bribe to secure amnesty. I smiled as I unloaded the bag of groceries onto the counter. I lined everything up in a perfect row, and then started quietly rifling around the drawers and cabinets for measuring cups and mixing bowls. I knew if I organized it the right way, I could make banana bread, blueberry muffins, and a batch of homemade granola before Erik woke up.
Yes. Solid plan. In T-minus 60 minutes, I’d have warm banana bread to share with my team. Even crotchety June couldn’t turn that down.
Chapter Ten
Erik
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
“Fuck,” a feminine voice shouted. “Turn off. Turn off!”
BEEP. BEEP. BEERHRHHpppppppppppp…
I sat up in bed and wiped sleep from my eyes, turning to my alarm clock. It wasn’t due to go off for another thirty minutes, which meant the beeping had come from somewhere else.
A door slapped shut and then I heard a metallic clang from the kitchen.
I frowned. Had someone broken into my house to…use my oven?
I whipped the blankets off my legs and pushed out of bed. As soon as I pulled open my bedroom door, the scent of banana bread hit me like a wave. Shit. I hadn’t had homemade bread in years. My mother used to make it every now and then, but it was usually half burned. Baking wasn’t really in her wheelhouse.
I padded down the stairs, confused and now, suddenly starving, but I paused when my foot hit the bottom stair. Brie was standing on tiptoes on my kitchen counter with her back to me, jabbing at my smoke detector with a broomstick. She was barefoot with red pajama pants hanging low on her hips and a loose gray tank top exposing an inch or two of her midriff.
Just beyond her, I caught sight of the mess she’d managed to create in my kitchen. Flour was everywhere, coating the counter and the floor. There were streaks of it on her arms and back. How did she manage to get it on her back?
After silencing the beeping device, she dropped to the ground gracefully and resumed her work with a heavy sigh. She couldn’t see me from my perch near the stairs, so I stood, watching her as she scraped the edge of the bread pan. She turned it over and dumped the fresh loaf onto a plate, and my stomach grumbled at the sight. She spun around and shrieked when she spotted me standing at the bottom of the stairs. The pan was suddenly loose in the air and then a second later, it crashed down onto her big toe.
“Shit,” she said, bending low to hold her toe. “You scared me!”
I cringed and stepped closer, bending low to see the damage.
“Don’t touch it!” she demanded, jerking her foot away from me. She wouldn’t let me get close, holding her arm out to stop me and brushing flour onto me in the process.
I laughed and shook my head. “It’s fine. If it were broken you wouldn’t be standing right now.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Well it landed right on the nail!”
I was sure it hurt like hell, but she’d be okay.
I turned and my kitchen—or what used to be my kitchen—pushed back to the front of my thoughts. It looked like a bomb had gone off inside my house. “Care to tell me why you’re in my house without my permission?”
She puffed out a breath and stood up, propping her hands on her hips as if she was the one in charge. Funny.
“Isn’t it obvious?” she said, waving to the baking supplies behind her.
I wiped my finger across the counter and came away with flour.
“Yeah, I’ve somehow deduced the what, but I’d like to know the why.”
She turned to me, leaning her hip against the counter. “The guesthouse doesn’t have an oven, and a girl can’t live on dry chicken and broccoli alone.”
“So you decided to let yourself into my house and use my oven?”
She held up one hand to stifle my anger and reached forward with the other to break off a piece of banana bread.
“Here’s your why,” she said, holding the morsel out to me. I watched the steam curl off the top as I pulled it out of her hand and slipped it into my mouth.
I resisted an audible groan. Fuck. “It’s all right,” I lied as I chewed the delicious bread.
She frowned. “Yeah right. I would be willing to bet my life this is the best banana bread you’ve ever had.”
I arched a brow as she got back to work stirring