The Best Next Thing

In the end, she was the one who broke the silence. “How was your walk?”

He latched on to the question gratefully.

“We didn’t get very far. It took us fifteen minutes to get to the bushwillow tree”—a feat that usually took him under ten minutes—“and because we were both already flagging at that point, I thought it best to turn around. Didn’t want to give you the opportunity to say ‘I told you so’.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t have…”

“I was joking, Mrs. Cole.” Again—as with his off-color comment about the flour earlier—she looked so confounded at the notion of him having a sense of humor, that Miles found his amusement fizzling.

Jesus, he knew he could be a crabby bastard at times, but he wasn’t that bad, was he?

She had removed the raw dough from the counter and was meticulously wiping the surface with a damp cloth.

“You’re not going to finish the bread?” he asked. A topic change seemed prudent, and it might as well be about something mundane.

“I ruined the dough, I’ll have to start over.”

“Do you—” He slammed the brakes on the question he couldn’t believe he had almost asked and swallowed audibly. Her eyes swung up to his; uncharacteristic curiosity lighting the dark, dark depths of that beautiful limpid gaze.

“Do I what?”

He considered his options for the rest of the day. It was still too early for television, Stormy would soon pass out and sleep for a few hours after her walk, he had no more audiobooks, the Internet was down, work was off limits…he could grab a book from the extensive library, but he usually needed to be in the right frame of mind to do any reading.

That left sleeping, exercise—not the ideal option after his walk—or staying here. With a woman who clearly preferred her own company to his.

Nothing else to it, he might as well complete the question, “Do you need a hand?”

She looked confused, as if she couldn’t quite comprehend what he had asked.

“I know I’d probably be as useful as tits on a bull, but I’ve always wanted to try my hand at baking bread.”

Her gaze shifted from confused to assessing, as if she were trying to gauge his level of sincerity.

“Have you really?”

The complete lack of anything resembling credulity in the question made him wince, and he shook his head, “Okay, not really. But it would be interesting to try.”

Another long stare, and Miles was proud of himself for not squirming beneath her intense scrutiny.

“You’re bored, aren’t you?”

Her astute question nearly made him smile, but he kept a poker face and maintained unflinching eye contact. “Out. Of. My. Fucking. Mind.”

It wasn’t a good idea. It would be best if he stayed out of her way, and the lines between them as employer and employee remained clearly defined. But the power had been out for three days. The weather had kept him confined mostly indoors. And she could tell that the restrictions were starting to chafe at him. Miles Hollingsworth was a workaholic, she knew that, she had seen it whenever he had come on “vacation” with his family. His siblings always had a blast, but Miles tended to remain glued to his phone, or his laptop, earphones practically a permanent fixture on his head, studying headlines and staying abreast of stock market trends.

His idea of relaxing appeared to involve sipping the occasional brandy while listening to what she assumed were financial podcasts. He was a workhorse whose only apparent passion was finding and fixing broken things. And then selling them at immense profit.

Sure, that was a gross oversimplification but how else did one explain what he did?

And now he was the broken thing in need of fixing. And he didn’t seem to have the first notion of how to go about that. Then again, neither did Charity. She had been broken for so long, it was hard to remember being whole and undamaged.

Her teeth raked over her lower lip as she considered his request. This was his house, his kitchen, and she was his employee. He would have been well within his rights to demand instead of ask.

But he hadn’t. He had offered her a choice.

She exhaled softly and nodded. “Fine, get cleaned up, and we’ll get started on the bread.”

His eyes smiled at her. And it was remarkable. His expression didn’t change at all, but his steel gray eyes lit up and crinkled at the corners. She had never seen him do that before and she found it disturbingly appealing. Flustered, she shifted her attention to the puppy standing at their feet. Stormy was patiently waiting to take her cues from Miles.

His gaze followed hers and this time, the smile traveled to his lips. They quirked, showing off that dimple, and the dog’s tail thumped slowly at the change in his expression.

“But first I have to feed and crate this one, she’s bound to be exhausted after our walk.”