in the bowl.
“I know you’re gonna treat me ri-i-i-ight...” She checked the recipe for the amount of sugar. One cup. That struck her as a little stingy, so she heaped in some extra. “Louie, Louie...” Oops, she was pretty sure those were lyrics to some other oldie, but no matter. There was still a hip-swinging beat to that one, too. Only drat, she’d forgotten to preheat the oven.
Holding a wooden spoon dripping sugar and chocolate, she swiftly pivoted around ... and almost had a heart attack when she saw Spence in her screen doorway. “Eek,” she said weakly.
Even in the muzzy darkness beyond the screen, she could see his effort to control a smile. “Sorry, I really didn’t mean to scare you. I was just about to knock—but then I decided you looked too busy for company and maybe I’d better head back home.”
It took a second to gather her scattered wits...but then she grinned. “Now tell the truth. My singing just terrfied you speechless, didn’t it? Come in, come in. I promise I’ll quit. I’ll even pour you a glass of lemonade...” She glanced at her hands, spattered with chocolate and flour. “Well, maybe you’d better pour your own lemonade.”
“You do look busy—”
“I am. The brownies are for Ms. Peter’s class tomorrow—she’s Josh’s second-grade teacher, and I caught wind it was her birthday. Figured it was a good idea to start the school year by buttering her up. There’s nothing more boring than making brownies by yourself, though, so I couldn’t be happier to have some company. What’s up? April isn’t sick, is she?”
“No, she’s fine, sleeping like a log.” Spence stepped inside. Even in casual khakis and old sandals, he made her pulse rate accelerate to zoom speed. “She came home from school—it’s only the second day, mind you—and tells me she now knows how to read. Nothing to it.”
Owen chuckled, then motioned where he could find the glasses. “There’s fresh-squeezed lemonade on the first shelf in the fridge...and April’s so bright, I wouldn’t doubt she moved past Dick and Jane in the first fifteen minutes. What a darling she is.”
“I think so, too, but actually, I heard she poured several handfuls of sand down Jacob’s shirt this afternoon. I figured I’d better find out if the McKennas were in hot water at your house.”
So that’s why he’d stopped over? Head down, she started ladling brownie batter into the baking pan. “No problem. I found the sand when I threw Jacob in the bathtub tonight, but believe me, dirt and Jacob isn’t any news to our septic system. And what’s a little sand between friends? Apparently Jacob paid her the ultimate compliment by telling her she played as well as a boy. No offense meant to your gender, but I bopped him with a towel. I swear my two came out of the womb thinking sexist... do you want to lick the bowl?”
“Lick the bowl?”
Gwen had long suspected that the whole world treated Spence like a hotshot—because he was. She always meant to kowtow the same way and treat him like the intimidating business tycoon he was, only she’d never mastered how to do it. “Hey, it’s fine with me if you’re too grown-up to get your hands sticky. Personally I don’t think anything beats brownie batter, but—”
“I’ll take the bowl off your hands.”
She chuckled. “You’re gonna do me a favor, huh? But maybe this is a bad idea. You’ve got a white shirt on, and Mary Margaret’ll skin you alive if she has to get chocolate stains out of it—”
“I’ll handle Mary Margaret. I haven’t had brownie batter in a dozen years.”
“Well, you poor baby...” He hovered like a four-year-old until she had the batter poured in the pan-then promptly and greedily absconded with the bowl—and the wooden spoon. Sheesh, who’d have dreamed this would go so easily, she mused. Last night she’d been mortified at the thought of having to face him again, when obviously she only had one choice. To be herself and to act like normal.
She grabbed a soapy sponge. Something about making brownies always took out her whole kitchen. There were drips of chocolate on the pecan cupboards and a dusting of flour everywhere on the coral Formica counters. Working around Spence at the island bar, she swiped and scrubbed with the sponge. She was conscious that her feet were bare, her face as scrubbed as a kid’s, and he’d probably been around women all day dressed in elegant business suits. Her oversize brown T-shirt and red shorts were ancient and looked it—but he’d seen her look worse.
Come to think of it, he’d never seen her looking anything but worse. At the moment she doubted he’d notice if she were wearing red satin or gold lamé. His head was buried pretty deeply in the chocolate bowl. “Good grief. Doesn’t Mary Margaret ever make you brownies?”
“She bakes. We had a mystery pie last night. I didn’t have the courage to ask what it was. Definitely not brownies, though. And definitely nothing like this. How’s your head?”
“My head?”
“No headache? I only had one experience with dark sweet rum, way back in college, but I remembered it being pretty lethal the next morning.”
She’d hoped—she’d so earnestly prayed—that he’d forgotten all about last night. “Well, I woke up this morning with a fairly good head pounder. Bad enough to convince me that if I were going to take up a vice, it’d be something besides alcohol.” She added swiftly, lightly, “I can hardly remember anything that happened last night after the first sip.”
“No?”
“Nope. Not a thing. I slept like the dead, though, that’s for sure....” She finished her cleanup and perched on the kitchen stool next to him, still drying her hands on a watermelon-print towel. Not that she was in a hustle to change the subject, but the winning horse at the Derby couldn’t have hustled any faster. “Did you have a good day? Market some good business deals?”
“Had a great day. Marketed up a storm. So...did you have any time today to shop for some Victoria’s Secret underwear?”
“Beg your pardon?”
“Last night...” He frowned, as if trying to recall her exact words. For a man who’d been salivating for chocolate seconds before, suddenly he seemed to have forgotten all about the brownie bowl. “You were talking about turning over a new leaf and becoming ‘reckless.’ I’m pretty sure you mentioned that a shopping trip to Victoria’s Secret was part of that agenda... whoops. Has Gwen disappeared on me?”
He reached over to peek under the kitchen towel she’d flopped over her head.
“Nope. She’s still here,” he announced gravely.
“She’s hiding under the towel because she’s dying of embarrassment,” Gwen said dryly. “I was counting on you to be a gentleman and forget everything I said last night. I never meant any of it—”
“I thought you made all kinds of good sense.”
“Good sense?” She pulled the towel off then, if only to see his face. She assumed he was pulling her leg, yet his expression—bewilderingly enough— seemed sincere and serious. “I dipped into half my supply of cooking rum for the annual rum cakes I make around the holidays. Far as I recall, I barely swallowed the first sip before I quit making any sense.”
“Well, I guess I came over for nothing, then,
