Baking for Keeps Read online

  Zac shifted in his seat and stared out of the window, barely hearing Lacey as she pointed out landmarks and various places where she, her brother, and cousins had got into one kind of trouble or another. Long, snow-covered fields stretched out on either side of the road, ending only where another mountain soared into the distant heavens. It was magnificent in the winter; he could only imagine how idyllic it must be in the height of summer.

  “Look, there it is. Three Pines.” Lacey was practically bouncing in her seat as she pointed the house out to him.

  It was a large house, although that was probably as well with three generations under one roof. A long, two-storied white wooden house, with a veranda running the whole length of the building, it looked home-like despite its size, the freshness of the green trim and matching shutters and the round windows high under the roof adding to its charm.

  Several barns were arranged around a courtyard at one side, a short walk away from the house, on the other side a circular driveway occupied the space before the ranch garages, which were painted to match the house. Aunt Patty pulled the car up neatly in front of the first garage and switched off the engine.

  Zac hung back as the women piled out of the car with the confident happiness of people returning home. He didn’t like making small talk, and besides, what could he contribute unless they wanted to chat about finance? He knew nothing about ranching or cows. He could barely ride a horse. There had never been a reason to learn.

  He jumped as Lacey tucked an arm through his, the touch as comforting as it was oddly welcome. “Come on,” she said. “We’ll unpack the car later. Grandpops and Grandma are really looking forward to meeting you.”

  The huge two-story-high hallway only held five people—Lacey’s grandparents, aunt and uncle and cousin, and two—no, three—large dogs—but it felt much more crowded there was so much exclaiming, hugging, and laughing, the dogs adding their own contribution to the hubbub. Zac found himself the recipient of two very firm handshakes, two warm hugs, and a self-conscious smile from the teen girl who fell upon Lacey with relief and an exhortation for a private chat at some point that afternoon. While the aunts and the rest of the family went out to unpack the car Lacey and her grandfather ushered Zac into the bright, airy kitchen where bowls, saucepans, scales, and spoons had already been set out.

  “Ingredients for three?” Lacey counted the bowls out loud. “One, two, three… Who else is joining us?”

  “I believe Tilly is helping your aunts fix the final recipe. She’s a talented baker that one for all her nose studs and hair dye.”

  “Beaten by a seventeen-year-old.” Lacey picked up a handwritten list and stared at it dejectedly. “Look, she’s done three different combinations of ingredients for us to try. How did this skip me? I got the Hathaway eyes and hips; I should have got the baking gene too. Come on, Zac, let’s wash and apron up.”

  “Let the man have a drink first,” Lacey’s grandad interjected. “And an opportunity to look around. Do you like horses, Zac?”

  “Drink yes, look around not yet,” Lacey said before Zac had an opportunity to frame a diplomatic answer that he probably liked horses just fine; he just had never had an opportunity to get to know any. “I’m really hoping we’ll get a chance to ski a little and it gets dark far too early still. I don’t want to waste any time.”

  “Don’t be too polite, Zac.” Her grandfather fixed Lacey with a glare but Zac could see the love and affection underpinning it. “I know how forceful those three are. I can believe they pushed you into this baking malarkey but don’t let them drive you too hard.”

  “I didn’t push him,” Lacey protested. “At least, only a little…”

  “Oh, she manipulated me all right,” Zac said with a grin. “But only because I let her.”

  “Good man, that’s the way to manage a Hathaway woman. Let them have their head and think they’ve always got their own way. Lacey is the most headstrong of the pack. You’re a brave man to take her on.”

  “It’s not like that, Grandpops, we’re just friends.” Lacey’s cheeks were scarlet.

  “Just friends, eh? As if I didn’t have eyes in my head.” And Lacey’s grandfather left the kitchen chuckling to himself while Zac did his best to avoid Lacey’s eye.

