Everyone hopes his road to happily ever after will be carefree and smooth, but too often hair-pin turns and detours seem to get in the way.
Having thought he was on the road to forever before, former Silicon Valley programmer Dan Lassiter is leery about pedaling down it again. His elderly companion Charlie urges him to get to know Rick Reardon whose bakery is across the street from Dan’s bicycle shop.
Under the watchful eye of Charlie, Dan and Rick take tentative steps towards each other, all the while trying to avoid potholes such as exes, homophobes, and family problems.
As summer turns to fall and then winter, they hope that the road will be smooth going from their first date and first kiss to having what Rick’s sister euphemistically calls their “sleep overs”. At each step, though, they are tripped up and wonder why there seem to be so many bumps in their road.
Maybe Dan and Rick should heed some of Charlie’s sage advice or maybe they should listen to their hearts instead of the warnings from their pasts.
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Only the Best Cookies Qualify for the Holidays
Nothing screams the holidays louder than cookies. (For those who haven’t been watching Paul and Prue, also known as biscuits in Britain.) For the most part, they are as easy or as difficult as you want to make them.
Best of all, cookies need no dishes or silverware to enjoy, so the clean up after you eat one or two is nil.
Of course, everyone has a favorite that looks and smells like the holiday. I’ll share our family’s go-to choice, if you’ll share yours with me.
- Lemon bars: This is the specialty of Becca, the youngest member of the family. As far as I know, she had never tasted one before she decided one holiday season to start making them. She does love the taste of lemon, however. The bars aren’t the easiest to make since the crust has to bake for a few minutes before the lemon “filling” is added. Then powdered sugar has to be sprinkled on top. So unlike chocolate chip bars which consists of mixing one batter and pouring it into a pan before baking, she goes through a lot of steps to make these. But I must say, they are absolutely delicious when she’s done.
- Date pinwheels: My husband loves these. I’m not sure if it’s because they remind him of when he was younger and worked on a kibbutz in Israel and was one of the people taking care of the date trees there or if he just loves the taste of dates. This is another time-consuming but ultimately luscious cookie since the dough needs to be refrigerated and the filling cooled before the cookies can be assembled. Then the rolled up logs need to be refrigerated overnight. The next day, the logs can be cut in cookie-sized slices and baked. Again, though, these are wonderful after they’ve cooled.
- Chocolate crinkles: The whole family enjoys making and eating these delights. The batter is easy to whip up and then the fun begins. First, what’s better than coating your hands with powdered sugar? That’s followed by rolling teaspoon-sized dollops of dough into balls—making sure each ball is coated with sugar. Yup, they are just as tasty as they sound and provide the correct amount of mess to qualify as holiday baking.
- Pressed cookies: Nothing is more fun than loading up a cookie press with its gun-like appearance and shooting cookie dough onto a baking sheet. Bam, bam, bam. Cookie, cookie, cookie. That the dough can be anything from vanilla to spicy and with just a press of the trigger finger comes out looking lovely make this the easiest way to feed the hoards during the holidays.
- Cookie cutter cookies/iced cookies: Everybody loves to play with icing, decorating tips, and an assortment of nonpareils and sprinkles. So plain sugar cookies, cut, and gussied up for the holidays are the perfect way to spend a pre-holiday afternoon. The downside of these cookies for us is that while we take a long time decorating the first dozen, the last few dozen are slapdash creations because boredom has set in. But the upside is whether you eat a perfectly decorated one or a Jackson Pollack one, they are always delicious.
So those are the cookies we bake every year. What’s on your cookie tray? I’d really like to know!
As well as cookies, give yourself a gift of cheer with four HEA romances to take the edge off 2020:
Blame It on the Fruitcake where a motorcycle shop owner and a location scout bond over a grandmother’s holiday recipe;
The Orpheum Miracle in which a squatter in a revival theater meets the man of his dreams;
Making the Holidays Happy Again that sees a blacksmith forge a future with a chemist; and
Heart of the Holidays where a bicycle repairman and a baker travel down the road to love.
And whatever you do, remember that Every day is a good day for romance.
Pat is giving away two $10 JMS Books gift cards with this tour. Enter via Rafflecopter:
After the kids tumbled from the car and jumped on Rick, he pointed at my open garage and waved at me. I waved back, and they galloped across the street.
“Hi, I’m McKinsey! You can call me Mack.” The red-haired boy danced in front of me. His hair blazed in the sun and was as bright as his green eyes and freckles. He didn’t look anything like his uncle. “So these are all the bikes I can ride? Can I try them out first?”
“Yeah, but don’t go very far. I’ve got an app keeping an eye on them.”
“Cool. Bye.”
He didn’t wait for me to explain further, but ran toward the racks so fast that I thought he would barrel into them. A small hand on my arm stopped me from chasing after him.
“Don’t worry. He’s careful. He won’t hurt the bikes. We won’t go far because of mom.” Since I wasn’t worried about the bicycles, I looked down into brown eyes, a solemn face, and curly sable hair. “I’m Leslie. Everyone calls me Lee. My brother throws himself into his activities. I don’t. Can we choose any of the bicycles?”
I glanced up at their uncle who shrugged at me. The small hand let go of my arm, so I looked down at Lee again.
“Yes. You have three choices. One, you can select a bike and ride it the entire time you’re here. Two, you could come back to the garage and pick another one to ride for the day, the half-day, the hour, or however long you want it. That means if you wanted, you could ride every bike in this place in one day. Or your third choice, you could stay at the bakery and not go bike riding at all.” I winked at her. “I would choose the bakery except then I’d look like a human lead balloon if I did.”
She giggled and put her hand on my arm again.
“I like you, Mr. Dan. I think we’ll get along fine.” She nodded and gave me a long assessing once over. “Don’t worry. You don’t look like a balloon at all. Not at all.”
If she’d been in her teens, I would have thought she was flirting. But Lee seemed as if she was merely making an observation.
I liked both kids and their approaches to life. I’d be willing to bet Charlie would like them too when he got up from his nap and met them.
Unlike her brother, Lee sauntered over to the bikes, many of which were now askew thanks to Mack’s unsorting process. She carefully started to right those tossed aside. She stopped at a turquoise bicycle, hopped on, and waved to me and her uncle as she sped away. Her brother was long gone. The bike rack still needed straightening which would give me something to do while Charlie snoozed.
I started toward it. Rick had surged across the street and was striding up to me.
“Here. I’ll help.” He stood staring down at the mishmash of bikes. “If you show me how to untangle them without making things worse.”
I nodded.
“I don’t get it. Aren’t you afraid people will just take off with your bikes and you’ll never see them again?”
I watched him bend over to pick up one on the ground. My groin tightened at the sight. We were going out to dinner. Together. Soon. My heart and dick lifted as my mind piled up image after image of dinner and afterward. It was about time for me to get back in the saddle as it were.
Before she retired, she held a number of jobs, including theatrical costumer, newspaper features reporter and movie reviewer, librarian, junior college English instructor, and publicist.
She also loves to travel and has visited Canada, Mexico, Europe, Egypt, Thailand, and Central America as well as almost all fifty US states.
Now retired, she enjoys reading and writing as well as visiting her older daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren on the East Coast and playing havoc with her younger daughter’s life in NorCal.
She thanks you for reading her books and wants you to remember that every day is a good day for romance.
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