, his hand still in her hair, cradling her head.

  “It’s smart, but it makes me nervous,” she said. “You might ask me more questions. Get me to reveal my deepest darkest secrets.”

  “Do you have any deep dark secrets?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, praying he wouldn’t ask a follow-up question. Her secrets weren’t all that deep or dark but they were hers.

  “Have you ever killed anyone?” he asked seriously.

  “Not that I know of,” she answered.

  “That’s all I need to know,” he said contentedly.

  Tess let out a sigh of relief.

  “I’m sorry, this must be stressful. Do you want me to leave you alone until you’re… yourself again?” he asked, but he was closer now, so close she could practically feel the heat radiating from his big body.

  “No, I want you to kiss me.”

  He clenched his jaw, as if fighting for control. His eyes flashed amber.

  For the first time since her dream, Tess thought of him as a wolf again. He was usually so laid back, it was hard to reconcile that there was wildness in him, until she saw his eyes like this.

  Slowly, so slowly she was afraid he might stop, Will lowered his face to hers.

  His lips brushed hers gently.

  The sensation was magical, the warmth of his lips, the light friction…

  Tess shivered, yearning for more.

  Suddenly his hands tightened on her upper arms and he was pulling her in tight, his mouth ravaging hers, his big hands roving all over her back, down to her hips, and up again, to trace her rib cage and gently cup her face.

  Tess clung to him, helpless in the onslaught of the feel of him, the taste of his mouth.

  One moment she was standing on the ground, the next he was lifting her onto the wood plank table.

  He set her down on the top and stood between her legs, pulling back to look at her.

  His eyes smoldered as he took her in, his gaze dropping to take in her breasts.

  Tess held her breath, wondering what would happen next, if she fought down her instinct to say something or to reach for another kiss.

  Will extended his hand and drew a line down between her breasts, then withdrew his finger and sucked it into his mouth.

  “Mm,” he murmured, offering her his finger.

  What?

  Oh, god the pie.

  She was covered in pie.

  How could she h
ave forgotten?

  He lowered his head to her breast again and licked the sweet apples from her shirt.

  Tess began to giggle.

  “Quiet, woman,” Will murmured into her chest, but she could hear his smile in his voice.

  His tongue was hot through the thin fabric.

  Before she could enjoy it too much, he rose to her again and kissed her, sharing the sweet stickiness of the apples.

  The pie was good - completely delicious. She had done something right.

  Before she could celebrate, he was rolling the t-shirt up, starting at her waist.

  A sudden shyness overcame her.

  She had no argument with her strong body, it had always carried her faithfully wherever she wanted to go. But it seemed like someone as chiseled as Will might expect to find toned muscles under her clothing instead of soft curves.

  “What’s wrong?” he whispered.

  “I want you to take my shirt off but I’m worried you won’t like my body because it isn’t like yours,” she said, wishing the magic would wear off already so she didn’t have to be so scrupulously honest.

  His eyebrows went up slightly, then he smiled.

  “Here’s a little secret: I don’t want to be with someone with a body that looks like mine.”

  “I didn’t mean that you want me to be a giant ripped dude,” she said. “I meant that I’m fat.”

  “You think I’m a giant ripped dude?” he asked.

  She smiled and nodded.

  “Good to know,” he mused. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, it’s what’s up here that is sexy to me.”

  He kissed her gently on the forehead.

  “And if I hear anyone call you ‘fat’ again, including you, I’m going to wolf out on them.”

  “But—” she began.

  “—No buts. One more word and I’m growing paws and a tail and someone will pay. Do I make myself clear?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “Now hold still and try to let me enjoy this. It’s been a long time and I want to remember every second,” he whispered in her ear.

  And then she closed her eyes, the air of the room cool on her belly and chest as he peeled the rolled up shirt over her head.

  “Oh god,” he murmured.