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My plans had been to stay busy and keep my head down, focused on the inn, until I left for my LA meeting on Wednesday. If I concentrated on work, I couldn’t think about Cash or last night or kissing him. But here he was, being nice to me again. Seeming to care. Helping me out of a muffin jam and telling me that everything would be okay.
He was turning out to be the friend I needed, just when I needed him, and maybe I needed to just embrace that while I was here. Maybe I deserved a bright spot in an otherwise crap-tastic morning.
I went up the walkway to the front door and entered—and froze.
There, in the open kitchen, was a wet-haired Cash with his back to me, opening cabinets and shutting them, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist.
Chapter13
Ava
Maybe it’d been too long since I’d had sex.
Just looking at Cash across the cozy living room that was open to the kitchen awoke a kernel of desire deep inside me. Okay, more than a kernel. The man might be almost forty and create and sample food for a living, but it was undebatable that he took excellent care of his body.
His back was still to me as he pulled a mixing bowl out of the cabinet, his shoulder muscles firm and flexing with every movement. I admired his biceps and triceps as he reached to the side for something, then I stood there for a few seconds appreciating his total confidence and competency in my aunt’s modest, outdated kitchen.
When I closed the door, I should’ve braced myself, because he spun toward me, giving me a smile and a full view of his chest. It was perfect. Sculpted, with ridges and well-formed pecs, and good lord, those abs… He’d had a baseball player’s physique when we were together all those years ago, long and muscular, firm, with an ass that made a girl long to squeeze it, and I’m here to tell you, he’d filled out and firmed up beautifully since then.
I swallowed, shook myself mentally, and attempted to act like I wasn’t having a religious moment seeing him nearly naked. “Your clothes disappeared,” I managed.
“I rinsed them out and threw them in the dryer. Hope that’s okay.”
“Of course.” Because my body temperature wasnotrising just from looking at him. No, not at all. “It’s hot in here,” I said before I could stop the words.
“I’ve got the oven preheating.”
“That explains it. I brought what you asked for.” I set the bag on the counter and stepped up next to him to unload it. “What’s that?” I pointed to a bowl of something he’d already stirred up.
“Glaze. You had what I needed for this on hand. We’re making cinnamon roll muffins with glaze.”
“I can get behind that. As long as you’re doing the making.”
“What are you going to do tomorrow morning for muffin time?”
“Serve leftovers?” I said. “Let’s bake double.”
“We can do that.” He was going through the ingredients I’d brought and setting them out according to some kind of order in his head. “Baking isn’t hard, Ava. You can master it.”
“Obviously,” I said dryly. “Just ask Fire Chief Thomas.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he said in a gentle, encouraging voice as he poured flour into a measuring cup. “If you do two things, you’ll have it.”
“One, sit on the counter, and two, watch you?”
“I was thinking more of following the directions and setting a timer, but you can sit and watch if you’d rather.”
I kicked my flip-flops to the side and hoisted myself up on the counter not far from his workspace. “Muffins might be one of Aunt Phyl’s traditions that has to end.”
“And that would be okay. You’re the owner now and you can do things your way.”
I let out a quiet but caustic laugh. “I don’t have a way. I don’t have the slightest idea what I’m doing here, Cash.”
He set aside a third bowl where he’d just dumped the flour and walked over to me. Bracing his hands on the edge of the counter on either side of me, he looked intently into my eyes and said, “I think you’re doing an amazing job. You’ve run this inn for a week now and kept your customers happy, all while grieving.”
“More like the inn has run me, most days.” Yes, I was trying to be funny when he was stone-cold serious. His praise made me twitchy. I didn’t deserve it.
“Ava, your aunt was a sweet, caring lady, and you loved her dearly, but she didn’t leave you in a great situation here.”
