Countdown to the Perfect Wedding. Teresa Hill

in the spring, and he loved to run here. He’d run far away from the kitchen, all the guests, Victoria and everything else. And then he’d have a perfectly reasonable breakfast without ever setting foot inside the kitchen.

      It was a good plan, Tate decided. He ran until he was about to fall down, he was so tired, and without even thinking, he headed for the back door to the house to go inside and get cleaned up.

      That’s when he saw Amy leaning over the trunk of a car, unloading groceries to carry inside.

      Tate had already slowed to a walk, and now he slowed even more, to a pace more akin to a crawl. A gentleman would certainly help her carry in those bags, but a gentleman would also not have upset his fiancée mere days before their wedding and would certainly not break the promise he’d made to himself just last night by heading into the forbidden kitchen again.

      He hesitated there, trying to decide what to do, and that’s when she looked up and saw him, looking not just uneasy at seeing him but downright guilty, he feared.

      Ah, hell, he owed her an apology, too. Surely a gentleman would do that, at least. Apologize and then stay away. Maybe after getting a huge plateful of whatever she’d been serving for breakfast as he woke up, some luscious bacon thing. There was nothing like the smell of bacon to make a man ravenous in the morning.

      Tate gave her a wary smile, a not-too-interested-but-not-too-guilty one, he hoped, then walked over to the open trunk of the car and said, “Let me help you with these.”

      “No, it’s fine. I didn’t get much. Just a few special requests for some of the guests.” She hung on stubbornly to the bag he’d planned to take from her.

      “Really, I insist. Eleanor would scold me if I let a lady haul these things in when I was right here to do it for her.”

      She now had the one bag clutched to her chest like she’d fight him to the death for it, if it came down to that. “Okay,” she said. “But I’ve got this one. You can get the rest, if you really want to.”

      Tate gave her a smile that he hoped didn’t look completely forced, took the rest of the bags from her trunk and followed her inside to the scene of his downfall the night before.

      It was spotlessly clean, he noted, no traces of powdered sugar anywhere, and yet it smelled divine. Fresh bread, most certainly. A hint of bacon remaining. Eggs, he thought.

      His stomach rumbled as he set the bags down on the countertop by the huge refrigerator. Amy shot him a look that said he had to be kidding to be back here, right now, at the scene of the almost-crime, just the two of them alone, and him wanting breakfast.

      “Sorry,” he said, thinking if she offered him anything he’d just take it and run. No time for temptation of any kind. No guilt necessary. No upsetting Victoria or anyone else.

      She sighed, put the small bag she’d been carrying down in the farthest corner of the kitchen and said, “You missed breakfast.”

      “Yes, I did,” he said, staying carefully in his spot, far away from her.

      “And I’m here to feed the guests, so I suppose I’ll have to feed you.”

      He swallowed hard, his stomach thrilled at the offer, his taste buds, too, his head telling him to be smart, to get out. But it was three days until the wedding. He’d have to eat sometime, wouldn’t he?

      It wasn’t like the woman held some kind of special powers over him. She was just a woman who’d been momentarily covered in powdered sugar while he’d been tipsy, rethinking his soon-to-be lost bachelorhood and had a momentary lapse, nothing more. Surely he could eat her food and not want to do anything else to her. It was a new day, after all. He was himself again, a good guy, a logical, reasonable guy, getting ready to marry a wonderful woman, perfect for him in every way.

      So it wasn’t some crazy, intense, hormone-fueled kind of passion between them. It was something infinitely more substantial than that. An honest respect and affection that had grown slowly over time into what he believed would be a dynamic, powerful, longstanding partnership, something that had a shot of withstanding the test of time far greater than any silly infatuation.

      What could possibly go wrong with that?

      “Thank you,” he said, smiling with nothing but politeness, he hoped. “I’d love some breakfast.”

      “Sit,” she said, pointing to a high stool at the breakfast bar on the far side of the kitchen, putting cabinets and a couple of feet of highly polished black granite between them.

      Perfect.

      He’d stay on his side, and she’d stay on hers.

      And he’d get fed and leave.

      No harm done.

      He went obediently to his side of the kitchen and sat, hoping no one walked by and saw him there, just…because.

      Because he didn’t want to look guilty. Didn’t want to feel guilty. Didn’t want to do anything that required him to feel guilty. Because he was a good guy.

      This could be like a little test he gave himself, he decided. He was a man getting married to a wonderful woman, and he could sit in this kitchen with an attractive redhead who cooked like a dream and not do anything but appreciate her…food. Yeah, this was all about the food.

      He’d been bewitched by her food.

      She had a nice smile, he admitted to himself, because he always tried to be honest with himself. And she smelled good, but that was mostly about the food, too, because she always smelled good enough to eat.

      Oops.

      No, he was okay. He was going to get it back, that Zenlike calm of a man certain of his decision to be married in three days, certain he’d done the right thing.

      “Just give me a minute to put these things away, and I’ll find you something to eat,” Amy said, making quick work of that chore and then facing him from the side of the big stainlesssteel refrigerator.

      “Fine. Great. Thank you.”

      Yeah, he was okay.

      She hummed while she worked, he realized while staying far, far away from her, as far as he could get and still be in the kitchen. Her hair was back in the braid, but obviously didn’t want to stay there. It looked as if it was constantly fighting to get out, little red tendrils of curls going this way and that.

      Delicate, fieryred circles on the pale skin of her neck.

      He closed his eyes, trying to block out the thought, but it was a mistake, because it made him remember being up close and personal with that neck the night before. Remembering a fine coating of powdered sugar on that neck and the urge he’d had to lick it off.

      Tate winced, groaned, shook his head to block out that image, and then found Amy had turned to stare at him.

      “Are you okay?”

      No, he was crazy, he decided. Weddingderangement syndrome. Surely such a thing existed. Other perfectly sane, reasonable people just went nuts. Look at Victoria, after all, and how wacky and uptight she’d been the past few weeks.

      “I’m fine,” he insisted to Amy, telling himself to get out, now, while he still could.

      But then Amy said, “I made bacon and spinach quiche, fresh croissants, fried potatoes and freshcut fruit this morning. I could warm up something for you.”

      He felt every bit of his resolve to save himself slipping away, as he once again lied to himself, pledging that he was strong enough and smart enough to simply eat this woman’s wonderful food and not get into any other sort of trouble with her.

      “Okay,” he agreed.

      “So what would you like?”

      “All of it,” he said.

      She looked back at him questioningly.

      “I’ll just…”