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“You’re having quite the night,” he said with a grin, eyeing her from head to toe.
Sarah looked down at herself and sighed. About five different kinds of pastry doughs and stuffing covered almost every inch of her. And if the bottom half of her looked that messy, she could only imagine what the parts of her that she couldn’t see looked like. She shuddered at the thought.
“I’m practicing,” she explained as he crept closer.
“Is that what this is?” He gestured around at all the trays and the discarded baked goods. “Because to me it looks like a Pillsbury massacre.”
Sarah rolled her eyes at him, but she couldn’t stop herself from smiling as she turned her back toward him with a swish of her blonde ponytail.
“I just need to finish these turnovers and then I’ll call it a night.”
“Turnovers?” William echoed, his interest piqued from the mention of his favorite dessert. “What kind of turnovers?”
“Apricot,” Sarah answered, and was immediately interrupted by the dinging of the timer, letting her know that the said turnovers were complete. “And it looks like the time you had to wait is coming to an end.”
She winked at him over her shoulder as she grabbed one of the oven mitts from the counter. A blast of heat greeted her as she pulled open the oven door, and she made quick work of grabbing the tray and setting it on the only bit of clear space remaining on the workstation.
William immediately darted forward, his hands dancing over the tray as he contemplated which pastry he wanted to grab, but Sarah shooed him away.
“They need to cool for a minute, you impatient man.”
He beamed at her. “You love my impatience.”
“I love the fact that you’re only impatient when it comes to my desserts. There’s a difference,” Sarah chided him, but there was no bite to her words.
“Isn’t that the same thing?” William arched a brow at her, and before she could stop him, his hand darted forward and snatched one of the turnovers from the tray.
He brought it to his lips and took a massive bite out of it, and then immediately started to take big, gulping breaths as he tried to cool down the food that was now in his mouth. Sarah threw back her head and laughed, shaking her head at her fiancé.
“I told you they would be too hot!”
She walked over to one of the other trays while William huffed and puffed and waited for the turnover to be cool enough for him to eat. She selected one of the galettes that she had made right before the turnovers, a pastry that she hadn’t taste tested yet, and brought it to her lips. The cream cheese filling exploded across her tongue, and was a perfect balance to the ripe, juicy blueberry that sat atop it.
“I think these might be the winner,” she said, pointing to the baked good in her hand as she turned to face William.
The man seemed to have given up on waiting and on caring that he was going to scald his tastebuds right off and had fully bitten into the turnover, chewing it happily.
“I don’t know,” he disagreed around a mouthful of pastry. “This one is pretty dang great.”
She laughed at him again as a bit of apricot preserve clung to his chin. Setting down her galette, she walked across the kitchen and wiped it off for him. He smiled down at her as he swallowed his last bite and then planted a quick kiss on her forehead. When he pulled back, he glanced around the kitchen again and his brows knitted together.
“In all seriousness, though,” William began. “Are you doing all right? This all seems like a lot for a friendly bake-off.”
“I just want to win it,” Sarah answered simply. She knew it wasn’t the answer that he wanted, but she didn’t want to lie to him, didn’t even think she could when she was so incredibly tired.
“I know you do, but aren’t there things that are more important? Like, oh, say, sleep?” He shot her a pointed look.
“Yes, yes, that’s all super important.” She waved a hand between them dismissively before huffing a quick sigh.
She hadn’t opened up to him about her true feelings about the bake-off yet. The entire time he had been so supportive, but she knew he would also worry about Sarah’s competitive nature taking over. And maybe that was just what was happening.
“I know that this is all supposed to be friendly,” she started, meeting William’s blue eyes and holding his gaze. “And it is. I promise you that. For the most part, anyway. But there’s also a lot riding on this. My family worked so hard to get Sweet Thing up and running. It was already a community staple by the time I took over. And I can’t let a new bakery in town ruin that. I just can’t.”
“And it won’t,” William promised, like it was as easy as that.
But could it be? Could it be as easy as simply deciding that it wasn’t going to be a problem for her and her business, and then acting accordingly? Sarah didn’t know. Truthfully, her brain felt too addled by exhaustion at the moment to know much of anything.
“This competition can’t become the be all end all for you,” William said earnestly. “You are a phenomenal baker, and you have been for the entire time that I’ve known you. People come from out of state to visit Snowy Pine Ridge just to buy from here. You remember the woman that bought us out of the cinnamon apple muffins last year? Said she had driven two hours just to surprise the people at her work with them?”
