“Maybe,” Lena said, looking unconvinced. “But either way, I’m stuck in it now, and I really want to improve. Look, I know you’ve already done more to help than I should expect, and you have your own business to run, but could you possibly find the time to give me some pointers? You talked about needing to improve my timing, and I understand that it needs to be fixed, but I really don’t know where to start. I’d pay you for helping, of course.”

  Devin glanced in the shop window, knowing exactly how much time and effort went into each of her chocolates, not to mention the extra projects she had taken on this season. She really should say no, but would it really hurt to spend a couple of hours more with Lena, just giving her some pointers on kitchen management? She enjoyed sharing the knowledge she had learned from watching her parents. And Lena…well, Devin needed her to stay in business, at least until the shop was sold. That was her main motivation, after all. Pure economics.

  “I can help,” she said, turning back to Lena and being rewarded with her relieved smile. “And you don’t have to pay me. I’d like you to stay in business longer so I can sell you more desserts.”

  She said the last part in a joking way, hiding her real motive. She knew her time and expertise were valuable, but she also didn’t want to lock herself into a commitment to Lena. Lena’s smiles were too distracting, and her story too intriguing. Devin wanted to keep the ability to walk away if she felt herself falling too deeply under Lena’s spell, and if she was being paid, she wouldn’t have the same freedom. Once Leavenworth filled with tourists, time would fly by in a hectic rush, and then she and Lena would both be consumed by their own businesses. And then they would go back to their real lives. She didn’t want to get so involved with her that the inevitable parting would hurt her.

  “I’ll come over to the restaurant tomorrow, once school is out and our assistant gets here.”

  Lena nodded, reaching for Devin’s hand and giving it a brief squeeze. “I appreciate it,” she said as she let go of her hand. “I promise to be a diligent and well-behaved student.”

  “I have no doubt,” Devin said with a laugh. “But be sure your aunt has the swear jar in place, just in case.”

  Lena laughed, then walked away through the gentle snow. Devin sighed and unlocked the door to the shop, her mind switching to the tasks she still needed to complete before she went to bed. At least the work would get her mind off Lena and the curve of her lips…

  Her dad came through the door that led upstairs to their living space and interrupted her thoughts.

  “Have you been waiting up?” Devin asked.

  He shrugged. “I wanted a chance to talk to you. How did the tasting go?”

  Devin gave him a brief description of the food. “I told her I’d help her for a few days, before they open. She just needs to learn how to organize a kitchen and her time, and then I think she’ll be just fine.”

  “You always were generous that way,” he said with a fond smile. “But I worry about you. You’re already working harder this season than you ever have, and now you’re taking on the responsibility of helping her run a restaurant? Is it going to be too much for you?”

  “Probably,” she said with a light laugh, thinking of Lena and how much she was looking forward to spending more time with her. The work she was doing this year was manageable, but the complication of Lena might be a danger to her heart. Besides, Lena only respected her as the dedicated chocolatier, not as the aimless person she actually was.

  Not many jobs would give her the opportunity to leave for three months each year to come make chocolate in Leavenworth, and she had occasionally needed to make the choice between quitting and not coming back here to help. Especially in the first few years after her mother had died, the option of quitting had been both the necessary and easy choice. As a result, she had a résumé that would more likely resemble Cheryl’s than Lena’s. Their relationship wasn’t going anywhere beyond a few weeks of friendship, though, so she didn’t need to worry about that.

  “We need her to stay in business,” she continued. “At least until the shop is sold, so we can show how profitable it can be. Besides, this is my last season to do this. I can manage the extra workload for just a couple more months.”

  He sighed. “You’ve always sacrificed a lot to help me here. It will be good when you can just live your own life and don’t have to worry about me and the store.”

  She kissed him on the cheek, trying to keep the melancholy emotions that she felt when she talked about this being their last season hidden from him. He was likely feeling them, too, but even more strongly than she was. “I haven’t minded coming home to help. You know I love this shop, and you, of course. Now, what did you want to talk to me about?”

