heard of me until my aunt filled him in.
Which made me wonder about my aunt. Even though we hadn’t seen each other much in recent years, we spoke and texted all the time. Yet, she never mentioned Wyatt.
I grabbed my red scarf off the couch in the living room and slung my purse over my shoulder.
“See ya later tonight,” I called to Renee as I opened the door.
“Love ya. I’ll have dinner ready for you, honey.”
I laughed my way to the car and noticed glistening crystals stuck to every surface.
“Great.” I crawled into the car and blasted the defroster as I impatiently waited.
“Not good. Not good.” I tried turning on my windshield wipers but only the whir of the motor sounded, and I turned them off.
I quickly dug out a credit card to scrape the ice off my windows and jumped out of the car. The ice was thick, but the card trick was kind of working, albeit slowly. It took several swipes for each area, but I finally got through to the glass in patches and that would have to do.
By the time I got back inside the car, my fingers were bright red, and I no longer had feeling in my fingertips.
I groaned as I pulled out of the driveway, alternating fingers in front of the heater vents as I ducked down to see out the scraped area of the windshield. As I drove up to the shop, I saw Wyatt sitting in his truck out in front of the candy store and my insides did a quick flip-flop.
I really didn’t want him to be disappointed in me. From everything I knew, Wyatt was getting nothing out of this deal other than honoring a commitment to my aunt. Other than that, he was giving up his own precious time to teach some stranger how to make anything and everything chocolate.
I nearly tumbled out of my car with a quickness I didn’t know I had and ran up to his truck door, tapping on the window. He looked surprised as he lifted his gaze from his phone before flashing his killer smile.
“Sorry I’m late,” I hollered through the glass.
He shook his head and climbed out of his truck. “You’re two minutes late. I think I can handle that. Two hours late? Maybe a different story.”
I chuckled, shoving my hands deep into my coat pockets and wishing back the use of my fingertips.
“I didn’t realize it had frosted overnight, and obviously, being from Arizona, I wasn’t exactly prepared, and I had to scrape the windows with my credit card and—”
“It’s totally fine. Honestly. I was just reading the news.”
I nodded and smiled, feeling the panic and dread from just minutes earlier dissipate. I’d been so used to being early for so much of my life that I didn’t know how to handle a man this laid back. My shifts at the hospital always required me to get there early so I could catch up with the nurse ahead of me. It was ingrained in me.
“Well, thanks.” I opened the door to the candy store, which still smelled faintly of peppermint from the brownies the day before. “My sister is in love with those brownies. She’s completely shocked that I made them.”
“And you did.” He smiled. “Did you get the recipe book yet?”
I slapped my forehead. “No. How could I forget that? I even went to the gift store across the street to look and came out with a Christmas sweater for Francisco. Do you mind if I go run over there?”
Wyatt smiled coyly and brought his hand from behind his back. “You seemed a little rattled when we left yesterday, so I picked this up just in case.”
He handed me a gorgeous leatherbound recipe book.
“Seriously?” I asked, taking the book from him. “This is beautiful.”
“I thought it would hold up best under certain working conditions.”
I laughed. “Is that because I spilled the cream all over the table yesterday?”
He laughed. “No comment.”
I held the book to my chest and realized it had been a really long time since someone had given me a gift that meant something, aside from family, of course.
“I’ll treasure it.”
He smiled and nodded. “Good.”
I cleared my throat and glanced around the shop, realizing I probably made too big a deal out of it. He was just a dude seeing a need and filling a need. I didn’t have to read girly things into it like meaning and purpose beyond the obvious. I needed a recipe book. He