Page 19 of Recipe for Romance

Aiden washed his hands quickly before grabbing onto hers. “What happened?” he growled at her. Nicole stiffened at the rough edge in his voice and tried to pull away, but he held tightly. “I’m not mad,” he explained. “Just worried.”

It was the truth. In any other kitchen, he would have told the chef to sear it off on the flattop and keep going, but this wasn’t any other kitchen and she wasn’t any other chef. Protective instincts that had been dormant inside of him flared to life as he rinsed the blood from her finger, revealing a long gash where she had peeled up a layer of skin. Fortunately, it was shallow enough that she wouldn’t need stitches.

“I didn’t mean to do it,” she said, wincing in pain. Aiden pulled her hand free and wrapped a wad of paper towels around it before grabbing the first aid kit from a nearby cabinet. “I was looking at the apples and was thinking about the color of the skin and how lovely the yellow is, wishing I’d worn my yellow shirt today instead of the black. Black kind of washes me out and if I would have known I was meeting your mom I would have dressed differently so that I looked nicer. Thinking about your mom got me thinking about mine and how she would have loved the orchard out back and—” She sighed. Her eyes were slightly glassy, though Aiden would bet his future restaurant it wasn’t from the cut on her hand. “I guess I wasn’t paying close enough attention.”

Aiden nodded, opening the kit and grabbing an alcohol wipe. “That sounds like a lot of things going on in one brain.” He removed the paper towels and tossed them in the trash. “This is going to sting a little.”

Nicole sniffed but nodded, her expression shuddering slightly as he wiped the cut clean. “It is a lot, but I’m used to it. Well, kind of,” she admitted sadly. “Sometimes it feels like my thought train is made up of twenty engines wanting to go on twenty different tracks instead of a single train with multiple cars.”

Even though he had little experience with his thoughts acting in such a way, he could understand what she was talking about. Often he had multiple thoughts at a time, but they all synced up eventually and he tackled them one after another. Aiden looked up at Nicole as he wrapped a bandage around her cut.

A sad smile played on her lips and the sight of it broke his heart. “That probably doesn’t make much sense.”

Aiden returned her smile to the best of his ability, probably frightening the poor woman with a grimace. “I can’t pretend to have firsthand knowledge of what that’s like, but I think I can understand what you meant.” Realizing he was still holding her hand, he placed it on the counter next to the bread and mayonnaise. “Think you can manage to smear some of this on the bread without getting hurt?”

Nicole rolled her eyes, but her smile was far less sad as she held up the dull butter knife and waved it at him. “I don’t know. This thing seems pretty dangerous.”

Aiden nodded, stepping over to prep the rest of the ingredients. “I have faith in you,” he remarked. His tone had been slightly teasing, but he meant every word.

Their progress would be slow, much slower than even he had anticipated. There would be long days filled with him teaching her while also trying to get a business up and running. It would be a ridiculous amount of work for one person, and she would be around far longer than he thought she would, but the thought of havingmoretime with Nic was not an unpleasant one. In fact, it was entirely too enticing. As he watched her spread mayonnaise over the bread with as much care as anyone he had ever seen, Aiden had the feeling it might just be worth the hassle.

****

Nicole’s laughter filledthe dining room, the melodious sound ringing in Aiden’s ears and putting joy in his heart. After her earlier revelation that she’d cut herself while distracted with thoughts of her mother, it was nice to see her with a wide smile on her face and humor in her voice. She was currently laughing at another story his father was telling her, this one about the first cooking Aiden ever really did. Nicole’s eyes twinkled as she wiped a tear from her eye, looking over at him with a mixture of disbelief and playfulness painted on her face.

“I can’t believe you thought mud pies were actually edible.” Her cackling continued once his brother Travis had returned from upstairs where he’d retrieved photographic evidence of his father’s claims. “Oh my god,” she said, clutching her chest. “This is too good for words.”

Aiden peered over at the picture he could recognize in his sleep. In it, the five-year-old version of himself was sitting happily in a pit of wet dirt, wearing nothing but a pair of swim trunks and a muddy smile on his face. It was one of the few times he’d gotten yelled at in his life, his mother rushing out into the backyard in hysterics, worried that he’d eaten something worse than a little soggy dirt. Aiden had been fine, but his mother didn’t let him go outside again for the next year and a half without the reminder to not eat anything from the yard.