  “Pass me that recipe list, then.” Baking was always a safe topic of conversation. And far better to concentrate on ingredients and utensils than to notice how particularly blue Lacey’s eyes looked while she was wearing that sweater. And far better to think about pastry than to wonder what it would be like to have grown up as part of a family like this. And much much better to worry about the ratio of ginger to sugar than to dwell on the knowledge that the lucky man Lacey did settle down with would get to be part of this family.

  He just hoped that whomever she picked was deserving. Because he needed to be pretty damn special. The kind of man who would fit in in a place like this. Not the kind of man who had no idea how to be part of a family, the kind who didn’t fit in. Not the kind of man who was better off alone.

  Chapter Ten

  “If you have any preferences on which bachelor you want you’d better tell me,” Zac murmured as the aunts prowled around the kitchen table looking at the finished pies and whispering to each other. Tilly’s pie had come out perfectly, her crumble neat, her pastry a gorgeous golden brown, but Zac was secretly rather pleased with his effort. Making pie crust pastry was a much more tactile experience than the drudgery of mixing the cookie dough and he’d rather enjoyed feeling it all come together under his fingertips.

  He would still have to practice every night and already had planned a few tweaks to the ratio of ginger and syrup but this time, distractions aside, he was confident he could do a lot better than second to last.

  Lacey on the other hand had found pie even more of a challenge than cookies and it showed, in both her disgruntled running commentary and in the results. Her pastry was burnt, her crumble topping raw and her blackberry filling both tart and runny. It was a good thing she was prepared to laugh at herself, taking a picture of the aunts’ disgusted faces as they tried her filling. She immediately posted it to the fundraising site. “I have a week,” she said coolly. “Don’t count your chickens yet, Mr. Malone.”

  “I’m just using basic probability theory. No chickens in my calculations.”

  “Come and try the pies. We’d be interested to know what you think about the flavorings,” Aunt Patty announced and the assorted Hathaways surged forward, plates and forks at the ready. Zac took a few steps back and watched as plates were loaded, pie sampled, and opinions expressed in varying degrees of forcefulness.

  “The crust needs more ginger.”

  “Less ginger. It’s too strong.”

  “I think the crumble topping is too fussy.”

  “No, no, it’s perfect. Looks attractive too.”

  “Did you say there was maple syrup in these blackberries? I can’t taste it.”

  “The maple is lovely and fresh. It makes the blackberries sing.”

  Outside of work—and yesterday’s Bake-Off—Zac couldn’t remember the last time he had been in such close proximity to so many people. Even in this large and airy room it was discombobulating—so many voices, so many opinions, and Lacey right in the middle of the hubbub. “Uncle Walter! It isn’t that bad. I’d like to see you do better. I challenge you to make a pie. Next time I’ll do a middle-aged rancher Bake-Off and sign you straight up!”

  The noise escalated as the family laughed and Walter loudly accepted the challenge. Zac’s ears rang as the walls began to close in. His chest tightened and he took another step back, slipping out of the kitchen and into the hallway. He leaned thankfully against the wall enjoying the peace. The hallway was so big, so high that it could easily have been a sterile imposing space but the large vases of winter berries, the warm colors on the walls, and the low velvet couch all softened the effect. The double-width staircase ran up one side to connect with a gallery overhead, which ran round three sides
of the space, with corridors branching off on either side to match the corridors on the first floor.

  Although there were shared family spaces like the kitchen and a formal sitting room and dining room, Lacey had told him that each family also had their own quarters with bedrooms, baths, offices, and living rooms. Still. Zac couldn’t imagine living with so many other people no matter how many private spaces he had.

  The ranch was also home to several full-time ranch hands, some of whom lived in a bunkhouse behind the barns and a couple with their families in small houses dotted over the ranch. With the nearest town ten miles of windy roads away the inhabitants of Three Pines were dependent on each other for company and entertainment. It had to get claustrophobic. But the people back in the kitchen didn’t seem to feel that way. Under the laughter and bickering even Zac recognized the ties of blood and affection. Ties his mother and father had squandered. He leaned against the staircase post, his throat thick.

