Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 147136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 736(@200wpm)___ 589(@250wpm)___ 490(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 736(@200wpm)___ 589(@250wpm)___ 490(@300wpm)
“I’m in here! And I’m stressing out so just get back in your car and go home! This was a huge mistake!”
Laughing, I moved through the living room and around the corner where the noise was coming from.
It couldn’t have been that bad.
Syd was in the kitchen at the stove, bent at the waist with her head in the oven as thick smoke billowed out around her and into the air.
It was that bad.
“Shit!” she yelled, pulling a dish out and sitting it on the burner. She kicked the door closed and waved her hands over the charred remains, murmuring, “No no no no.”
“Babe.”
The smoke detector sounded loudly from the hallway.
“Oh, God, not again,” Syd groaned, covering her face.
Jesus. She was definitely stressing.
I fought a smile as I grabbed a dish towel off the counter, moved out of the room, and stood below the detector, reached up, disabled it, then took the towel and fanned the air to clear the smoke so it wouldn’t go off again.
When I stepped back into the kitchen, Syd was still standing at the stove, facing it with her head down, only now she was massaging her temples.
I came up behind her, wrapped my arm around her apron-covered waist, pulled her back against me, and dropped my head beside hers, breathing in the apple-scented shampoo she used in her hair.
“I don’t know what I did,” she admitted in a small voice, lowering her arms and gesturing at the dish, which at this point was unrecognizable, blackened, and still smoking.
I couldn’t make out what she was going for.
“I followed the recipe perfectly, double-checking my steps and the ingredients before mixing everything together, and I know I set the oven temperature right. I triple-checked that.”
I kissed her temple.
“What were you making?”
“Homemade chicken potpie with all kinds of yummy veggies and spices, all beautifully contained in a made-from-scratch pie dough.”
Shit. That sounded really fucking good.
She sighed in defeat, then said on a whisper, “I wanted to do this for you so bad, and I’ve messed it up.”
I gave her a squeeze, let her go, then moved to the counter where she had mixing bowls, cutting boards, and measuring spoons laid out, found the recipe she had printed, and picked it up, reading the cooking instructions.
“You take it out after forty-five minutes?” I asked, looking over at Wild.
She slowly turned her head.
“Forty-five minutes?” she echoed with a suspicious pout. “No. Why would I do that?”
“’Cause that’s the cooking time.”
“What? No it isn’t!”
She eliminated the space between us in three quick steps, yanked the recipe out of my hand while pulling a pair of red-framed glasses out of the front pocket of her apron and sliding them up her nose, then began scanning the paper frantically.
Glasses like that would be cute on anyone else.
They weren’t cute on Wild. They were sexy as shit.
“Like those,” I observed, watching warm hazels lift and peer up at me through the lenses.
She gave me a small smile and a sweet, “Thanks,” returned her gaze to the paper, and continued scanning.
I bent closer. “Want you wearing them the next time we fuck.”
With a gasp, her eyes snapped to mine again, this time going round.
I leaned back.
“Oh,” she breathed, swallowed, then added a quick, “O-okay. Yeah, that’s totally doable.”
Smirking, I jerked my chin at the paper.
“Back to it. You said forty-five minutes isn’t the cooking time, babe.”
With a frown, Syd resumed scanning the paper.
“There was no cooking time. It says right here, look”—she pointed at the bottom of the page—“put it in the oven, walk away, completely forget about it, and come dangerously close to burning the crust.” She looked up at me. “I did exactly those things.”
My eyebrows rose.
“Think you went a little further than coming dangerously close to burning the crust. I had no idea that was potpie.”
Her eyes narrowed. She stood on her toes and tipped her chin up.
I bit back a smile.
Fucking loved it when she challenged me like that. Her sass made my dick hard.
“It told me to walk away and forget about it. I was just following directions,” she snapped.
“Not all of them.”
I grabbed her hand and moved her finger to the top of the page, indicating where I’d been reading.
She gasped. “Look how tiny that is! Who can read that?” Her head whipped around and she glared at the stove. “I can’t believe this. I followed the recipe perfectly. It took me ages cutting up those vegetables. I cut myself twice, but I recovered. Everything else was simple. I even brushed egg wash on the crust so it would golden up and made a pretty design with a fork around the edges, and you can’t even tell. I’m not even sure it has edges anymore.”
I slid my hand to her hip.
“Wild.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t see the time, or question what I was doing.” She looked up at me with pleading eyes. “There’s something wrong with me. I let myself forget about what I was making. That’s insane! Who does that?”