Cream of the Crop (Hudson Valley, #2)(44)

Initially, before slicing it, she’d poked it. So I poked it. It jiggled slightly. I poked it again. Same thing. It sort of sprang back, almost like a panna cotta or flan texture.

Now I never wanted either of those desserts again.

I started to poke it a third time, when Oscar leaned in behind me, and with his mouth right beneath my ear, and my hairnet, said, “Are you going to poke it all day, or are you going to do something with it?”

Stifling every witty retort I had flying through my brain in that instant, I took a deep breath and stuck in my little spatula. He was right, it wasn’t mushy, and a clean slice fell back from the blade.

“Looks like it’s ready to go,” I said, handing it back to him and starting to turn for the door.

“Whoa whoa whoa, city girl, we’ve still got a ton of work to do,” he called.

“We do?” I asked, silently begging for fresh air, any air, any air sans funk.

“Unless you’re too soft to do a country day’s work,” he said, his voice literally dripping with challenge.

I turned on my heel and marched straight back to him, poking my spatula in his chest. “Bring it, Caveman,” I whispered, then stuck my empty hand straight out to the side. Picking up her cue perfectly, one of the other women tossed a rake thingie and I caught it in midair.

I worked hard that day. I raked cheese, I salted, I paddled, I pounded, I flipped, I shaped, and I hooped. I washed rinds, flipped rounds, scraped mold, injected mold, rotated molds, and damn near threw up about a hundred times. And through it all, sassing and teasing me, but also educating me, was Oscar. He knew every aspect of his little cheese world, and he was free with both knowledge and comebacks.

I laughed my ass off all day, but I must admit, nothing smelled as good as the clean fresh air at the end of the day, when he finally let me go outside to scruff around a bit.

“Sweet, sweet air, let me eat you,” I shouted, running past him when he finally pronounced it was quitting time.

“You’ll get used to the funk,” he teased, taking off his own hairnet (which looked almost as good on him as it did on me) and scratched at his hair, extra curly after cooking under the nylon all day.

“I wouldn’t count on it. I’ll be lucky to ever eat Comté again! You may have ruined me.” I sighed, sucking in big gulps of the fresh air. I was feeling a little queasy. Cheese making was long, backbreaking work, and I’d never take it for granted again.

I also might need to modify my Dream Cupboard to reflect less cheese making and more cheese eating. Fingers crossed. Because right now, the last thing I wanted was—

“Oh, I almost forgot. Since I can’t really pay you for today, I’ve got a surprise.” From behind his back, he pulled out a paper bag with Bailey Falls Creamery stamped on the outside, with the signature blue and white gingham wrapping peeking out from inside. “Your favorite Brie.”

I threw up on his boots. The ones I was wearing, luckily . . .



“I threw up on your boots.”

“You sure did.”

“I mean, my God, I threw up on your boots! For f*ck’s sake, how embarrassing!” I moaned, covering my face with the damp towel he’d brought me. One thought about Brie, the tiniest whiff, and out came the pancakes from earlier that morning. I could just die.

After making sure I wasn’t about to barf again, he’d driven me to his house, and tucked me into a rocking chair on the front porch with a glass of water and the cool towel.

“I don’t even know what happened! It was just, like, no more funk.”

“It happens.”

He said everything in that matter-of-fact, easygoing way. I’d thrown up all over the place, and he took it in stride as though I’d just dropped a bag of pretzels or something.

Was that his game? Acting like nothing bothered him, no skin off my nose, nothing was a big deal? Was not playing games his game?

Before I could ruminate on this for very long, the wind shifted and I got a strong whiff of . . .

“P to the U,” I groaned, pinching my nose.

“You get used to it. They’re just cows.”

I shook my head. “No, it’s me. I’m downwind of me, and all I can smell is vomit. I need to get back to Roxie’s so I can shower.”

He rocked back and forth on his heels, seeming to ruminate on something himself. “I’ve got a shower here. I’ve even got some flowery soap that girls like.”

“Oh, you do, do you?” I asked. Was it left over from Missy? Hell, who gives a shit? “What kind of soap do you use?”

“Lava.”

“Of course you do.” I sighed, stretching out in the rocking chair, not feeling sick at all anymore. “I suppose I could shower here. It does present a problem, though.”

“Problem?”

“Mmm-hmm. I’ll be naked. And you won’t be.”

He shook his head. “I must not have been clear. If you’re showering, I’m showering.”

My skin tingled. “That makes sense. Water conservation, being a good host—all those things.”

“Plus, you’ll be naked. And wet.”

I blinked. “Why are we still talking about this, instead of doing it?”



I stood in his bathroom, letting the water warm up while brushing my teeth with my finger and then swishing with half a bottle of Scope I’d found in the medicine chest. I rinsed once more, just as the steam was starting to fog up the mirror. It was an old-fashioned bathroom, with a makeshift shower suspended over a claw-foot tub, which I’d bet someone’s last dollar was original to the house.