  Her dad gave her a sad smile and then reached for an apron. “I was just wondering if you wanted help getting another batch or two of those key lime truffles done tonight.”

  Devin breathed a sigh of relief. The truffles on their own weren’t difficult to make, but they were tricky to decorate, with a delicate bright green and silver swirl that needed to be painted into the molds before they were filled. They were going to be the centerpiece of the dessert table since they were in the wedding colors, so they needed to be flawless. “Oh yes, please,” she said, grabbing one of her school aprons out of a cupboard and following him into the kitchen.

  Chapter Seven

  Lena sat at the island in the restaurant’s kitchen, tapping her foot against the metal leg and flipping through another of her cookbooks. She felt mentally worn out after the day before, with its wild swings from highs to lows. She was someone who tended to live on an even keel, with occasional spikes of annoyance when dealing with her family and mild anxiety when she was between jobs. She wasn’t prepared to handle the emotional roller coaster that was Leavenworth.

  Her inborn need to drive toward success and not accept failure as an option had been triggered into action last night. She really didn’t care about this restaurant or whether a bunch of people she didn’t know raved or complained about her food, so she should be able to throw her hands in the air and quit. Drive away without guilt or second thoughts. This definitely wasn’t her dream, and it was only Cheryl’s dream for a fleeting moment in time, so why did she care? Well, she didn’t. Would that stop her from driving herself to learn more and master at least some culinary skills? Of course not.

  At least yesterday’s performance had left plenty of room for improvement, and the memory of it made her wince. The experience had been as humiliating as her first piano recital. She hadn’t cared about the instrument or enjoyed her lessons, getting by using her naturally strong memory and ability to pick up new skills fairly quickly rather than practicing like she was supposed to. She had managed to make it through her lessons, but she hadn’t accounted for the additional nervousness she would feel when she was alone onstage and expected to perform. She had memorized the notes, but when the spotlight fried all her brain cells, she didn’t have the muscle memory she should have built through practice to help her through the simple piece she had to play.

  Looking more closely at the memory, though, she started to understand the drive to excel that had kicked in after her failure the night before. After her recital, first her dad and then her mom had delivered lectures about what it took to succeed in life and what she needed to do to gain their approval. She’d never complained again about disliking a school subject or extracurricular activity. She simply did what she needed to do in order to win the trophy or get the grade or shine during a recital. She was an accomplished pianist now. Still hated playing, but she could entertain a crowd at a party if she needed to.

  She sighed, shutting the cookbook and pushing it aside. She had come into this preprogrammed with a trigger, and she had ended up blaming her aunt when it was activated. If Devin had noticed Lena’s stiffness around her aunt, surely Cheryl had felt the waves of anger as well. As different as she and Cheryl were, and as little as Lena approved of her aunt’s chaotic lifestyle, Lena had no right to hold her responsible for her own overly driven nature. She’d make amends the only way she knew how. By making her aunt’s restaurant a success, no matter what it took. Plus, she could be kinder to her. They didn’t have to be best friends or agree on every aspect of life, but Lena couldn’t use her own hang-ups as a reason to be snippy.

  Lena went to the fridge and took out one of the leftover slices of Devin’s fig tart. She had only managed to salvage a few pieces from the kids who had suddenly become ravenous only after dinner was over and it was time for dessert. She sat on her stool again and ate a big forkful. Devin’s desserts were amazing, but it was the woman herself who had been the one bright spot in Lena’s night. Lena could hear the conflicting emotions in Devin’s voice when she spoke about selling their family shop, and she knew it must have been a difficult decision for her and her father to make. She was so talented at candy making, but she had moved away from it as her career. Lena maybe understood that in a small way. Even if a Christmas miracle occurred and she was voted the best chef in town, she still would be glad to burn her apron and go back to her regular job after the season was over. Just because Devin was a skilled chocolatier didn’t mean she needed to devote her life to that career.

