AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Do you know how to make cheese, Spencer?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Ice cream?”
“No, ma’am.” Discomfort started to seep into him. He’d thought he’d be working with the horses here. The stables he knew. A barn he was comfortable in. Sweet Water Falls Farm had two arms of operation, and the job listing hadn’t said anything about working the dairy aspect of it.
Wayne himself had said his three sons would handle the dairy side. He knew Cooper & Co did all of their own processing, and he’d known they had a retail store. He’d been impressed with the cleanliness of the shoppe and how complete it was, with refrigeration units full of cheese, cream, butter, and milk. All organic, of course, as the sign on the door had proclaimed.
His brain whirred as two pieces got put together. “You make all the ice cream here.”
“Yes,” she said.
He looked to his left, where a refrigeration unit stood holding cheese, butter, and spreads. “And all of this.” Wayne had said she made it all; she’d gone to culinary school; the hand-lettered signs on the shelves and menu board screamed Clarissa.
“Yes,” she said with a sigh. “He didn’t tell you the job included the shoppe, did he?”
Spencer looked back to her, and he thought he saw a moment of understanding in her gaze before she darted her eyes away from his. “No,” he said slowly. “That was not in the job description.”
“Then we have a lot to do in a short amount of time,” she said. “Here’s how this is going to go.” Those eyes flashed dangerously. She reached up and slid the elastic out of her strawberry blonde hair, the long locks falling over her shoulders in waves. “You’re going totakeme to dinner, and we’re going to go over all of your duties here in the shoppe.”
His eyebrows drove toward the sky. “You’re going to teach me?”
“I’m going to try to talk some sense into my father.” She sighed and shook her head. “But in the meantime, yes. I’m going to teach you.”
Spencer narrowed his eyes at her. She didn’t want him here, that much was obvious. “Aren’t you leaving Cooper and Co?”
Clarissa raised her chin, almost defying him. “Yes.”
“Where are you going?”
“San Antonio.”
“Some big wig job at a restaurant, I heard.” He cocked his one eyebrow, the question clear.
But Clarissa’s façade and bluster fell, and she looked at the ground. “I’m still working on the ‘big wig job’ part of that.”
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”
She lifted her eyes to his, and he grinned at her. Slowly, a smile crawled across her face too. “Stop it,” she said.
“Stop what?”
“Looking at me.”
“So we’re going to go to dinner, but I can’t look at you?”
“Yes,” she said, but she didn’t stop looking at—or smiling at—him. She even took a step toward him, and Spencer felt the temperature in the store raise a few degrees. Dozens of memories ran through his mind, all of them with her delicate hand in his, her laugh filling his ears, the touch of her lips against his.
They’d had a good summer together, once.
“Why are you leaving the farm?” he asked.
“Oh, you know,” she said, stepping past him and going around to the other side of the ice cream counter. “First lesson, the store has to be cleaned and left precisely how you want it the following day. You won’t have time to do it before you open.”
“I don’t know why you’re leaving,” he said, putting his elbows on top of the ice cream case and leaning into them. “Tell me.”
Clarissa looked up from the chore of wiping the counter where she’d scooped their treats. Her eyes held fear and hope at the same time, and it sent Spencer’s male side into overdrive.
