Page 58 of The Pumpkin Spice Romance
“What’s overwhelming?” Noah asked around a bite of bread drenched — not merely dipped — in oil.
Scarlett stopped stirring her drink to eye him with a smirk.
“Let’s see. . .” Scarlett mocked. “Maybe a little event tossed in my lap that the whole town expects to look like a Disney World attraction in less than a week?”
“Oh, just that?” he scoffed. “I thought you might be referring to the fact that you just took a new job, in a new town, full of people you’ve never met, where you’ll be living in a house you’ve yet to see.”
Scarlett’s smirk turned into daggers.
“Relax,” he cajoled, handing her a chunk of bread and pushing the dipping bowl closer her way. “Bread fixes everything,” Noah said with a grin. He watched, an eyebrow lifted in expectation, until she gave in, soaked a little olive oil into the bread, and took a bite. Her eyes closed in delight.
Delicious!
“Give yourself some grace,” Noah continued while Scarlett tore off another slice of bread. “No one expects a Disney attraction, and you,Dorothy,have landed in a foreign land, full of traditions and new friends. I won’t be surprised if you come across a few silly characters who love to sing for no good reason around Green Hills. It might take a minute to find your footing, to find your path on the yellow brick road, you know? And that’s okay.”
Her mouth was too full to argue that while taking time to settle sounded delightful, the fact of the matter remained that the pumpkin patch opened Saturday morning. She had five days to make it magnificent.
The wagon she’d found at Jinx’s barn helped. A lot!
She planned to position it in such a way that the antique would serve as both a prop and a backdrop. Scarlett had also found an old pew, which looked as though it was a hundred years old. With dust and cobwebs covering intricate carvings in the end caps, the timeless piece needed some TLC. Once cleaned and polished, though, the pew would be beautiful in the rustic setting, with throw pillows, pumpkins, and maybe a few blankets or throws draped along the seat back. The final pieces she’d asked Jinx to include on the delivery trailer included half a dozen three-foot-tall whiskey barrels, several wooden crates, a few sheets of wooden trelliswork, plenty of strands of white Christmas lights, and an assortment of battery-powered lanterns that looked vintage without posing any risk of burning down the Twin Oaks ranch.
Joshua arrived with a tray of food, pulling Scarlett from her mental gymnastics.
He slid her bread plate aside to make room for a salad, which he set to the left of her fork. Overflowing with colorful vegetables like purple onions and bright-red cherry tomatoes, green cucumbers and earthy-yellow artichoke hearts, orange bell peppers and black olives, and topped with chickpeas, croutons, and fresh herbs, it could’ve been the main course.
Next to her bread plate, Joshua placed a bowl of piping hot minestrone soup, brimming with celery, carrots, cannellini beans, and pasta shells.
Her eyes — the size of saucers — locked with Noah’s.
He’d been watching her watch their feast expand.
Scarlett shook her head at him in astonishment.
“For your entrée. . .” Joshua announced. “Today we’re serving manicotti in the form of homemade jumbo pasta shells, boiled in garlic-infused olive oil just one second past the point ofal dente, and then stuffed with spinach-and-three-cheese filling.” He set an impressive plate in front of her, positioned with precision in the middle of the three other items he’d already arranged.
“And last but not least,sfogliatellefilled with citron zest and pistachio-flavored ricotta for dessert.” The young man left the plate with two oversized lobster tail-shaped pastries in the center of the table, bowed with pride, and promised to check on them soon.
“Dig in,” Noah encouraged, rubbing his hands together and waggling his eyebrows at her before reaching for his silverware.
Scarlett refused to acknowledge how stinkin’ cute he looked.
“Noah.”
She waited until his eyes met hers once again.
“There is no way I can eat all this,” she declared with wonder. “It’s enough for three dinners. And it’s lunch!”
“It’ll be a treat to watch you try,” he said. Why was his voice so. . .sultry?And why did it send shivers down Scarlett’s spine?
Perhapscutedidn’t quite describe the man.
Nicedid. And helpful.
Floundering in panic mode and dog paddling to keep her head above water, Scarlett admitted the truth, if only to herself. . . One thing prevented her from drowning: Noah and his willingness to show her around, drive her here and there, and be her right-hand man.
Better to focus on his niceness and not his hotness.
Definitely don’t dissect the gleam in his eyes or the timbre of his voice.