  Still, Lena thought there might be more to that story than she knew, and while she was tempted to spend enough time with Devin to learn more about the layers beneath the surface, she knew she should be careful about getting too close. Aside from the fact that merely getting by in this kitchen would likely take all the time and energy she had, she had never dated someone whose talents were more in the creative realm. She usually dated successful businesswomen because she thought they would be better suited to her lifestyle and nature, but also—and she hated to admit this—because they would be more likely to get along well with her family and get their approval. If they ever had enough time in their lives to accompany Lena to family events and actually meet them. This hadn’t happened yet, so it was all still theory.

  Lena shook her head, polishing off the last bite of fig tart. For all Devin’s complexity and depth, being with her was surprisingly easy, even though Lena hadn’t known her long. She was intelligent and funny. She could imagine her seamlessly fitting in with Lena’s few close friends and could even picture her winning Lena’s parents over with her artisan chocolates and thoughtful, perceptive manner.

  Those flights of fancy had no place in her life right now. She was doing something she didn’t particularly care about, and was facing humiliation and hard work in the process of getting better at it, so it was only natural that she would be looking for some kind of distraction. She wouldn’t use an attraction to Devin as a convenient way to avoid focusing on the restaurant. She got up and put her plate in one of the trays for the dishwasher. It looked tiny in the massive plastic container, but Lena needed to do some practice cooking today, so it would soon be joined by every available pan in the building. A night of making disgusting food and having to clean the mess afterward should subdue her libido and get it back under control.

  Still, when the swinging door opened, her heart beat a little faster at the thought of Devin coming into the kitchen. Unfortunately—or luckily, since she had just lectured herself on controlling her impulses where Devin was concerned—it was her aunt.

  “Hello, Lena,” Cheryl said, sounding much more cautious than she had the night Lena had first arrived. Lena knew whose fault that was, and she made up her mind to fix it. She might be feeling laden by doom and gloom, but she didn’t need to bring her bright and flighty aunt down with her. “The menus just came back from the printer, and I thought you might want to see them.”

  Lena took one of the laminated menus from her and looked it over. It was only a single tall page with the food listed on the front—with her aunt’s admittedly superior descriptions of the items—and beer, wine, and desserts on the back. It had all the Bavarian bells and whistles around the edges, which made it kind of gaudy, but it fit with the town and the holidays, and Lena was surprised by how professional it looked. Like a real menu for a real restaurant. Which, of course, it was, but Lena had been expecting something different from her aunt. Maybe something scrawled on printer paper with a felt-tip marker? She switched her focus to the writing instead of the decorations.

  “There aren’t as many options as I had on my list,” Lena said, counting six entrées and four sides.

  “Oh…well, yes,” Cheryl said, sounding uncertain about Lena’s reaction. “I thought ten entrées and six sides might be overwhelming for you at first. You can always add more specials to the menu if there are other meals you want to make. I hope that was okay.”

  Lena looked them over again, feeling slightly better about their upcoming public opening. She even liked the idea of creating some sort of off-menu option if she found ingredients that interested her. She nodded. “This looks more manageable than what I had before, although you maybe should have whittled it down even more if you want me to…Holy shit, do you honestly expect people to pay these prices for my food?”

  Cheryl laughed, looking more like herself when she did. “These are competitive prices for the area, dear, especially during the season. You’ve seen the price of groceries.”

  “Well, yes, but I didn’t think…I guess I expected us to offer to pay customers five bucks or something if they ate the food without complaining.”

  “You’re planning to bribe your customers?” Devin asked from the kitchen doorway. She must have come in while Lena was distracted by the menu. “You’ll be the most popular but least profitable restaurant in town. I’m glad you paid me in advance, Cheryl.”

