Page 60 of Talk Wicked to Me

“I don’t know.” She wrinkled her nose. “You know how you can love doing something, but if you do it too much, it loses its spark?”

“Can’t say that I do. I’ve never lost a spark for something I love doing. I’ve been riding motorcycles for more than a decade and a half, and it never gets old.”

“That’s because guys get off on words like throttle and choke,” she teased.

“And you think you’re not ready to date.” There was no missing the heat in his eyes.

“I am not into being throttled or choked.” Flustered by the thought that he might be into that, she said, “Can we stick to the subject?”

“You’re the one who got me sidetracked.”

“You can’t blame me for your weird proclivities.”

“I’m not into that, and I’m not the one who brought it up.” He held her gaze for a beat, and her pulse quickened. “What were we talking about again? Oh yeah. Sparks. Veterinary work has never lost its spark, and neither has the club. When you love something, that love keeps the flames alive. I know you baked with your mom, but have you been doing it since you lost your parents, or is it something you started doing again only recently?”

“I never stopped. It’s one of the things that got me through losing them. The therapist said I should do the things we did together that made me happy, and baking was on the top of that list. I tried to continue dropping off cookies at all the places I did with my mom, but it was too hard. Too many people asked about her, and that made me sad. So, I just baked fewer cookies, and as I got older, I gave them to some of the baristas at the coffee shop where I did my editing and the owners of the places where I got takeout. That kind of thing.”

“And it hasn’t dulled the spark yet?”

She shook her head. “But it could.”

He reached over and took her hand, his expression turning serious. “I’m going to take a leap of faith here and tell you what I think.”

“Okay. Way to make a girl nervous.”

“I’m good at that.” He winked. “I could be way off base, but from what you’ve told me, you’ve never veered too far off the safe path you laid out for yourself after you lost your parents. I wonder if you’re afraid that doing so, following your passion for baking and easing up on editing, which you said you’re doing because it makes you feel closer to your mom, might cause you to lose your connection to her?”

A lump formed in her throat. That was exactly what she’d worried about when Ginger had mentioned it to her. “Maybe,” she managed.

He squeezed her hand, a small smile curving his lips. “I understand that risk feels real, but your bond with your parents is in your heart, not in the editing, and that bond is as strong as your bond with Brennan. Nothing will ever detract from that. Not a job, a lover, or an angry thought at the world for losing them.”

Tears threatened, and she held his hand tighter, knowing he was right and wondering how he knew. It was like he’d been put in her path to help her navigate her new life.

“Moving here was a risk,” he reminded her. “And now you’ve made friends, and you feel safe, and best of all, you get to hang out with a great guy.”

She smiled, thankful for the levity. “That’s true, although he is pushy.”

“Don’t pretend you’re not into my pushiness, Lockhart. If you give a baking business a try, what’s the worst that can happen? You don’t enjoy it, so you stop selling your cookies and go back to doing it as a hobby and take on more editing? On the flip side, what if baking for customers instead of friends inspires you, and ten years from now you can’t imagine doing anything else?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it like that.”

“Think about it. Years from now you could be praising me to the moon and back. I’ll be godlike in your eyes. I’m kind of digging that idea,” he said as Starr arrived with their lunch.

He didn’t release her hand as they talked with Starr. Emerson was so focused on their connection, she could do little more than smile and nod.

When Starr walked away, he squeezed her hand, drawing her attention. He had that look in his eyes again, like she was all he saw, making her stomach dip and her nerves ping. His thumb stroked the back of her hand in a mesmerizing pattern. “I think you should follow your heart, Em. It hasn’t led you astray yet.”

THEY SHARED THEIR lunches, talking about Brennan and a hundred other things, but Emerson couldn’t stop thinking about the way Baz had looked at her and held her hand. They said goodbye to his parents, and she promised to join them for dinner one night.

As they headed out to Baz’s truck, he put his hand on Emerson’s back, the heat of it searing through her shirt. She scrambled for a distraction. “Thanks for lunch. That was really fun.”

“Yeah, it was. We should do it more often.” He opened the back door to the truck and put Brennan’s car seat on its base.

“Wait. I have his binky.” She put a hand on Baz’s back, reaching around him to put the pacifier in Brennan’s mouth. Baz turned his face, his eyes boring into her, his lips a whisper away. She was transfixed, unable to move, to think past the desires in his eyes and the heat igniting between them. Her heart thundered as he reached up and caressed her cheek. But in the next breath, he plucked something from her hair.

His gaze shifted briefly to whatever it was, a grin lighting up his eyes as they found hers. “That’s my girl. Always taking food with her.”

She was stuck on my girl, and it took a second for the embarrassment over having food in her hair again to kick in. “You never know when there’s going to be a food shortage.”