Page 162 of Just One Little Bargain

“I hope so.”

Suzanna pushes the bags toward me. “If she doesn’t like them, bring the unopened chocolates back. I’ll take them home.”

I step out onto the sidewalk and nearly walk straight into a pink bakery box.

“For your date night,” Nora announces, lifting it until the little cellophane window is level with my face. A flour-dusted apron covers her blue dress, and several copper curls have escaped the scarf she knotted around her hair.

I catch the cardboard before it plummets to the concrete. “Excuse me?”

“Rebecca texted me.” Nora offers me a bright, unapologetic smile. “She said you were putting together a really special evening for Evie. I thought you could use this.”

I stare at her. The speed at which these women transmit information across town borders on supernatural.

“That is very considerate.” I reach into my jacket. “How much do I owe you?”

She slaps my hand away. “Absolutely not. Evie treats herself to a slice of strawberry shortcake from Honeybee’s most weekends. Letting you plan a romantic evening without her favorite dessert constitutes criminal negligence. It’s on the house.”

“I can pay.” I try to offer her a crumpled bill.

She pushes the money back against my chest. “Put that away. If you ruin this, I’ll personally sabotage your coffee supply.”

Nora spins around and practically skips toward her café before I can formulate a counterargument. Ten minutes later, I experience the same fiscal defeat when the local florist intercepts me on the corner. She loads my free arm with enough soft pink roses to fill three vases and waves me down the block without accepting a single cent.

When I return to the cottage, the next several hours humble my grand plans. Daisy told me her sister’s comfort meal is chicken and dumplings, so that’s what I attempt.

I’ve watched Evie cook a hundred times. She makes it look effortless, moving through the kitchen without pausing to measure or check a page. Most of the recipes live in her head now, each step following the last without any visible thought. I’ve stood at her elbow, asked too many questions, passed her bowls and knives, and convinced myself that I understood the mechanics.

Cooking should suit me. I’m good with precise instructions I can study, memorize, and execute. A recipe is basically a practical examination with edible results. Except every decision feels dangerous when the meal has to be perfect. I reread the same line three times and understand it less with each pass.

If this crushing urge to get everything right is even close to what Evie carries every day, I understand why she never knows how to stop. Tonight, I want her to.

The recipe says simmer, which is a temperature everyone is expected to just know. I reduce the flame, watch the broth settle, raise it again when nothing happens, then decrease it once more when it begins spitting against the sides of the pot.

Next comes fold the dumpling batter. I turn the mixture over itself with careful, geometric precision and press every pocket of air out of it. The first batch comes apart in the broth. The second holds together, but while I’m rereading the recipe, the bottom of the pot scorches.

By then, flour has worked beneath my cuffs, and the recipe is beginning to feel personally hostile. This shouldn’t be difficult. Evie does it while answering questions and remembering six other things at once. I can’t even make one meal for her without ruining it.

When the pot handle sears my palm, I bite back a yelp, wrap a dishcloth around the handle, and drag the pot off the heat. Then I stare at the mess I’ve made and start again.

By evening, I stand in the center of Evie’s living room and take in the results of my afternoon. The coffee table is crowded with chocolates, sliced fruit, face masks fanned out by color, and a small handwritten card explaining which products require rinsing and which ones must never be placed near an eye. Peppermint tea steeps in a heavy pot.

I deployed the relaxation spray perhaps too enthusiastically. The air is thick with lavender, melting wax, and the rich scent of the chicken and dumplings resting on the stove.

It’s absolute overkill.

The kitchen still looks as though I lost a fight with a sack of flour, and nothing on the table matches the picture I had in my head. But Evie has spent weeks feeding me, teaching me, and making room for me in her life. I loved every minute of getting to do some of that for her.

I could become dangerously fond of making a habit of her happiness.

Chapter 47

Evie

“Okay, but what if I just delete the whole thing and start over?”

I press my phone harder against my ear and resist the urge to scream. “Maddie. We’ve been over this seventeen times. You can’t delete the template. You’ll lose all your data.”

“But what if it’s wrong?”