Christmas from Hell

Page 25

 
Her grandfather, who was a sweetheart in secret, had thought over this one for a long time until finally he’d been forced to shake his head and tell her that it wasn’t possible. At least not right now. In a few years when they had enough money in the bank and could either afford a bigger bakery or second one, that’s when they would add the gluten free section and they would make sure that it offered the best gluten free menu, as well as the safest, in the city.
 
The game plan was to master certain things like gluten free dinner rolls, pies, breads, baked goods, etc. so that they could help cover the costs of all the upgrades by offering their gluten free menu out to other restaurants, stores, etc. It would take a lot of work and time, but then again, since she didn’t have a life that wouldn’t exactly be a problem.
 
Not only was she interested in expanding their menu for customers with gluten sensitivities and Celiac’s disease, but it was a challenge and if there was one thing that she loved, it was a cooking challenge. She could actually start practicing converting recipes and creating new ones for gluten free items as soon as the power was put back on, she thought with an excited little smile.
 
There were already a ton of recipes that were naturally gluten free, but she wanted the challenge of making the impossible, possible. Maybe if she was able to perfect gluten free cooking then they could look into opening a bakery that was one hundred percent dedicated to gluten free items. It was something that she would love to do and she knew that her grandfather would back her up once she was able to perfect gluten free cooking.
 
It was definitely something that she wanted to-
 
“I’m starving,” the large man lying next to her in the bed that she’d somehow forgotten about, announced with what sounded like a pout, breaking into her thoughts and making her bite back a sigh of her own.
 
“We just ate an hour ago,” she pointed out with another sigh and a shake of her head as she turned the page, making sure to dog-ear the page so that she could find it later and moved onto the next page.
 
“And I’m already on the verge of starvation!” he snapped, sounding kind of bitchy and for some reason making her lips twitch.
 
“You had four helpings,” she felt obligated to remind him, since that much food should hold him over until at least tonight.
 
Granted, that much food would have probably held her over for a day or two, but apparently not him, which was a little concerning, she had to admit. He’d eaten several large steaks, at least two pounds of bacon, two-dozen eggs, and somehow during all of that, he’d suckered her into making him more home fries.
 
Not that she minded, because she really enjoyed cooking and was somewhat limited as to what she could cook at home because of her grandfather’s diet restrictions. It was a nice treat cooking for him, but it was also a bit frightening. Before she wasn’t worried about running out of food, because of all the freezers and refrigerators hooked up to the generators that the insurance company had insisted that they purchase to protect the food that they used for private functions.
 
Every one of the ten freezers and refrigerators downstairs was stocked full of food and should be more than enough to feed several hundred people, but with Duncan here…
 
She wasn’t sure that the food would last another week. It was definitely a frightening thought, so she decided to return her attention to the magazine in her hands and pray that he forgot about food for the moment and distracted himself with one of the hundreds of books and magazines that she had stacked around the-
 
“Holy shit!” he said in such a way that dread shot through her stomach before she even managed to look up and once she did, she couldn’t seem to look away.
 
Or speak for that matter, but she was able to pray and pray she did, for a quick, painless death, for him or her, it didn’t really matter just as this moment was long forgotten.
 
*-*-*-*
 
He should have put the book back down, should have pretended that he hadn’t seen it, but once he’d picked the book up and realized what he was holding, he couldn’t contain his reaction.
 
She didn’t say anything, but then again he had a feeling that she’d lost the power of speech the moment that she’d realized what he was holding, but she did make a mad grab for the thick hard covered book that would forever be burned in his memory. It was definitely not something that he’d expected to find in her room or even something that he would have thought she knew about, but damn if he wasn’t holding the biggest book on Kama Sutra that he’d ever seen.
 
As she tried to yank it out of his hands, he just sat there, staring down at it numbly as he tried to wrap his mind around everything. The somewhat shy little jinx that had been making his life a living hell for the past year had the biggest book on sexual positions by her bed and-
 
“Thank God,” she said, sounding really relieved when he suddenly released the book, but that didn’t last for long.
 
Needing to know, more like dying to know, he immediately turned his attention to the nightstand by her bed, reached for the top drawer and grunted in pain when the surprisingly strong woman put him in a headlock and took him to the ground.
 
Doing his best to ignore the small woman on his back, no doubt trying to kill him, which again he was surprisingly okay with, he moved his ass, needing to know more than ever what was in that drawer.
 
“Oh, my God! Please don’t! They’re not really mine!” she screamed as he placed his hand on the drawer handle, making him hesitate until he realized what she’d said.
 
When her words registered, God himself backed up by the army, navy and Marines wouldn’t have been able to stop him from pulling that drawer open and-
 
Choking on air when he saw exactly what the small woman had hidden in the top drawer of the dresser that he’d been sleeping within two feet of for that last two nights. He tried to make sense out of what he was seeing, but all his mind could register were the condoms, so many fucking condoms, lubes, sex toys and some things that he’d admittedly had no clue what they were supposed to be and how to use them, but he did know one thing.