  “There you are. Did we scare you off? The family gets a little too passionate about food, especially pie, and as you could see everyone has an opinion and likes to express it as loudly and forcefully as possible. It’s a little intimidating for new folk. But the good news is you nearly beat Tilly in the taste test, which bodes well for Saturday. Where pastry’s concerned she’s reckoned to have inherited our Scottish great-grandmother’s touch.”

  “I didn’t mean to be rude but I was a little warm.” Zac couldn’t tell Lacey how he really felt. How it wasn’t the heat that drove him out, it was the loneliness. How being around a family like hers just drove home everything he didn’t have. It was such weakness. And to be really honest with someone, to allow her all the way in, would just make it harder when he was alone once again. So much safer all around to skate over the truth.

  Lacey’s eyes scanned his face anxiously and Zac could sense she didn’t quite believe him but she didn’t push the matter; instead she pushed a strand of silken hair off her face and smiled. “Interesting you should have been too warm. As it happens, I have the perfect remedy…”

  *

  “Are you sure you know how to drive this thing?”

  “Better than you, I’ll bet,” Lacey flung over her shoulder. “Hold tight, city boy.”

  The city boy tag was a little unfair. Zac looked like a true Montana Man in Nat’s gray ski trousers and red and gray jacket, shades masking his dark eyes. It was a good thing that Nat, like Lacey, still had a room in the small wing at the end of the house that had traditionally been theirs whenever her parents had a break from touring—and that he stored both his summer riding gear and winter ski outfits in his closet there. The men were of a height and a shoe size although Zac was a shade slimmer than her brother.

  Lacey released the throttle and the snowmobile edged forward across the field. She kept it at a sedate pace until she was safely past the barns and the skittish horses and onto the snow-covered path, and then upped the speed until they were flying along, snow dancing in the air as the treads dislodged it. The ice-filled air was bracing on her face and she could feel her ponytail bouncing along in rhythm with the snowmobile. “You okay back there?”

  “Less talk more concentrating,” Zac called back and Lacey laughed, upping the speed a little more as she did so.

  “Relax, Zac, I’ve been driving one of these since I was twelve.”

  “Somehow that doesn’t make me feel better.”

  Lacey ignored him and continued to edge the speed up. The buildings had disappeared behind them and the lower slopes of the mountain were beginning to tower over them as Lacey headed away from the plains and toward the nearest of the majestic mountains that surrounded Three Pines. After a few minutes a small wooden building came into view and Lacey headed for it, sweeping the snowmobile round in a stylish circle as she pulled up outside it. The hut was positioned at the bottom of a gentle slope, which gradually steepened as it rose.

  “There it is, nursery slopes for the first few hundred yards and something a little more challenging if you are prepared to climb up to it. We used to beg Grandpops to put in a lift but he just laughed at us and told us we’d never be real cowboys if we were too weak to walk up a hill. So it’s our own legs or nothing.” She paused, stricken by a sudden thought. “Do you ski? I didn’t think to ask. We do have sledges if you don’t.”

  “Ski? Is that what we’re doing? No I don’t. Is that a problem?”

  Lacey stared, apologies and offers of lessons on her lips when Zac continued deadpan. “I snowboard though. Does that help?”

  She swatted him. “Ha, ha. I didn’t think there would be much opportunity in San Francisco and as you actively avoid the snow…”

  “I prefer to surf but there are mountains near enough to drive to for a day’s powder,” he admitted and a picture of a wetsuit-clad Zac, hair wet, surfboard under one arm, crept into Lacey’s mind and refused to be dislodged no matter how much she told herself it was inappropriate. Especially as the top of the wetsuit was unzipped, drops of seawater glistening on his bare chest.

  Lacey dragged her mind back to reality and the matter at hand. “Great. We have several snowboards. Come and choose.”

  She fished the hut key out of her pocket and opened the door. Thanks to the solar panels on the roof the hut was equipped with electricity. She flipped the light switch and with some satisfaction heard Zac’s intake of breath as the rows of skis, snowboards, boots, and poles were illuminated. A small kitchen area stood to the right of the door, just a sink, a kettle, a microwave, and some instant hot chocolate and tins of soup. At the far end a door led into a shower and washroom.

