Page 85 of Stolen By the Billionaire
Tendrils of warmth whispered over the backs of Sarah’s neck and arms.
Above her head, Blaze’s bass voice said, “There’s a canister of rolled oats on the third shelf. Maybe I could whip up a pot of oatmeal. I have some berries and apples in the fridge to put on it.”
She spun around. “Don’t sneak up on me. Snakes slither up and try to chomp through my boots. And, you know, I’ve had too many people sneak up on me lately.”
Blaze stepped backward. “Our friends will be hungry. It’s my responsibility to make sure they’re provisioned.”
Growing up on a farm, Sarah understood that the hired hands needed to be fed properly. Feeding your people was part of the contract. “Right. We need to take care of them. How about baked oatmeal with apples and a nut crumble topping?”
He nodded with one dip of his head. “Affirmative. Where should I start?”
Sarah paused. These were Blaze’s friends, not hers, so it was natural that he should help even if it was in the kitchen. “Can you peel and chop some apples?”
“Tell me the recipe. I can follow a protocol.”
From the other side of the island, Aaron Savoie said, “You should let her cook. She’s really good. And you should try this Puppy Chow. It’s fantastic, and I don’t even like sweets.”
Blaze grabbed a few squares and tossed them into his mouth, chewing and then raising his eyebrows.
Sarah’s face warmed. “Ah, well, yeah. Thank you. I like to cook, and it’s been just me on the farm for a while now. It’s nice to have someone to cook for.”
Mr. Savoie turned his head and yelled, “Magnus! Come try this!”
No sound from the living room.
Blaze told him, “He’s gone into that meditative zone where he can hear a cockroach cough.”
“Oh, darn it all. I forgot about him.” Sarah scooped some Puppy Chow into a bowl and poured a mug of coffee. “I’ll be right back.”
Around the corner in the living room, Magnus Jensen was sitting in a chair, as motionless as a piece of furniture as he stared at the pool deck lit by the emergency floodlamps through the wall of windows.
Outside, the night wind blowing off the lake fluttered the hedges, but nothing else moved.
Sarah said, “Um, sir? I have your coffee?”
Magnus Jensen’s head turned, and he finally blinked his cold steel eyes. “Thank you.”
Creepy.
“Yeah, no problem.” She hurried out of the living room.
In the kitchen, Blaze had half a dozen apples sitting beside a cutting board and was chopping one already peeled. Across the island from him, Mr. Savoie used a paring knife to carve a long green ribbon of skin off another one.
Blaze gestured with his knife at the counter beside him. “I prepared your equipment.”
Sarah took her place beside him on the long island and measured milk into a glass measuring cup. “I’m going to nuke the milk so the oatmeal starts baking faster once we get it into the oven.”
“Good planning,” Blaze said while his knife thunked through the apples on the cutting board.
She asked, “Do you have vanilla extract anywhere?”
He opened a drawer, grabbed the small bottle, and tossed it to her.
Sarah snatched it from the air and dribbled a bit over the other ingredients. When she was ready to stir them all together, Blaze had a pile of precisely cubed apples on the cutting board ready for her, so she added them. Her spoon scraped a sharp rasp on the steel mixing bowl as she folded in the apples.
When the casserole was ready and already steaming from the hot milk, Blaze opened the oven door, and she shoved the dish in.
They’d whipped up the cinnamon-spiced oatmeal topped with perfectly evenly chopped apples and a brown sugar almond crumble in ten minutes.
