He rubbed his hand over his chin. “All right. I’ll write you into the book.”
“Awesome.” I put my hands on my hips. “Fine. I’ll help you. Only because I don’t want the fire chief to have to report you to the police.”
“I told him I’d turn off the fire alarm next time, but he threatened to whoop my ass.”
“That sounds like Ray,” I muttered. “Where do you even live?”
“Here and there,” he replied vaguely.
“What does that mean?”
Maverick sighed. “I’m between places. Trying to find a place to settle down, so I’m renting an apartment just outside White Peak right now.”
“Why not just say that?” I rolled my eyes and eased a loaf of bread out of the tin. “When do you want to start your research?”
“Tomorrow?”
“Okay.” I shrugged. “Be here at four-thirty. Exactly. Or you can watch through the window.”
CHAPTER FIVE – MAVERICK
RULE FIVE: IF YOU’RE ATTRACTED TO YOUR BLIND DATE BUT SHE’S NOT INTERESTED, IT’S PROBABLY NOT THE BEST IDEA TO KEEP HANGING OUT.
Four-thirty was a time I only wanted to see on a clock in the afternoon.
Especially since I’d had to wake up at three-thirty a.m. to make sure I would be at Queen of Tarts early. I didn’t doubt Piper for a second when she said she’d make me watch through the window.
I also didn’t want to piss her off. I could see how begrudgingly she’d agreed to help me, and I was paying her well over the odds for the recipes.
Well over the odds.
But I really was desperate. I was so fucking behind on this book, because what kind of an idiot wrote a book about a baker when he couldn’t bake himself?
Thankfully, the hero couldn’t bake either. At least that point of view would fall off my fingers.
I parked outside the bakery and walked around to the back door. The sun was just coming up, but the alleyway was still dark, and the light from the bakery kitchen snapped on as I approached.
She was early.
Thank God I was, too.
I knocked on the door three times while stifling a yawn. The click of the lock seemed extra loud in the silence of the early morning, and I smiled when Piper’s eye appeared in the crack of the door.
“How about that? You’re actually here.” She backed up and let me in. “I brought a table through for you over there, but first, you need to learn how to use the coffee machine.”
“So I can make you coffee on demand?”
“Exactly that.” She grinned. “Before we go through, though, I need to heat all the ovens. I always cook the same kind of thing in the same ovens so it’s easy to set the temperatures.” She went from oven to oven, setting each one at a specific temperature, and she told me which oven belonged to what.
I was half asleep and didn’t have anything to write that down with, so she was going to have to do that again later.
Still, I nodded.
“You’re not going to remember any of that, are you?” she asked, amusement tinging her tone. “Oh, dear. You’re not a morning person.”
“Not really,” I admitted. “The last time I saw this time of the morning I was nineteen and in college.”
She snorted and walked through to the front of the bakery, turning on the light on her way. “Amateur. Right, this is the machine. It’s a beast and makes all kinds of coffee, but I’ll just show you the basics. It’s pretty easy.”
Piper talked me through the process, and I successfully managed to make a cup for us both.
“You’re right. That’s pretty simple.”
She smiled at me. “Come on. I brought a stool down from my apartment for you to sit at the table. There’s power to the unit for mixers and stuff, so you can power your laptop.”
“Thanks. That’s great.” I followed her back into the kitchen to the big stainless-steel table in the middle of the kitchen. There were already various mixers, bowls, and ingredients strewn across the table, and I eyed it speculatively. “Are you sure there’s enough room for me here?”
“Yep. I was just getting the pre-mixed stuff from the fridge ready to get in the oven.” She tied her hair into a knot on top of her head, grabbed an apron, and threw it on. It had a picture of a cupcake with a friendly face and a slogan that said, “Here, have a shut-the-fuck-up-cake.”
I laughed.
Piper looked down. “Not the most professional apron, I know.”
“But absolutely perfect for a romantic comedy.” I pulled my phone from my pocket. “Do you mind?”
“As long as you don’t get my face in it, go ahead.”
I snapped a picture of the apron for future reference. “Thanks. Sorry, I won’t distract you anymore. I’ll get set up.”
She sipped from her mug with a smile. “I’ll talk you through a couple things as I go. Don’t worry. Just let me get this coffee in. I’ve already spoken far too much for someone who isn’t caffeinated yet.”
I returned the smile, holding her gaze, and she blushed and dipped her head. I cleared my throat and got to work setting myself up to observe her. I was truly grateful for her allowing me to do this, and I had no intentions of making a nuisance of myself.
For the most part.
I was extremely attracted to Piper, and I wasn’t going to sit and look pretty in the corner. I wasn’t going to lie and say I didn’t have an ulterior motive for being here aside from my book, but I wanted her to actually like me.
I really wasn’t a bad person, despite my reputation.
I also wasn’t a playboy like the media made me out to be. I had no more one-night stands than the average person, but since my last book had been opted for a movie, I’d become stupidly interesting to the media.
They hadn’t yet found me in Montana, and I hoped it would stay that way.
Until my book published, of course. I’d have to fucking move before that, given that I was giving Piper credit.
Not that I cared.
She was doing me a huge favor. A paid favor, but a favor all the same.
I plugged my laptop into the outlet on the leg of the table and booted it up. Piper was already uncovering a huge mixing bowl of something and pulling it out onto the table, and I peered over the top of the screen to watch her.
She molded it like it was nothing more than kid dough, working it with her nimble hands until it was the size she wanted, then she cut it into equal sized pieces.
Bread rolls.
Genius.
Piper side-eyed me. “Bread rolls. Bread dough needs to rise, and I realized early on that it saved a ton of time if I baked the dough in the afternoon and left it to slowly rise overnight. People love our loaves of bread, and we offer four different types every day. White and brown are standard, and I call sell at least six of each a day, so batch matching the dough streamlines the process and means I can easily put it in the oven on a morning.”
“That much, really?”
She nodded. “Not so many rolls, but it’s the same principal. Being ahead helps. After everything for the morning is in, I can make more dough for things like bread that I know we can sell out of. Usually, by the time it sells out, I’ve got more loaves in the oven and people happily come back later.”