“Well, not everyone can keep up with my grocery-store aerobics program.”
She laughed. “That was fun.”
He handed her the keys to her car. “Call me when you get up so we can get going on the cookies early. I’m sure I’ll already be up.”
“Okay. I’ll call you.” She opened the car door. “Thanks for a really perfect day.”
“I thought so too. Sweet dreams.” They both got out of the car.
He walked over to his truck and waited until she went inside and her bedroom light came on before getting in his truck to leave.
Sunday morning, the sun was shining, and the temperature was forecast to be in the fifties later in the day. It would be a great day for last-minute shopping, and he had no doubt the cookie sale would be a big hit.
He’d already set out all the baking ingredients and baggies for the cookies. If he’d only thought to ask Sheila for the recipe, he could have gotten started without her. He went to work on hisslice-and-bakes, though, and was putting the first ones in the oven when she called.
He answered with a hearty hello.
“Good morning to you, too,” she said. “I slept like a rock. Did you sleep well?”
“I did,” he said, although the truth was he’d woken up several times with her on his mind. “Are you on your way over?”
“Yes. I’m already walking. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes. Can you take the butter out? We’ll need it softened to get started.”
“Already done.”
“You really are a mind-reader. See you in a minute.”
He found himself pacing and peeking out the window, waiting for her.Why am I this excited? I just spent the whole day with her.
He looked out the window again and saw her coming up the sidewalk, huddled in a navy-blue peacoat and white toboggan like the ones Orene knitted with the big pom-pom on top.
He hung in the kitchen trying to act nonchalant so she wouldn’t think he was anxious, but he abandoned that plan before she even got to the porch.
“Welcome, cookie-recipe princess.” He motioned her inside. “Ready to commence baking?”
“Sure.” She unwrapped herself from the hat, coat, and gloves. “It’s supposed to be nice this afternoon, but it’s still cold this morning.”
Her nose was pink. Tucker stepped up and wrapped her in his arms. “I’ll warm you up.”
She giggled, and that warmed him up too.
They got straight to work. The recipe wasn’t complicated,and she was right: rolling all those little balls out of the thick shortbread-like dough was the biggest job of all.
It only took a half hour for them to get the first sheets in the oven, and then it was a constant flurry of action. Putting them in, taking them out, the sugar dip, cool, dip them again, and set aside.
Between each batch of her recipe, he sliced and baked the sugar cookies with the candies in them, which actually looked pretty all piled up on his counter.
That wasn’t the only flurry in that kitchen that morning.
Along about the sixth baking sheet full of cookies, they were rushing trying to keep up, and during the dip-into-confectioners’-sugar phase, he dabbed a smudge of it on her nose.
She retaliated by tossing some in the air, which dotted the front of his red long-sleeved T-shirt. And then it was on.
They were both wearing copious amounts of the white powder on their clothes, hair, and faces when the oven timer buzzed and they finally called a truce.
“Last batch,” Sheila announced.
“Thank goodness. That’s a lot of cookies.”