  “This is very complete.” Zac rubbed his eyes as he stared around. “I’ve seen less well equipped hire centers.”

  A glow of pride stole through Lacey at the impressed tone in his voice. “When Uncle Bill was alive and Aunt Patty came back for Christmas there could be as many as fifteen of us out here on a good day. It made sense to keep the equipment here and have facilities to heat small, chilly folk up with hot chocolate and marshmallows. We always headed here Christmas Eve after church and Christmas Day after presents and before the cooking began.

  “It gets used at other times of course. Any of the ranch hands who want can use it and the twins are very keen skiers; they head out here almost every day when they’re home, but skiing is a really big part of our Christmas and it feels so special to have our own slopes. Not that it will be like this forever—this personal—if Fliss, my cousin, has her way. She wants us to expand into tourism, riding vacations in summer, skiing in winter, opening up more slopes for winter sports. Build log cabins, offer the authentic cowboy experience. That kind of thing.”

  “You don’t like the idea?”

  “I don’t live here. I don’t intend to run Three Pines and I doubt I could even if I wanted to. I spent every summer here but I didn’t grow up with it the way my cousins did. Ranching isn’t a job easily learned; it has to be absorbed. And it makes sense. I guess I’m just a little selfish. This is ours; these slopes are ours. I don’t like the idea of sharing them.”

  And yet she’d brought Zac here.

  “Come on, snowboards are over there. Second to the top of the slope makes the winner a hot chocolate.”

  Thanks to the sun and the sheltered aspect of the slopes it was warm work climbing to the optimum starting point but that didn’t stop them taking several turns. Zac was a natural snowboarder, light on his feet with a stylish turn that Lacey envied. She knew she had good balance and was capable of tackling any slope no matter the gradient but she didn’t look quite as at home as Zac with his casual grace and almost instinctive feel for the snow. “Are you sure you just take the odd day-trip to the mountains?” she asked suspiciously after watching him execute a perfect turn. “Or are you a secret competitive snowboarder?”

  “Occasionally I’ve taken part in an amateur tournament,” he confessed. “But I don’t have time to snowboard often, I promise.”

  “You’re wasted on these slopes, much
as I love them. If we get a chance I’ll drive you out to the nearest resort—there are a few slopes nearby with different levels of difficulty and, you’ll be glad to hear, real ski lifts. Obviously you’re a little busy over the next two weeks. Maybe the week after.”

  “If I’m still here. I initially contracted to be here six weeks to two months but everything is running much more smoothly than I anticipated. There’s a chance I might be able to wrap it up in five weeks, even though I’ve lost my evenings to baking practice.”

  “Oh, of course. Well, if you’re still here then.” Lacey didn’t want to speculate why her chest tightened at Zac’s words. His presence was only temporary; she knew that. But it was so easy to forget.

  She cast an experienced eye at the sky. “We have time for one more go. Do you want to snowboard again or do you like to sledge? No, don’t tell me, you’ve competed in the downhill bobsleigh at the Olympics but only when you had some spare time?”

  Zac laughed. “No, I couldn’t tell you the last time I went on a sledge. Certainly not since I was a kid but I’m willing to give it a go.”

  “Race?” Lacey suggested. Surely this was one competition she could win. He had weight on his side but tall as she was she was more compact than him, more experienced, and had been sledging down these slopes since she was a toddler. Not that she was at all competitive.

  “Of course, what’s the penalty? You already owe me three hot chocolates.”

  “Double or nothing.”

  “I’m not sure I can drink six hot chocolates,” Zac said dryly. “Okay, you win and your debt is canceled and I owe you the richest hot chocolate Marietta has to offer. I win and you owe me a penalty of my choice.”

  Lacey’s heart missed a beat. She couldn’t see Zac’s expression behind the darkened ski visor but there was an undercurrent to his voice she didn’t quite understand, something rich and dark and dangerous.