After unlocking the doors, the manager opened a small panel near the door and flipped the light switches. A faint buzzing filled the air as the room lit up. The cleaners must have already been through, because it looked as pristine as before the competition earlier that day. At the front of the room, the ten cakes stood like soldiers waiting for inspection. Their cake would never pass muster.
“Stop by the front desk when you’re done,” the manager said. “We’ll lock up again.” She left.
“Ready, partner?” Sammy grabbed Robin’s hand and led her to their station.
Robin took a deep breath. “You know we still have a ton of hurdles, right?”
“I may not have been on the track team, but I definitely can jump.” Sammy shot her a grin. Warmth filled him at her return smile.
Robin began poking around the metal shelves of the worktop. “There’s nothing here.” She slid the backpack from her shoulders and set it on the stainless steel bench. “I still have some of the things I brought from home, a little gold leaf, and some sanding sugar.” She began riffling through her bag, setting things out next to her backpack. “But all the cake-making ingredients are gone.”
“They probably cleaned all that up and have new stuff for tomorrow.”
“Probably.”
Aw, shoot. There was that look of defeat again. “Maybe we can order some groceries to be delivered?” He tapped open his phone and searched the internet for a minute. “Looks like we’re too late at night for deliveries.”
Across from him, Robin held her idea notebook. “If we use parts of our existing cake, we wouldn’t need as much stuff.”
He straightened. “Of course! The kitchen will have everything we need.” He held up a hand at her protest. “You stay here and design something amazing. I’ll go get the supplies.”
He was halfway to the door when— “Wait. I’ll need a list.”
Robin jotted some things down in her notebook, tore out the page, and handed it to him. “If they don’t have almond extract, get regular vanilla instead.”
Ten minutes and all the cash in his wallet later, Sammy pushed a cart loaded with baking supplies into the ballroom. A few other bakers filtered in. He paused a moment to look at Robin before she noticed him. She had found a chair and sat hunched over the bench, scribbling fiercely in her notebook. Her hair had been retied into a high messy bun, a few wisps around her face. She’d pushed up the sleeves of her sweater.
She took his breath away.
She glanced up. Her face glowed. “You found flour.”
And yeah, he couldn’t help the way his chest puffed out. Knights fighting dragons had nothing on him. Of course, he was the cause of all this mess in the first place. His chest deflated. “They had everything on your list. And”—he picked up two cups from the cart—“coffee.”
“You’re a lifesaver.”
“What’s the plan, boss?”
She took the cup he offered and spun her notebook around to face him. “Remember the peacock cake for the Adamses’ anniversary?”
Remember the last time he’d ruined one of her cakes? Um, yes. He rubbed at the back of his neck. “You want to do that again?” He looked at the drawing she’d made. “Oh, wait. I see.”
She’d taken the original plan of the castle cake and adjusted it so the crushed half would have the agate-style finish of her peacock cake. It appeared as though the castle was tumbling out of the gemstone.
“The cake wouldn’t be structurally sound if I just tried to rebuild the other half again. If we follow this plan, we should be okay.” Robin demonstrated which parts of the old cake would be stripped away to make room for the new. “We can even leave a few of the destroyed parts and just layer them with some colored sugar. It will look like a geode.” She looked up at him, eyes bright. Her full lips…
Nope. Too close. Much too close. They had too much to do for any other shenanigans. Sammy took a step back. “Okay. Put me to work.”
fifteen
This was…totally wild.
Robin tugged out the hair tie from her messy bun and then flipped her hair back up into the hair tie and secured it back on top of her head.
She checked the clock on the wall. Twenty minutes until go time. Not long enough to run back to the room to change. She glanced down. Her sweater and jeans showed signs of the night’s activities—a smear of frosting on her right arm, a dusting of flour across her thigh. She brushed at both.
Oh well.
Sammy, on the other hand, looked amazing. He’d shed the blue button-up shirt he’d worn last night and now wore an apron over his T-shirt and dark jeans. By all rights he should be swinging an axe, chopping down trees—not helping her in a baking contest, for crying out loud. Atlas himself would be jealous of those burly shoulders. She blinked. She didn’t have the time to be noticing Sammy’s shoulders. Or the faint hint of golden stubble on his chin.
