Page 25 of Stealing Kisses

“You might be surprised,” Baylin replied with a sardonic smirk while mixing icing colors in glass bowls. “But not with cookies. Those seem to please pretty much everyone. Plus,” she added, “my friend, Anita, just bought a food truck and is fixing it up as a dessert shack. She rented booth space to give people a taste of what she’ll be selling when the truck is up and running.”

“Anita? Would I have met her today at the church?”

“I doubt it.”

Baylin spoke with abandon, albeit about someone besides herself. Teddy listened with rapt attention. Happy as a lark, he’d continue doing so as long as she kept talking, sharing her world, and letting him carry a tiny fraction of the load.

“Between cooking for the Sharps, helping her mom clean houses, and baking at Triple T’s on the weekends, she can’t find enough time to work on her truck, much less quilt or volunteer.”

“You went to school together?”

“I’m a few years older than Anita, but it’s a small town,” Baylin said with a shrug. “We’ve known each other our entire lives, have always gone to church together, and attended several volleyball camps together when we were kids.”

“Will her dessert shack be any good?”

“It’ll be amazing. Anita’s a magician in the kitchen.”

“You don’t worry about the competition?”

“Not at all,” Baylin said without hesitation. “I don’t mind baking and cooking if there’s a demand for it and if I can make a little money from selling what I make. But I don’t feel called to be in the kitchen; that’s not my passion.”

She said it was such finality that Teddy again maneuvered the conversation to shallower waters.

“And what’s a tripleT?”

“A three-toed turtle.”

“Is that a real thing?” he asked, managing a straight face.

She stopped stirring food coloring into mixing bowls at the speed of a Formula One race car to look at him as though he’d grown a second head.

“Is that a real thing?” she repeated, eyes wide with mocking drama. “Of course three-toed turtles are real. They appear a bit boring or drab on the outside, but they’re quite resilient, living to a ripe, old age of seventy —or older — and ridding eastern Oklahoma of hundreds of thousands of insects throughout their lifespan.”

Smart and snooty Baylin might’ve been the most fun version of her Teddy’d seen so far.

Her smile and silliness did strange things to his equilibrium. And he liked it.

“I’m now educated,” he said, lifting his hands in defeat. “Thank you,” he said, bringing his palms together in a gesture of gratitude. “I feel better knowing all there is to know about a tripleT.”

She rolled sassy brown eyes at him and returned to coloring icing.

“Any chance I’ll get to meet a three-toed turtle while I’m here?”

“Not likely this time of year,” she answered. “But if you come back later in the spring, I guarantee you’ll see plenty. And in the meantime, we can have dinner at The Triple T diner in town…best burger and milkshake in a three-hour radius.”

“Nowthatsounds like a date.”

11

Well, I think we tried very hard

not to be overconfident,

because when you get overconfident,

that’s when something snaps up and bites you.

Neil Armstrong

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