The Barn-Dance (2 page)

“Trust me, you don’t want to wait.” He was gonna have to spray down with cold water if he didn’t want to take care of it himself. While she was often a mainstay of his fantasies, it somehow felt wrong to finish himself off thinking about her when she was in the house, waiting for him.

Only she wasn’t really waiting for him.

Cold water it was.

Chapter Two

Mindy was still wearing the pink shirt, jean shorts, and heels when he finally made it to the kitchen. The girl had no concept of work clothes, no matter what Cal said. Maybe he’d put an apron on her. Keep him from looking at her nipples at least. He was still a little wet from spraying himself with the icy well water.

“Took you long enough.” Mindy’s foot-tapping impatience wasn’t hard to read, and her long legs jiggled just a little with each pound of her toe on the floor. Even that movement made him think of sex.

Was there anything she could do that wouldn’t remind him of sex?

“Well, the dogs were digging somewhere. I had to check all those trees.”
And wait for my erection to go down.

Her face softened. “I suppose Cal would have shot you if one of those trees didn’t make it.” She pushed off the counter, her streaked ponytail bouncing behind her. “So, what do we do first, Betty Crocker?”

A tight laugh pushed the air from his chest. Not because he minded being called names. He was used to that with her. But he’d immediately imagined her in nothing but a red apron, her breasts straining against the narrow strip of fabric that covered them.

His groin stirred again. No time for a cold shower, now, though. His dad and the rest of the guys would be in before dark. Maybe sooner if they’d had a good day, and he wanted to have her well on her way before there was any chance they’d be back.

Time to get to work.

“How about you show me what you did last time?” Leo approached the counter, which had been thoroughly wiped clear of the previous mess. All the pans sat on the dryer rack, and even the oven had been cleaned. At least on the outside.

“I followed the recipe May left.” She reached toward the recipe box, but when he snorted, she stopped, her mouth open.

For the first time, he didn’t think about sex when he looked at her. Instead, a picture of his mother’s face stuck in his head when Mindy said her name, and all the air went out of the room.

With a dry mouth, he said, “Never mind. I’ll just teach you what I know, and you can do what you want with it.”

Leo walked to the pantry, noting that she still hadn’t moved. He thumbed past the all purpose flour, in search of the bread flour he knew was in there. His mother hadn’t taught him much in life, but she’d definitely taught him how to bake and cook, despite his father’s insistence that it was a woman’s job to be in the kitchen, not a man’s.

“You have to start with bread flour,” he said from a crouch.

“Mistake one.”

He heard a scratching noise and craned over his shoulder to see her with a pencil in hand. “Are you making notes?”

She scribbled a few words, then met his eyes and shot him a questioning look. “What? You’re not gonna be here everyday, Leo. If I don’t take notes, it’ll all go out of my head on Monday when I have to do this again.”

“Bread flour.” He found the bag and passed it to her. “At least for what I’m gonna teach you to make. Sometimes you can use AP, and you’ll be fine.”

“I’ll just do what you tell me.” More scratching on the pad.

He stood and took a step toward her. “Now, what are you writing?”

She drew her lips in, concentrating on whatever she wrote, then affected a half-smile. “Always. Listen. To. Leo.” She punctuated his name with a poke of the pencil.

He couldn’t help laughing. This docile student thing wouldn’t last long. He should take advantage of it. Leo pulled a loose strand of hair across her forehead and tucked it behind her ear, letting his finger graze her skin. “I should tattoo that across your forehead.”

For a moment, her hopeful gaze met his and she cocked her head toward him. Something flickered over her face and her smile disappeared. “Leo…”

“Never mind. Forget I brought it up.” He withdrew his hand and stepped back into the pantry. Without conversation, he passed her the baking powder, salt, and yeast, hoping she could read the packages for herself. “First, we have to activate the yeast. Run the water between cold and hot for a minute. Try to get it to body temperature.”

“Body temperature?”

“Room temperature. Lukewarm.” No wonder her bread failed. The woman couldn’t even activate yeast. Either the previous bakery job had been a lie, or she’d been doing something other than baking. He imagined Mindy pressed up against a giant, silver door with her legs spread for another man. Leo could easily see how being trapped in a kitchen with Mindy might make a man forget to do his work.

Her sultry voice interrupted his disturbing fantasy. “How do I know when it’s lukewarm?” She turned her head and fixed her blue eyes on him, her lips slightly parted, her short blonde hair falling over her shoulder.

He laughed, remembering what his mom told him when he asked the same question. It had been her answer to a lot of his questions. “You’ll have to learn to tell the difference.”

“But…”

“Just run the water. I’ll help you figure it out.” He grabbed powdered milk, sugar, and oil, waiting for the sound of the water to tell him she was really listening.

When he closed the pantry door, he found her in front of the sink with her arms crossed. “I don’t want to waste water.”

Why he’d expected her to lock-step and obey was beyond him. Still, it chafed. “Just turn it on, Mindy.”

When she didn’t respond, he put the ingredients on the counter and crossed the kitchen in two long strides, edging into her personal bubble. He faced her while he pulled on the long handle, creeping the heat level up to where he thought it should be.

Before she could protest, he grabbed her hand and thrust it under the column of water. She caught her breath and breasts rose. That set his blood pumping. God, he wanted her.

He took his hand away, but hers stayed under the water. “It needs to be a bit hotter.”

“How do you know that?”

“You learn to tell the difference.” He knocked the knob a bit toward the red heat zone and stuck his finger underneath. “Not hot enough.” He turned it again, and retested the temperature.

This time, his finger connected with Mindy’s, who’d left her hand obediently under the water. He didn’t move it. This was the perfect temperature. The heat and cool finally hit the balance he needed.

