The moment gave her a small bead of hope for this new generation.
The timer went off and she pulled out the first batch. Perfectly shaped, golden on the outside with a delicious mozzarella, tomato, and basil mixture on the inside, topped with sprinkled Parmesan.
“You know, when I was little I used to think Nonna smelled like flour and summer,” Harley said and Teagan laughed.
“Me too! Although once fall rolled in, and Nonna started baking her panettone bread, she smelled like lemon zest and honey.”
“Huh,” Harley said, and there was something in her voice that tugged at Teagan’s heart. She thought back to those rainy mornings at the beach house and couldn’t remember a single memory that included Harley.
“Um,” Harley said and suddenly Teagan’s heart tugged for an entirely different reason.
“Um, what?”
“Can you come look at this?”
“What did you do?” The little prerolled balls were now big and squishy. “The dough is gooey. How is that even possible?”
“I don’t know. I swear, I followed Nonna’s recipe, but they looked a little dry, so I spritzed them, like Mom used to do.” Harley put her hands up in anIt wasn’t megesture. “I have no idea what happened.”
Teagan rested her palm against her forehead, closed her eyes, and reminded herself to breathe in and breathe out. By the fourth round her stomach had settled. “The ocean happened.”
“What?”
“They looked dry because you forgot to factor in the closeness to the ocean. The more humidity, the faster they rise and now they’re rising faster than the previous batch is baking. If I don’t get these in the oven soon, this batch will be wasted.”
“I am so sorry, Tee.”
“I know you are. It’s not your fault.” It was Teagan’s. “There are so many little unwritten tips in the recipes. They’re almost impossible to execute correctly if you’ve never made them.”
“Wait. I know. Go next door and use Colin’s oven,” Harley said. “His mom was quite the baker, so they have three.”
“It’s five in the morning. I don’t want to wake them.” Especially after the dreams she’d had about him over the past week.
“He’s a doctor.”
“A vet.”
“Whatever, he wears scrubs and I happen to know he works all hours. Plus, he goes windsurfing on the beach every other morning.”
Suspicion prickled down her neck. “I thought you said you’ve only been here a couple weeks or so?”
“In the spirit of honesty, I’d lean more to the ‘or so’ part of that statement. And I happen to also know that he pulled up a half hour ago.”
Chapter 5
One day I caught myself smiling and I
realized I was thinking of you.
—Unknown
Colin West had had a lot of surprises in the past few years but the discovery of Teagan tapping on his back door at five a.m. ranked in his top ten of WTF moments.
After a long day and even longer night, he’d taken a hot shower, then crashed. He was three snores from dreamland when there was a tap at the back door. Assuming it was his older brother coming to raid his fridge, Colin tried to go back to sleep. Ethan’s wife had put him on a dairy-free, sugar-free, and flavor-free diet, so Ethan kept a stash of doughnuts and beer at Colin’s.
Then came the second knock, a little louder, which woke the cats, Purrsnickety and Purrito.
Over the years he’d become accustomed to their quirky names, but when he said them aloud, he sometimes felt as if the Man Card god would swoop down and stamp a big, redRELINQUISHEDacross the front.