Aiden scowled at the entire table laughing at his expense, though there was no ire in it. Luckily, it was only his parents and Travis at the table in addition to Nicole and himself. Beckett was on shift at the fire station, Nate was at his office in Town Hall doing whatever it was the mayor did on a Sunday afternoon, and Felix had ended up leaving to go open his brewery. Aiden was more grateful for that last one than the others. Seeing how effortlessly Felix had spoken with Nicole, his smile easy and his tone flirtatious, had Aiden jealous of his baby brother for the first time in a long while.

Felix was closer to Nicole’s age than Aiden was, he was far easier to get along with, and he already had a successful business. He would be able to spend as much time as he wanted getting to know the beautiful woman whereas Aiden would have to settle for the time he spent with her as her instructor. If Nicole’s father hadn’t made this deal with him, would she even be interested in anything he had to say? Peeking over at Nicole as she spoke with his mother, he hoped she would be, but he couldn’t be sure.

When a woman was interested in him, usually she made the first move by either slipping her number to a waiter to give to him or messaging him first through a hookup app. Aiden was never the initiator, always more focused on business than getting laid. In the past, he’d still had his fair share of women to occupy his time, but never for more than a few couplings before they would part ways less than amicably. It had only been a few days, but Nicole hadn’t seemed to tire of his crankiness yet. If anything, her backbone seemed to get sturdier with each interaction. Even now, she had no problem razzing him about his little mud pie misadventure, something he wasn’t sure she would have done two days ago.

Reaching for the offending photograph, Aiden grabbed it from her and slipped it underneath his placemat. “In my defense, I was only five and had been fed Mississippi Mud Pie for dessert on several occasions.” The dessert was a staple at just about any town gathering and it had always been a favorite of his.

Nicole smirked, snatching the photo back and clutching it like it was a precious gem. “Since you’re so proud of it, you won’t mind me hanging onto it then.” She gazed down at the picture somewhat fondly, and once again the idea that she might be more interested in him than Aiden had originally thought tickled his brain.

Clearing his throat, Aiden’s dad nodded at the picture and smiled at Nicole. “There’s plenty more where that one came from, so it’s yours.” He stood and started to gather the empty lunch plates. “Keep it for blackmail purposes when this one inevitably starts grinding your gears.”

The phrase wasn’t the least bit suggestive, but that didn’t stop Aiden’s mind from going there anyway. He would love to grind up against her any time of day, any day of the week. By the pink tinge to her cheeks, Nicole’s mind may have jumped into the gutter with his. “Thanks, Mr. Kemp,” she mumbled, tucking the photo into her back pocket.

Aiden’s father scoffed, lifting Nicole’s empty plate from the table. “None of that, missy. You can call me Nolan,” he instructed before heading toward the kitchen.

Travis cleared his throat and stood as well. “Got to get back out to the trees,” he mumbled. After a hug to their mother, he nodded to Nicole. “Nice meeting you.”

Travis barely spoke to her during lunch, offering the occasional grunt or bit of commentary. Aiden would think his brother barely paid attention to his surroundings except for the fact that as he left, he flashed Aiden an exaggerated thumbs up and waggled his eyebrows. Aiden tapped his middle finger to the side of his head, earning a snort from the younger man before he disappeared into the kitchen.

Aiden turned back to Nicole and his mother, delighting in the two of them seeming to get along like old friends after only knowing each other for only a couple of hours. Anytime he’d pondered the idea of having someone to bring home to his family, Aiden knew that they would have to fit in seamlessly, something that Nicole had already done with half of them. Not that she was someone who would be a part of his family in the future, or that he was even really thinking that.Sure you’re not.Shaking his head to try and clear the unhelpful thought, Aiden tuned into the conversation that was going on without him.

“I’m so sorry to hear about your mother,” his mom told Nicole. She patted the younger woman’s hand lightly before giving it a squeeze.

Nicole smiled sadly, but didn’t seem quite as upset as she had earlier. “Thank you, but it was a long time ago. Though I guess not that long in the grand scheme of things, but enough time has passed that I don’t think about it too much anymore.” She sighed and shrugged. “Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yes, I actually met Aiden when I had my birthday party at the restaurant. He made me an omelet for dinner because I didn’t like bouillabaisse.”

Nicole’s eyes found his and the affection he saw there shook him a little. No one had ever looked at him like that, and it seemed to go beyond hero worship. He knew she made him an omelet the other day to repay his kindness when she was younger, but it seemed to be more than that, some sort of nod to a shared memory he could barely recall. It meant more to her than a simple meal if she was bringing it up all these years later. Maybehemeant more as well.

His mom smiled at him, a knowing glint in her eye. “Aiden always did make a good omelet, so good in fact that we have him make them every Christmas morning.”

---