Sprinkled with Love

“Well, Jordan hasn’t seen any of it because he didn’t get leave at Christmas.” Avery glanced down. “Beth picked out paint colors.”

“I’m sure she loved the rest of your work. The house has a whole new, more modern feel.”

He shrugged. “You know how kids are, always on their phone or running off to meet friends.”

So Beth hadn’t noticed how much time and attention to detail her brother had put into the house. Jillian felt bad for him. “Well, I think what you did is amazing. I’m sure when their lives slow down a bit, they’ll appreciate all of your hard work.”

He grunted as though he didn’t agree. “Should we get started?”

She glanced around and realized he hadn’t brought any supplies. “Can I help you carry anything in?”

He sent her a blank look. “Carry what?”

“Oops. I guess there was a miscommunication. I thought you had what you wanted to bake and just needed some help learning how to put it all together.”

He shook his head. “I need help with all of it. I have no idea what to bake.”

“I see.” Well, that certainly cast a different glow over the evening. “I’m afraid my baking supplies are a little low—”

“No problem. I planned to go shopping as soon as I figure out what I need.” He raked his fingers through his hair, sending the longer waves scattering. “I guess I didn’t make that clear when we spoke.”

“Do you know what types of baked goods you have to make?”

He yanked a folded paper from his jeans pocket. “This is everything I know about the event.”

Jillian accepted the paper and unfolded it. She scanned down over the Bake-Off guidelines. There were to be three events. All baking was to be done at the competition. No at-home-baked items permitted. Each participant was to bake cookies, a pie, and a cake.

“The cookies don’t sound so bad,” she said, still reading the comments on the paper. “You just have to pick a recipe. The cake will be a bit harder.” She paused as her gaze scanned back to the list of baked items. There weren’t many details. “Do you know if the pie crust has to be from scratch?”

He frowned. “Everything has to be done from scratch.”

“Uh-huh.”

Avery’s frown deepened. “What does uh-huh mean?”

“It just means that some of this will be harder than other items.”

“Translated to mean that I’m in big trouble here.”

“Don’t freak out. I’ll help you get through it.” She refolded the paper and handed it back to him. “I have some cookbooks over here.” She walked toward the kitchen area. It was a good thing she’d borrowed some of her mother’s cookbooks. Most of hers were in storage as this efficiency apartment didn’t allow for a lot of extras. “We can go through them and see if anything strikes your fancy.”

They sat down on the matching barstools and started flipping through page after page of recipes. It soon became obvious that it would be best to tackle each round of the competition separately. It might help Avery not feel so totally overwhelmed—kind of how he looked right now. She felt bad for him.

Jillian glanced down at her notepad. “So you’ve narrowed the cookie recipes down to chocolate chip, snickerdoodles, or cowboy cookies. Which one shall we try first?”

Avery flipped through the cookbooks to the pages with the sticky tabs. He hemmed and hawed a bit as he turned the pages back and forth. She couldn’t help but smile. She’d never known anyone to put such effort into picking out a recipe.

And then he sat back and looked at her. “I think I like the sound of cowboy cookies best of all. It’s rather fitting, don’t you think?”

“I do. But what about the other recipes? Do you want to try them?”

“Only if the cowboy cookies don’t work out.”

“Okay, then we have a plan.” She got to her feet. “Next stop the grocery store.”

He sent her a lazy smile that made her stomach flutter. “At least this part I know how to do.” He moved to the door and pulled his keys from his pocket. “Let’s go.”

“Um, aren’t you going to write down the ingredients first?”