Page 6 of Hockey Nanny

That plan, however, died abruptly the moment I set foot in the kitchen.

The scene that greeted me was something out of a crime scene. Every drawer and cupboard was flung wide open, spilling its contents all over the floor and countertops. About a dozen cracked eggshells littered the stovetop, and every inch of the usually pristine place was covered in flour.

In the center of the mess stood Henry (equally coated in a thick layer of baking powder), and Boone, wearing nothing but boxer shorts and a stained ‘Kiss the Cook’ apron that had clearly been put through the wringer.

Both of them turned to grin at me when I walked in, and Boone lifted a batter-soaked spatula in greeting. “Carissa! Hey! We’re making pancakes.”

“...Pancakes?” I sniffed the air, wrinkling my nose at the scent ofsomethingsinged. “You sure you’re not burning the house down?”

“Oh, shit!” Boone sped back to the stovetop to rescue the remains of what had once been a pancake and was now a sizzling black pile of goop. “I mean—” he glanced down at Henry, who was standing on his tiptoes, inspecting the disaster. “Shoot. Henry, don’t tell Dawson I swore in front of you.”

“You got it, boss.” Henry nodded solemnly before poking a finger at the sad excuse for a pancake. “Can I still eat it?”

“Sure,” was Boone’s nonchalant reply at exactly the same moment I bolted into action and strode into the fray.

“Absolutely not!” I pushed Boone aside with my hip, swiping the spatula from him before he could feed Henry the radioactive pancake from hell. “I’m not sure if you know this, Boone, but most people don’t eat their pancakes char-grilled.”

“Oh, please,” Boone chuckled, raising his palms skyward as he surrendered the frying pan to me. “So what if it’s a little crispy? I’ve eaten worse; have you tasted Dawson’s cooking?”

“It’s crunchy,” Henry, who had somehow swiped the charcoal pancake from under my nose, commented through a mouthful of crumbs. “Tastes like dirt.”

“Don’t eat that,” I groaned, exasperated, as Boone leaned over Henry’s shoulder to try a bite of the burned mush too.

“Oh, God, you’re right.” He made a face like he’d just licked a lemon and picked at a crumb in his teeth. “Tastes like dirt.” Despite that statement, he took another bite anyway.

It occurred to me then that I would have to step in and save these two terrible chefs from themselves before they both ended up with a stomach ache. So with a sigh and a silent vow to ban Boone from the kitchen moving forward, I rolled my sleeves up and lowered the heat on the stove.

“Hand me that mixing bowl.” I snapped my fingers in front of Boone’s nose and pointed at the bowl of poorly stirred pancake batter. “And Henry, grab that spoon. You need to mix it properly before you dump it in the pan.”

“Our hero,” Boone crooned as he passed the bowl over. A strand of blond hair escaped his haphazard bun, and he blew it from his eyes with a smirk. “What would we do without you?”

“Burn this place to the ground, most likely,” I muttered before crouching to show Henry how to fold the lumpy bits of flour into the dough. “Keep stirring it like that, and if your arm gets tired, you can make Boone do it for you.”

Henry complied with a giggle, stirring the batter while Boone leaned an elbow on the countertop beside me, getting entirely too close to the scorching hot stove.

“You’re quite bossy, Carissa,” he noted with a sly, teasing smile. When I ignored him, too focused on salvaging another sizzling blob in the frying pan, he reached a hand out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “I like it.”

“I’m saving you from a stomach ache and a lecture from your brother,” I muttered in response, but I had to admit it was helpful to have my hair out of my eyes. Not that I was going to entertain his obvious flirting. “Also, you’ve been trying to fry things without oil. That’s why everything is sticking to the pan.”

“Huh, who would have thought?” Boone looked genuinely enlightened, and I had to wonder how he had made it this far when he clearly did not know the first thing about cooking literally anything.

Henry wedged between us then to offer up a well-mixed bowl of batter, and I got to work frying a new batch of pancakes while the two of them watched with overly keen interest. Eventually, the smell of burning batter was replaced with the wonderful aroma of freshly made pancakes, and Boone even made himself useful by brewing a pot of coffee too.

It seemed like he’d given up on his efforts to flirt with me until I started plating the pancakes, and he sidled up behind me to whisper in my ear. “Thank you, really, for saving us from disaster.”

His breath on my neck sent shivers skittering down my spine, and I felt my cheeks flush red as he leaned over my shoulder. I cleared my throat and slipped sideways, putting a safe inch of space between us as I reached for another plate.

“No problem.” I kept my eyes fixed on anything but him as heat bloomed up my neck. “Though I think Henry would have been perfectly happy eating burned charcoal bits. He just likes hanging out with you guys.”

Boone glanced over at Henry, who sat with his legs swinging on the edge of the countertop, licking pancake batter from a spoon. “He’s a good kid. I wanted to do something nice for him.” He looked back at me with a sheepish smile. “Probably should have picked something a little less messy.”

It was that open, honest look in his eyes that hit me harder than any of the charming grins he’d thrown my way. When Boone wasn’t posturing or performing, he was… handsome. Sure, he wasn’t the brightest, led by his libido most of the time, and wasdefinitely impulsive to a detrimental degree. But he was kind, genuinely so. He braved his own bad cooking skills to make a young kid smile.

“Yeah,” I smiled back at him, “pancakes might have been a little too ambitious.”

Standing across from him in the aftermath of his valiant attempt at baking, something fluttered in my stomach, a feeling entirely unexpected. Maybe I liked Boone, just a little. It was hard not to. But butterflies were unprofessional, and I was there on a job.

I squished that feeling down as quickly as it arrived and shook the thought from my head. “So… when did you guys get back, anyway? I thought you were in Denver until Monday.”