Page 83 of Baking and Angels

She huffed, relenting first. “I only called you back because I’m in a bit of a bind, okay? I want to make things very clear right now that just because you’ve got a patron or whatever, I have absolutely no problem kicking you out of my kitchen, so I wouldn’t go throwing your weight around like you’re the boss. Because I’ll do it. I’ll walk.”

“You mean,I’llwalk,” he corrected. “Don’t worry. I’m very good at workingunderpeople.” The innuendo was not lost on her.

Her expression didn’t shift, but the crimsoning of her cheeks and ears told him his tease had been received and understood. “As long as things are clear. This is a one-time gig, and I only pay you after the work is completed.”

“Understood,” he said simply, then shrugged out ofhis coat.

Eleanor flinched at his easy capitulation like she had been about to voice an argument in a fight that hadn’t come. It set her off-balance, and she undid her crossed arms to set them instead on her hips. She clearly didn’t believe him, but anything else she had been prepared to say didn’t fit anymore, leaving her nowhere to smoothly go next.

Instead, Rafferty turned his head toward her worktable and asked the question every chef, cook, and aspiring wanted to be asked. “What are you making?”

She turned with him. “Oh.” Her arms dropped completely, and she went back over to the worktable. The cameraman had moved around the table, carefully recording footage of what looked like a flight of tiny birds made of dough. “It’s not much. Just a little feature on a local online talk show. A fun thing people can do with crescent roll dough. You know, for kid’s parties and stuff. Thanksgiving maybe. People like cutesy videos like this. We can usually get two, maybe three out of this footage. One how-to video, and then another just watching us make it with some sort of beautiful piano music underneath. That sortof thing.”

Rafferty cocked his head to one side. “People just want to watch you make it?” he asked, fascinated by the idea. “They don’t want you to explain it oranything?”

“Nope. Not necessary. Some of our most viewed videos. People put them on a playlist and have them going in the background while they work,” she said, nodding at her flock. “We also sell the footage to companies that make reels for bakeries or whatever. It’s a business. It will pay the bills eventually.”

He bent down to examine the little creations further. “What are you using for the eyes? Poppy seeds?”

“Mini chocolate chips, actually,” she said, lifting a small ramekin of the tiny dots of chocolate to show him. “They melt just right when I bake them inthe oven.”

“Hmm,” Rafferty said, and she offered the top of the ramekin to him, wordlessly inviting him to help himself to a couple ofthe chips.

He thought about refusing; he didn’t want to corrupt her chips with his unwashed hands, then rethought that she might take it as an insult. She seemed to be done making her flock since there was an absence of waiting dough.

“This is worthy of the king’s table,” he said, popping the chips into his mouth, letting the chocolate burst and spread over his tongue. It took every ounce of willpower to keep from moaning.

“The king’s table?” Eleanor said, wrinkling her nose at the compliment.

He realized too late that again he had slipped up.

“I mean…”

“Oh right. Éliott said you are from France, right?” she continued, nodding at him. “He said you worked in the kitchens at Versailles, doing those recreational meals for the fundraisers and such. You know, donate a few hundred thousand dollars, and come eat like King Louis the XIV. Right?” She looked back at him to confirm Éliott’s lie.

But why would he lie at all, and with something so close tothe truth?

“I… yes,” he answered. Itwastrue.

Eleanor nodded. “Then I’ll take it as the compliment that it is,”she said.

“Truly,” he agreed. “It was a compliment. Food presentation at the king’s table was as much showmanship as it was taste. These sort of novelties… would have been all the rage in his court.”

“Yeah, beautiful,” the cameraman added so rotely, clearly the word had lost its true meaning to him. Why he had injected himself into the conversation, Rafferty couldn’t clearly discern, but it was a good reminder that they were not, in fact, alone.

The interruption seemed to annoy Eleanor. “Great, now if you’ll excuse me. I got to get these little guys in the oven, and then I got to get another cake started. That is actually what I need your help with,” she said with an unenthused grimace.

“Great, can Pedro and I go get lunch?” the cameraman asked, setting down his amazing device.

“Oh sorry, Rafferty, this is Peter, my cameraman, and his partner Pedro,” she said, indicating the mic guy who gave a halfhearted salute. “And yeah, that’s fine,” Eleanor dismissed. The two men didn’t waste much time with further niceties. Peter simply hauled his camera to a door on the opposite wall, holding it open for Pedro to follow with the long stick holding the mic, and then they were both gone without a backward glance.

Eleanor noticeably relaxed once they were gone. “Okay, now, have you ever made opera cake before? I need to make five hundred of them. I know it’s not something one would find on the king’s table.”

A grin cut acrosshis face.

“So did she do it?” Eleanor asked as she flipped her cake pan over onto the work surface, popping the thin sponge layer from the pan before pulling off the parchment paper with one smooth, dramatic motion.

Rafferty paused as he poured a measure of brandy into a cup destined for the saucepan before him, where he was preparing the coffee syrup for the layered cake. He caught himself from overfilling it at the last second.

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