“Sounds good to me, thanks. I have the stew slow cooking on the stove so it will take another couple of hours yet before I can plate that up. Let me make everyone coffee. Put those trays in the oven, Cory. They won’t take long, only ten minutes or so a sheet so keep an eye on the time for me.” She kissed Jake again and grinned. Bella looked like she was in her element. Busy, but happy.
“These look, ah, interesting, Cory.” His son slid the cookie sheets into the oven and started to load another tray.
“Bella said you can help us decorate them when they’re ready.”
Surely she was joking? He didn’t know the first thing about baking and decorating things. “What?”
Bella came back with a mug of coffee, handed it to him. “Oh, don’t look so shocked. It’ll be fun. Cory’s taking these to school for Valentine’s Day for everyone in his class, which I think is very thoughtful. It might be nice if you helped decorate them with us. At least that way we both get to spend quality time with you.” She batted her lashes, a sultry smile curving her very luscious lips. Bella knew exactly how to make him weak at the knees. He didn’t know how he was going to cope when and if she went back to Seattle. “That’s if you’re not too busy with work?”
“I’d love to.” After that display of affection, there wasn’t anywhere else he’d rather be. He received a peck on the cheek for his offer. “I have to go back in later and cover for one of the guys but I have time now. You’re going to have to give me a lesson though. Never decorated a cookie in my life.”
“Let me show you something, Cory.” Bella took the tray he had just filled and grabbed a small heart shaped cutter from the tub on the counter. “This is kinda cool.” She cut the inside out of each larger heart, placed them on a tray already waiting for another batch. “Now you have double the cookies and that big one is different enough from the others to make a statement. Decorate it in a different color than the others and, voila, pretty special. I bet none of your friends will have anything like it.”
The camera clicked as Jason took a few shots from different angles. He stepped back to keep out of the way but Bella reached for him. “Stay here and ignore Jason. It’s how we work.”
How could he ignore the man who seemed so close to her and pointed a camera at him? Wasn’t going to happen. “I’d rather not.”
“Don’t be shy, Dad. If you ignore him for a minute you forget he’s there.”
“Come on, Jake. Be a good sport. I promise not to put any photos of you or Cory in anything I do without prior approval.”
Heat made his cheeks flush as Jason gave Jake a look he couldn’t decipher.
“You may as well give in, man. Bella usually gets what she wants when it gets to this stage of the procedure. She’s the boss and calls the shots. Waste of time arguing.”
Bella raised a hand and Jason reached over, giving her a high five slap. “How right you are.” She turned to Jake, winked at him. “Please, for me?”
“I’m not really dressed for photos. I have to go back to work this afternoon so I didn’t think it was worth going home to change.” He had on an old pair of his fireman’s uniform pants and a faded Cherry Lake Fire Station T-shirt that was getting tighter every time he washed it.
Bella gave him a glance up and down, her eyes slowing somewhere around his chest. “I think you’re perfect the way you are.”
“Oooh, Dad. Bella thinks you’re perfect. How you gonna get out of that one?” Cory bent over double, chortling away with glee. Jake might have heard a snigger from the photographer as well.
“Doesn’t look like I have any choice, does it?” He tried to look harassed but the blossoming smile on his face probably gave him away.
Bella gave him a quick hug. “Thank you. For being so accommodating and going along with me and my mad ideas, you guys can have my venison and mushroom stew with creamed parsnip whip for dinner after Jason shoots the photos. Deal?” She smiled sweetly, making his body react. This wasn’t the time nor the place. Breathe, Jake, just breathe.
Jake made the point of speaking to his son while he tried to control the stirring of long forgotten closeness creeping in. “So, are you giving these to the class incognito or what?”
“Huh? Oh, right. I haven’t thought about it much. Don’t know how I’m gonna do that. Someone will see me bring them in.”
“I’ll do it. I can drop them off at the front office first thing Monday and say they’re for your class. That way nobody will be any the wiser and you’ll get a box too.” Bella shrugged as if it made sense to everyone but Cory. It didn’t take long before he got the idea.
“Wow, you rock, Bella. Thanks.”
“My pleasure. Now, that first batch should be cool enough to decorate. I hope you two are ready for some fun.”
Jake leaned against the counter with his coffee while she scurried around the kitchen getting the decorating icing and sugar candies ready for the big procedure. It seemed Bella didn’t do anything by halves.
Once she had everything lined up on the counter, she paused for breath. “Right, this is what we do. We each do a different color icing, but, and this is where it’s going to make the difference, we take a