  Lena slumped down onto her stool. “I forgot to talk to you about payment for the desserts, didn’t I?”

  Devin and Cheryl looked at each other and shook their heads, as if she couldn’t see them. “That’s my job, Lena,” Cheryl said. “You’re the chef, I’m management.”

  Luckily, her dad had been wrong about Lena running the entire restaurant on her own. She was so focused on making a few plates of schnitzel that she didn’t seem aware of the business side of the restaurant. But her aunt didn’t seem to mind taking charge of menus and expenses, so Lena could leave those aspects to her. Maybe she didn’t need to do it all but could just focus on trying to do one part of it fairly well.

  Devin set a beribboned box on the counter and picked up the menu. “It’s pretty,” she said, turning it over to see both sides. “And this seems like a reasonable number of dishes. You should be able to handle it with some practice.”

  “Unfortunately, this weekend’s patrons will be part of that practice. I won’t be an expert by then.”

  “No,” Cheryl admitted. “But you’ll learn what to expect with a dinner service, and you’ll be even more prepared by the next weekend. Devin, Lena said you were going to help her with timing, so I can leave the two of you alone.”

  “No,” Devin said, at the same time as Lena. They looked at each other, and Devin continued. “It might not hurt for you to hear this, as well. Then the two of you can work together to plan how to manage the menu. It can be easy to overlook some steps in a recipe during the planning stages and get behind when you’re in the middle of a service, but between the two of you, you ought to catch mistakes before they happen.”

  “That makes sense,” Lena said. “I thought you should stay because if Devin takes some fancy chocolate dessert out of that box, I’ll get so obsessed that I won’t hear another word she says. You can listen while I eat, and fill me in later.”

  Cheryl laughed and pulled two more stools over to the island, for her and Devin. She seemed happy to have been included, and Lena didn’t feel guilty about the reason she had given to keep her here. What she had said was true. Equally true, though, was that she was more likely to be distracted by Devin, not the dessert she had hopefully brought with her.

  Devin grinned and opened the box, taking out a tart that was covered with a rainbow of glossy berries and fruits. “I’m used to teaching our assistants about dessert making, and they’re usually kids from the local high school. I discovered that if I offered them the chance to eat something after the lesson, they tended to pay more attention to me.”

  “I’ll pay attention,” Lena said. “Just don’t expect me to be able to make anything like that.”

  “This is just for demonstration purposes,” Devin said, but she correctly interpreted the crestfallen look on Lena’s face. “Don’t worry. You’ll still get to eat it. Now, here’s the recipe. Go ahead and read through it, and I’ll give you some estimates on how long each step takes.”

  She set the paper between Lena and her aunt, and they leaned over to read it together.

  “I can usually get the pastry dough together in about ten minutes, and it cooks for twenty-five,” Devin said, while Lena skimmed the headings. Flaky pastry dough. Pastry cream. Apricot glaze. “The pastry cream takes about twenty, and chopping the fruit fifteen. Putting the elements together and glazing the top is another fifteen. Say I want to have this done by three o’clock in the afternoon, what time would I need to start making it?”

  Math? Lena could do math. “One thirty-five,” she said quickly.

  “Oh, wait,” Cheryl said, pointing at one of the lines. “The dough needs to chill for up to a day.”

  Lena reread the sentence. “Then you’d make the dough the day before and start at one forty-five.”

  “And when I poured hot pastry cream into a crust straight from the oven, I’d have a soggy mess,” Devin said. “You’re right that I need to make the dough the night before, but I have to give myself enough time to let it rest before I roll it out. Once it’s in the pan and getting ready to chill overnight, I need to clean the floury mess in the kitchen, or we won’t be able to get anything done the next morning. After it bakes the next day, it needs to cool completely before I can assemble the tart, and the pastry cream needs to be chilled, as well. I can make the crème pât while the dough is cooking, which will save time, and I should also be chopping the fruit and cleaning the counter and dishes then, too.”