“Bored? I’m making a lemon meringue pie with my mother—how could I be bored?”
She gives me a pointed look as she whisks away. “Don’t be cute, Piper. Why don’t you do another podcast?”
I wave at her dismissively. Doing a podcast is the last thing on my mind right now, as is reading. I can’t seem to think of anything else but Harrison.
“I’m fine.” I clap my hands together. “What else do you need me to do?” Being distracted is probably key, because if I dwell on this too much, my mind is going to start running away on me and create something bigger than reality.
“You can . . .” She trails off as the saucepan bubbles on the stove, and starts skimming over the recipe on the iPad. “Oh, shit.”
“What? Did you miss a step?”
She closes her eyes and makes a grumbling noise.
“What?” I repeat, reaching for the recipe. I take the iPad and look at it, unable to see what the problem is.
“The piecrust,” she says, looking at me after a moment. “The recipe only gave the recipe for the meringue and the filling. I forgot I needed a crust!”
“Maybe you don’t?” I say, looking over the recipe. But there it is. “?‘Pour mixture into your pre-baked piecrust.’?”
Uh-oh. My mom looks on the verge of losing it. She’s been doing so well, and baking is usually her happy place, no matter what happens to the final product.
“Hey, it’s okay,” I tell her, going to the stove and switching off the burner. “We’ll come back to the filling after. Let’s start on the crust. Do we have what we need for that?”
“I have no idea,” she whimpers, throwing her arms in the air. “I have never made a piecrust.”
“Okay, okay, I’m sure it’s easy. Don’t panic. It will be fine.”
I pull up a piecrust recipe and start reading the ingredients. “Flour. We have plenty of flour, right?”
My mom opens a cupboard and pulls out a bag and plops it on the counter. It’s not even closed, so flour flies out into the air.
I ignore the particles gathering on my shirt. “Okay, so that and salt, water, and we just need either butter or shortening or lard.”
“I have butter and shortening, I think,” my mother says, opening the fridge.
While she looks, I start measuring out the two-and-a-half cups of flour, which naturally gets everywhere. I’m definitely no better than she is when it comes to not making a mess.
“Which one should I use?” she asks, pulling them both out.
I’m about to tell her I have no idea when there’s a knock at the door.
We look at each other in surprise, just as Liza comes charging from around the corner, barking and heading to the door.
I walk over, dusting my floury hands on my black tunic, then open the door.
It’s Harrison. Suit, aviators, hands behind his back.
My heart does a triple axel.
A stupid grin spreads on my face as my body tingles, muscle memory from everywhere he touched me.
“Hi,” I say. “You’re here.”
A ghost of a smile flits across his lips. “I am.”
“Mr. Cole?” my mother says in the background. “Need to use the machine again? Liza, come here.”
Liza has already given up on barking, but now she’s doing circles around Harrison’s legs and sniffing him, getting her hair all over the fine material of his suit.
He clears his throat. “Actually,” he says, louder so my mother can hear, “the duke and duchess were wondering if you would join them for dinner on Friday.”
Not gonna lie, my stomach sinks a little with disappointment, as if I really thought he was here to see me.
“Friday?” my mother says. “Sure. Say, you wouldn’t know how to make piecrust, would you?”
“Mom, don’t bug him,” I chide her.
“It’s not a problem,” Harrison says to me. He removes his sunglasses and slips them in his jacket pocket. “I would be happy to help.” He takes a step forward and pauses, his eyes drifting to my lips and up to my gaze. “If that’s okay with you, of course.”
I make a squeak that means “of course” in fluttery crush language and step aside as he walks in. He brushes past me, his scent filling my nose and making those butterflies take flight, my knees feeling weak.
I close the door and follow him into the kitchen, where he observes the mess.
“So what happened here?” he asks mildly.
“Argh,” my mom says. “I was trying to make a lemon meringue pie and forgot all about the crust. Now I’m stuck on whether to use butter or shortening.”
Harrison watches her and nods. “I see. Well, you can use both. In fact, that’s what I prefer.”
“Both?”
“Here, let me,” he says. He takes off his suit jacket, and I hurry over to take it from him, hanging it up by the front door. He then rolls up the sleeves of his white dress shirt to his elbows, his tattoos on display. “Can you get me a larger mixing bowl?” he asks.