She looked like she might pull away, but he crooked his finger around hers, holding her in place. “Keep your hand there for a minute.”

“Leo…”

“Can you feel how my skin is the same temperature as the water?”

Mindy leaned in toward him and fixed her blue eyes on his mouth. As she closed the distance between them, he could the sweet mix of mint and rosemary enveloped him. She still smelled the same. He’d wondered about that.

“Uh-huh,” she whispered.

The tickle of her breath on his cheek sent a thrill through his body, straight to his toes and the ends of his nerves. She still excited every part of him.

“Leo.” This time, there was no finish to that sentence. She just whispered his name against his face. He knew where this was heading, and as much as he wanted her, she was not a good idea. She would leave again, and he couldn’t recover from another broken heart. The first one had taken him six years.

“Now you’ll know the difference.” He pulled away from her, leaving her swaying in front of the sink, into where he’d been standing.

That was the key, eh? Knowing the difference.

She shouldn’t have leaned in. The tight draw of his eyebrows said more than he ever would. And now she stood with her hand under the faucet, berating herself for wanting to kiss him.

“Now what?” she asked, hoping he would just kiss her already. Maybe if they got that over with, they could just stop this silly adolescent sexual push-and-pull and bake some freakin’ bread.

“Pour the yeast package and a little sugar into a bowl.” Leo opened the cabinet and placed a bowl on the counter. “Then 1/3 cup of that water and proof your yeast.”

“Proof?”

“It’s like activating. You have to let it work on something, and the heat turns it on, the sugar gives it something to feast on, and it gets all frothy.”

Okay, was he trying turn
her
on? She studied his face, but found the scrunchy sarcastic look missing from his features. He either didn’t know or didn’t care that he was using sexual language to describe this process.

This was going to be a long afternoon.

Mindy followed his instructions and watched the bowl. Leo laughed, that deep, rich laugh that made her think of chocolate.

“You don’t watch it, Min. It’ll froth on its own. You need to get the wet ingredients ready right away.”

Leo took her through the powdered milk and water, the oil, and the eggs. “Beat them. Hard. Until there are bubbles in the mixture.” He handed her a whisk. “There should be some room in the batter for the yeast to get in.”

Mindy stared at the whisk before accepting it. “You’re not gonna do it? Y’know, show me how it’s done.”

“That’s not part of the bargain.” His dark eyes settled on her; there was no heat or warmth there anymore. Just the critical eye of a teacher. That bothered her more than she liked. Her heartbeat still hadn’t recovered from that almost-kiss.

She took the whisk and started beating. After about two minutes of whisking, her arm got tired and she switched to the other. Leo glanced over at the bowl of yeast, which had quadrupled in size, almost overflowing the bowl, and her eyes followed.

“There, now put the sugar in and whisk it some more. Then we’ll fold the yeast in.” Leo stepped back and leaned against the counter.

Fed up with his sudden switch in attitude, she put the whisk against the side of the big bowl and crossed her arms. “Why are you being so cold to me?”

“You’d better keep whisking, girl. You’re gonna lose all that work you just did.”

Mindy felt like pushing out her bottom lip like a school girl. There was nothing that frustrated her more than being dismissed. “I won’t do one more stroke if you don’t answer my question.”

Leo bolted to the bowl and picked up the whisk himself. Now it was Mindy’s turn to lean against the counter in a huff.

“I don’t wanna talk about it, Min.”

“You were all up in my face a minute ago, and now you’re acting like I have the plague or something. I just want to know what I did so I can make sure to keep doing it.”

Leo’s laugh was dry and short, but at least he laughed. His broad shoulders relaxed, as though they’d been holding up something that he suddenly decided to release.

“It’s still kinda hard to be around you.”

His comment stung her, and it went deep. All the way down to the place that had been hoping he still thought about her, even as she tried to convince herself just how much of a Big Bad Idea he was.

“Ditto,” she said.

He laughed again. This time, a little bigger, and a little freer. “We’ve been avoiding this conversation since you showed up last week. I guess now’s as good a time as any, right? Maybe the last time we’ll be alone together.” He finished whisking and reached for the yeast.

“I can do that,” she said.

“Fine.” He stepped to his left and let her at the bowl.

Mindy looked from the frothy bowl of yeast to the creamy batter in the silver mixing bowl, which was at least twice as high on the side of the bowl as it had been any other time she’d gotten to this step. What did
she
do wrong? “So I put all of this in here and then what?”

“Fold it in.”

She followed his instructions, letting him nod over her shoulder. “So you want me to tell you why I left, and then you’ll tell me I was wrong, and we’ll have a big fight and maybe spill this all over the kitchen and have double duty before your dad gets back.”

“I’m not gonna tell you it was wrong.” He plucked the spatula from her hand and moved it slowly through the deep bowl. “Except you were doing
that
wrong.” Leo leaned away from her body. “Fold means fold.”

Mindy imitated his movement with the spatula and bit her lip. He seemed so unaffected, like he could care less about anything but the perfect bread dough. But that wasn’t enough for her. “You don’t care why I left.”

“I’ve been guessing your reasons for six years, Min.” Leo brought the flour from the other counter and placed it next to her bowl. “Now, add this real slow. A cup at a time, at most.”

She started with one cup and started folding again. Had he really been thinking about her for six years? Every man she dated was a repeat of his broken promises. One after another, guys seemed to like her, but after the sex, they always ditched her. Just like Leo. No matter how much she thought they cared, all they really wanted was a piece of her ass. Why she thought it would ever be any different was beyond her.

A familiar acrid smell tickled her nostrils. “This smells like beer.”

He chuckled and took the measuring cup from the counter, filling it again from the flour sack. “It’s supposed to. That means the yeast is working.”