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So I put the caps back on and he always made sure there were leftovers in my fridge.
And I always made sure there was breakfast waiting for him in the bakery when he showed up every morning with questions that, by now, I was pretty sure he knew the answers to.
Maverick had even made me hike once.
In a week.
I was kind of impressed.
Thankfully, the funfair had eliminated any remaining tension between him and brother and, no surprise, they were actually getting along well. Admittedly, Josh wasn’t entirely happy about me dating, but as long as I didn’t kiss him in front of him, he would be fine with it.
Naturally, every time I saw him when I was with Mav, I made a point of kissing his cheek.
What else were little sisters for if not to annoy their brothers?
“So is that recipe two?” Mav asked, wiping some cheesecake from the side of his mouth.
“Do you like it?”
“Blondie, I could eat that for three meals a day for a week.”
“That’s recipe two, then.” Laughing, I pulled the sheet out of the box file and pinned it on the fridge with the cupcake recipe I’d created. “One more to go. You’ve got cupcake and cheesecake. What else would you like?”
The oven timer dinged, and I went over to pull the cookie sheet out. They smelled divine, and while I wasn’t usually one to use cranberries before Thanksgiving, they were just perfection with white chocolate, and I couldn’t resist.
It was the start of my ‘item of the day’ kind of thing.
“Cookies,” Mav said, getting up. “Definitely cookies. What are those? Can I have one?”
I slapped his hand away with the spatula. “They’ve just come out of the oven! And if you keep eating my cookies, two things will happen. One, I’ll have to kill you because they’re my cookies, and two, you’ll lose your heartthrob status among your fangirls.”
“That’s fine. Wait until they find out I’m dating a woman who can bake anything on the planet.” He stepped up behind me and wrapped his arms around my body, resting his chin on my shoulder. “There’s no way they could compare to you.”
I sighed. “And you think I’m dating you for your food.”
“It’s a fair trade.”
“True.”
He brushed his lips along my jaw. “I’m almost done with this book.”
“I can’t believe you were like ten thousand words in two weeks ago and now you’re almost done.”
“White Peak inspired me. What can I say?”
“Sure, it was the town.” I rolled my eyes as I slid the last cookie onto the cooling rack. “Do you need me to read anything before Felicity gets here?”
“Nope, not right now. I’ll have the first draft done tomorrow if you want to read it.”
I gasped, turning and pressing my hand to my chest. “You mean I get to read the great Maverick Donovan’s manuscript before anyone?”
“You’ve read most of it.” He brushed his lips over mine.
“Not start to finish.”
“Okay, then, yeah. You can read it.”
“Ooh. Can I tell Holley? Rub it in?”
He grinned against my cheek. “You’re going to anyway.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and drew him in for a kiss. “I know, but it’s nice if I pretend to ask you.”
Maverick kissed me deeply, pressing me back against the counter. I was becoming accustomed to this—feeling him against me, being wanted—and it was a little intoxicating.
The door opened and we pulled apart, only to see a disgruntled Felicity standing there. “Oh, get a fucking room.”
The door slammed shut after her, and we both burst into laughter, me burying my face in Mav’s t-shirt.
“Well,” he said after a moment. “I guess the cat is out of the bag for real now.” He let me go and reached behind me, snatching a cookie. “Ow, shit!” He threw the cookie into the air, and my jaw dropped as it landed on the floor by the door.
“Maverick!”
“It was hot!”
I glared at him. “That’s yours.”
“I’m not eating it.”
“You sure as hell are. I will ban you from my kitchen!”
He shuffled over and picked it up, quickly sliding it on the nearest countertop that was free of food. “Five second rule?”
“This isn’t Kindergarten.”
With another glance to the cookie, he picked it up, brushed it off, and took a big bite.
Luckily for him, they didn’t take long to cool.
“That’s good,” he said, holding it up. “Even with Eau de Parking Lot on it.”
“Oh, go finish your book,” I replied, turning around.
But I was smiling.
I was always smiling.
EPILOGUE – PIPER
RULE SEVENTEEN: ALWAYS EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED.
LIKE THUNDERSTORMS. OR YOUR PERIOD.
One Year Later
A lot of things could happen in a year.
For example: in one year, I’d reached a settlement from an old boss, bought my bakery, moved home, and fallen in love.
Since that year, however, things had changed a lot.
A lot.
Thankfully, I was still very much in love. I amused myself greatly by insisting that me and Maverick were not dating since, you know. I didn’t date. It’d taken him a couple of weeks but he eventually saw the funny side, and he now responded saying we were getting married.
