Saving the Cake(2)

“So, um…” Donovan looked up at the sky and then towards the doorway.

I took a deep breath and waved him in.





Chapter 2


“Wow,” said Donovan, looking around. “You actually live in a thatched cottage.”

Now we were on the same level, he was almost a head taller than me. Taller and broader, his shoulders stretching out his jacket very nicely indeed. “Watch the beams,” I said as we moved through to the living room.

“The…?—Ow!”

I directed him to an armchair and he sat down, looking completely out of place. I fit in my cottage, with my long, frizzy blonde hair I could never do anything with, and my curves and my apron. Together with my tendency to blush, I could easily pass for some rosy-cheeked farmer’s wife—they always had generous curves, long before phrases like pear-shaped came about. Donovan didn’t fit at all. He sat there rubbing his head while I explained that while I was terribly flattered to be interviewed, the real story was the happy royal couple and not some chef in the home counties, and that I’m sorry he’d had a wasted trip and that I’d be happy to call him a cab to the airport.

He grinned as I said it. It was a very annoying habit, especially because the grins were dangerously close to being…charming.

“Here’s the problem,” he told me. “I’m sort of on probation with my station, right now. I have to get this story. I won’t get in the way. There’s no camera operator or sound guy or anything. He patted his battered, brown leather suitcase. “Just me and a tiny camera I have in here. A quick interview, a couple of shots of the cake and I’m out of here.”

My insides churned. I could feel the stress bubbling up inside me, boiling over like milk left on the burner. “That’s not going to be possible,” I said.

“Five minutes. A few minutes with the cake.”

“No, I don’t—“ The panic took over my lungs, my throat.

“Three minutes. One minute with the cake.” He grinned again. Why did he have to keep smiling so much?!

“I can’t let you—“ I croaked.

“Thirty seconds—“

“There is no cake!” I shouted.

There was silence for a moment.

“There is no cake?” he asked, bemused.

“There is no cake,” I whispered.

“Why is there no cake? Was it stolen?”

“No, of course it wasn’t stolen! I haven’t made it yet!”

He blinked. “But isn’t the wedding on Saturday?”

“Yes!”

“And won’t you have to deliver it—“

“By Friday, yes!”

“But then—“

“There are too many choices!” I yelled. “Do you know how hard it is to decide on icing designs, knowing that photographers are going to be all over it, comparing it to every royal wedding cake since Queen Victoria’s? How many times I’ve gone back and forth on the number of tiers? I had a nightmare last night about raisins!”

He stared at me and I stared back at him. I couldn’t quite believe that I’d just blurted all of it out to him, but he was the first person I’d let into the house in weeks and, for some reason, he was very easy to talk to. “I had three weeks,” I told him. “But the time just sort of…slipped away.”

“You’ve spent three weeks worrying about what sort of cake to bake?” Don ran a hand through his hair. “And now you’ve only got two days left to make the cake?”

“Don’t say it like that! Don’t say only. It’s two days. Forty-eight hours. Plenty of time.” I realized I was panic-breathing. “Anyway, this is why I can’t have you here. I need to focus on the cake.” I indicated the door. “So if you’d be so kind….“

Don stood up, but didn’t move towards the door. “I’m not sure that’s what you need.”

“What I need is for everybody to just leave me alone….”

He tilted his head to one side. “Sounds like that’s what everyone’s been doing so far. Maybe you need some company. Someone to…keep you on track.”

I gulped. He’d somehow managed to make keep you on track sound sort of like…take you over my knee and teach you a darn good lesson. Or was that just me? I flushed. Of course it was just me. I was in an apron, for God’s sake, and it did nothing to disguise that there was a lot of me, both up top and on the bottom. He wasn’t interested in me. He just wanted his story.


But however annoying he was, part of me didn’t want to kick him back out into the rain. Part of me wanted those dark gray eyes and that easy smile around as long as possible.

“Fine,” I said in my best huffy voice. “A quick interview. An hour at the very most.”

And I led the way downstairs.





Chapter 3


After the beam incident, Don kept ducking his head cautiously whenever we entered a new room. But when we emerged into the basement he stood up tall and whistled. “Wow,” he said.

For a second, the stress melted away and I preened. My kitchen is my thing—where I spend my time, where I lavish my money. I don’t do sports cars or fancy clothes. I plowed everything from my first three cookbooks into this one room.