Page 26 of A Mustang River Christmas

Yes, she had a propensity toward dating chefs and people who worked kitchens, but she had never been with anybody who matched her ambition or talent. And in the end, she had never been with anybody that she felt like was wiser than she was.

She felt like Pike was. Not only because of his age, but because of his experience. He was a good man. And his past being dark didn’t make her less certain of it, but more. Because he had gotten up after being down for a long time. She could only respect that.

“Well, it is pretty amazing.”

“I can definitely see some things we need to touch up before tomorrow. I’ll do it.”

“You’re such a control freak,” she said.

“Yes. I am. Does that actually surprise you?”

“No. Not really. You’re a perfectionist.”

He nodded. “Yes. Though, I’ve tried to let some of that go. Frustrated perfectionism is dangerous, on that, you can trust me. Because it’s way too tempting to blow everything up when it’s not exactly the way that you want it. And at the end of the day, you don’t want everything to be blown up.”

“No. I wouldn’t expect so.”

“So tell me more about your ex,” he said, piping frosting onto one of the roof tiles, making a new and even more intricate snowflake.

“There’s not much to say. Pete was... you know, he was a chef, not as good as me, but he was my sous chef for a while. And I thought he had the business brain to run the actual restaurant, and I would be the creative one. But it turns out he wasn’t actually either. He was just an asshole who got cold feet and decided to run away with everything that I’d worked so hard for. It made me feel like love wasn’t real. I was really legitimately broken there for about a month, then I muddled around in the Bay Area, trying to regroup. I considered a few job offers, and then decided I have to go somewhere that I didn’t feel like I was living in my failure. That was when I started looking for jobs in new places. I saw the posting for this one, I visited and…I knew this was the place for me. I’ve been here for eight months. And I love it. It healed something in me, being here.”

“Me too. I can definitely relate to that feeling.”

“There’s something magical about this place. About the mountains and the trees and the mustangs. About the Grayson family. Because they’ve been through so much, and look what they’ve built. Admittedly, my ego wanted a stand-alone restaurant. Wanted something in a city, wanted notoriety in a really specific way. But I’m not sure that I want that anymore. I’m not sure that I believe it would make me happy. At least not any more than this already does.”

“Yeah, I was hell-bent on gaining notoriety. Reaching the top. And I did that. But the trouble with everything that goes up is that it has to come down. And I was not equipped for the fall. I like to think that I’m different now because I know what matters.”

“And are you ready to quit punishing yourself?”

“Yeah, I think I am.”

They worked in silence for a while after that, and then they walked into the kitchen to clean up their supplies. They still had two full bags of royal icing, but she left him to take care of that.

She wiped everything down in the kitchen one last time, and then he took her hand, his eyes intense on hers. “I’m staying the night.”

“Okay,” she said.

He pushed the door open to her room as soon as she touched the lock with the card key, and then he was the one to lock the deadbolt behind them.

“Take off your clothes,” he said.

“Oh?”

“Don’t question me. Just say yes, Chef.”

Her mouth went dry, and she was otherwise quite wet.

Very slowly, she took her shirt off, her bra, her pants and her underwear, until she was standing there naked.

He reached inside an interior pocket of his jacket and took out one of the piping bags that he had been using on the gingerbread house.

Her mouth dropped open. “Sneaky bastard,” she said.

“I’ve been thinking. About how I lost all the pleasure in my life. About how I cut myself off from everything that I desired. And I’ve been thinking about you. How much I want you. How you make me feel. You are art.”

Her breath left her lungs in a rush.

And he moved forward, angling the icing bag just so, right above the plump part of her breast, tracing an intricate snowflake over her skin, leaving behind whisper-thin lines of icing.