Jillian Hart - Every Kind of Heaven & Everyday Blessings - Every Kind of Heaven / Everyday Blessings

“Ava, I’m glad I caught you.” There was Brice, shouldering through the door. “Before you go, I want to go over your final plans.”

“I already did that with Mr. Montgomery. When we talked the other day on the phone, you know, after Chloe’s wedding, you said you wanted to stop by on Monday morning. I assumed that meant you were interested in ordering a cake. But this is why, isn’t it?”

“I can order a cake if you want.”

“It isn’t what I want that’s the question.” Really, that grin of his was infectious. Dashing and charming and utterly disarming. What was a girl to do? How was she supposed to not smile back? She was helpless here. Lord, give me strength, please . “I haven’t forgotten that you tried to ask me out. I mean, I know you changed your mind once I started insulting you.”

“The post-traumatic stress is better, by the way. Although standing in this kitchen might give me a flashback or two.” His grin deepened right along with his dimples. “You’re questioning why I’m here, right? Remember I said that you made my sister happy with her wedding cake?”

“I do.” Leery, that’s what she had to be. On guard. The kindness of his smile was like a tractor beam pulling her in. If she wasn’t careful, she was going to start liking this man.

Liking men at all—even platonically—wasn’t a part of her no-man policy. Because that’s how it had happened with Ken, the chef she dated about five months back, and that had ended in disaster. If she didn’t learn lessons from her ten billion mistakes, how was she ever going to feel better about herself?

Brice came closer, his dog trailing after him. “You made Chloe happy, and now I want to return the favor.”

Okay, she could buy that reason. It was actually a nice reason. Which only made him a nicer man in her eyes.

He set a coffee cup down on the metal table between them and gave it a shove in her direction, obviously meant for her. She hadn’t noticed what he’d been carrying.

How could she have not noticed that he was hauling with him a rolled up blueprint, too?

Keep your mind on business, Ava, she ordered herself. Really, it was that smile of Brice’s. It ought to come with a surgeon general’s warning. Beware: Might Have the Gravitational Pull of a Black Hole And Suck You Right In.

“I know you’ve gone over the plans with my partner.” Brice plopped the blueprints on the metal worktable and spread out them out with quick efficiency. He anchored each corner with a battered tape measure and hammer he plucked from his tool belt. “But what I want to know is the dream of what you want. The heart of it. Beyond the computer-generated drawings of this place.”

Okay, that wasn’t what she expected and it disarmed her even more. Emotions tangled in her throat and made her voice thick and strange sounding. “I showed Mr. Montgomery a few pictures of what I had in mind.”

“I’d like to see them.”

Their gazes met, and a connection zinged between them. A sad ache rolled through her and she didn’t know why. She refused to let herself ask. Instead, she fumbled through the top drawer in the battered cabinets. She’d left the magazine pictures here to show the woodworker, just in case.

But turning her back to him gave her no sense of privacy or relief from the aching she felt. Somehow she managed to face him again, but her hands were shaking. She didn’t want to think too hard on the reason for that either. “Here. I’m not looking for exactly this. But something warm and whimsical and unique. In my price range.”

She spread the three full-color pictures on the metal table, turning them so they were right side up for his inspection. Long ago, she’d torn them from magazines she’d come across, tucking them away for the when and if of this dream. The white frame of the pages had dulled to yellow over time, and the ragged edges where she’d torn them from the magazine looked tattered. But the bright glass displays and the intricate woodwork remained as bright and as promising as ever.

“It’s probably beyond my budget, I know, that’s what Mr. Montgomery said. But he thought he could scale it down and still get some of the feeling of the craftsmanship.”

Brice said nothing as he studied the photos, sipping his coffee, taking his time. “Why baking? Why not open a bistro? Or stay working at your family’s bookstore?”

Surprise shot across her face. “You know about the bookstore? Wait, Chloe knows. She probably told you.”

That wasn’t exactly true. Everyone knew about the bookstore. Ava’s grandmother’s family, a wealthy and respected family and one of the area’s original settlers, had owned the store forever. “I need to know what this means to you before I start on the woodwork. Isn’t that what you do before you design a cake for someone?”

“Exactly.” She took a sip of the sweetened coffee and studied him through narrowed eyes, as if she were truly seeing him for the first time.

He could see her heart, shining in her eyes, whole and dazzling. He leaned closer. Couldn’t stop himself.

She turned one of the pictures around to study. “You wouldn’t understand what I want, being Bozeman’s most eligible bachelor and all.”

“You know, I have relatives who work on the local paper. That’s where the list came from. I had nothing to do with it. I’m just a working man, so I bet I can understand. Try me.”

A cute little furrow dug in between her eyes, over the bridge of her nose. Adorable, she shrugged one slim shoulder, and for a moment she looked lost. Sad . “My mom really wasn’t happy being a wife and mother. I know that. But when I was little it felt like I was the one who made her unhappy. I was always spilling stuff and knocking into furniture and forgetting things. Not that I’ve changed that much.” She shrugged again. “This isn’t what you want to hear.”

“This is exactly right. Exactly what I want to know.”

He laid his hand over hers, feeling the warm silk of her skin and the cool smoothness of the magazine page. One picture was of bistro tables washed in sunlight, framed by golden, scrolled wood and crisp white clouds of curtains. It looked like something out of a children’s storybook, where evil was easily defeated, where every child was loved and where love always won.

That’s what he knew she saw on the page, he knew because he could see her heart so clearly.

She drew in a ragged breath, her voice thin with emotion, her eyes turning an arresting shade of indigo. “One thing that always went right was when I was with Mom in the kitchen. She wasn’t much of a baker, but I had spent a lot of time with Gran in the kitchen, she taught me to bake, and I liked the quiet time. Measuring sugar and sifting flour. Getting everything just right.”

She paused as if noticing for the first time that his hand still covered hers. She didn’t try to move away. Did she know how vulnerable she looked? How good and true? He didn’t think so. He feared his heart, hurting so much for her, would never be the same.

“This reminds you of baking with your Mom,” he said.

“Sort of. I remember the kitchen smelled wonderful when the cookies or the cakes were cooling. And afterward there was the frosting to whip up and the decorating to do. It’s the one thing I could always do right. It made everyone happy, for how ever little time that happiness lasted, it was there.”

“And then your mother left?”

Ava gently tugged her hand out from beneath his. She lowered her gaze, veiled her heart. That was a scandal of huge proportion. Everybody had known at the time, and in a small city that was really just one big small town, everybody still remembered although twenty years had passed. “I want this to be like a place where customers feel like they’ve stepped into a storybook. Not childish, just—” She couldn’t think of the word.