Free Cookies for Courting by Amber Kell Page B

she did it, Pace would follow it to the letter. After buttering the cookie sheets, he turned to Alice again.
    “Now you get out the big bowl.” She pointed to another cabinet.
    Pace retrieved the large blue ceramic bowl from the top shelf. He didn’t know how Ilona even reached it with her shorter stature.
    “Ilona has to use the stool,” Alice said, as if reading his mind.
    “Does she? I’m a little taller.” Truthfully, he wasn’t that much taller than Ilona, but he had long arms.
    The rest of the process went pretty quickly. Ilona had an organized kitchen, and the ingredients were quickly pulled together. Once the mixture was ready, Pace reached for a spoon to scoop out the dough.
    “You have to use the special scoop,” Alice insisted.
    “The special scoop?” How was it a child could make him feel like such an idiot?
    “It’s in the top drawer.”
    “Okay.” Not certain what he was looking for, Pace pulled open the top drawer. Someone, probably the housekeeper, had put an organizer inside, and a small dough scoop sat in the slot on the left. He pulled it out and waved it in the air. “Is this it?”
    “Yes.”
    Taking turns, they quickly filled out the cookie sheets with little scoops of dough. “How long does it say to cook them?”
    Alice scanned the sheet. “Until it smells like love.”
    Pace froze in the process of putting the pan in the oven. “What?”
    “That’s what it says.”
    Pace slipped the cookie sheets into the oven, then closed the oven door. He walked over to check out the cookbook. He read right where Alice pointed her tiny finger. “Huh.”
    “I told you so.” Alice smirked.
    “Yes, you did. So how long do you think love takes? Ten to fifteen minutes?”
    “I don’t know. Ilona said I won’t fall in love for years.”
    Pace laughed. “Let’s hope it doesn’t take that long to make cookies.”
    They talked while they waited, and Alice showed Pace some apps on her iPad to while away the time. When the kitchen started to smell like cooked oatmeal goodness, Pace opened the oven door.
    “They look done to me.”
    Alice looked at her iPad. “Twelve minutes.”
    “Good to know.” He turned off the oven and set the cookies on top to cool. A bit of stray cookie tempted him to pop it in his mouth.
    Fuck that burns.
    “We should give them some time so we don’t burn our mouths,” Pace said when he could talk again.
    “What do you want to do now?” Alice asked.
    That was a very good question. “How about we go to the park? I know of a good one a few blocks away.” He’d passed the park when heading to his bus the other day.
    “Do you think Uncle will mind?”
    “No.” Pace couldn’t think of a single reason why a little girl couldn’t go to a park. Especially a park in a ritzy area; it wasn’t like he was taking Alice to the wrong part of town.
    “Okay. Let me go get my shoes.”
    Alice rarely wore shoes as far as Pace could tell. He couldn’t blame her. He wasn’t too fond of them himself.
    The trip to the park went well. Alice even ran into a couple of kids she knew. It wasn’t until they entered the condo that Pace suspected he’d made a mistake.
    “Where have you been?” Marshall asked, his tone colder than an arctic wind.
    “We went to the park,” Pace said.
    “Why weren’t you answering your phone?”
    Pace patted his pockets, then went to the kitchen. His cell phone sat on the counter. “I must’ve left it here.”
    “What if something had happened to Alice? What would you have done then?”
    “I’m sure one of the women at the park had cell phones.” Since most of them were either watching the screens or yapping into the receiver, Pace could pretty much guarantee it.
    “You need to be careful, someone could’ve snatched her!”
    Pace’s mouth dropped open. “I was two feet from her the entire time.” Anger burned through him. “I wasn’t being irresponsible. I was just taking a kid to the damn park. People do it all the time with a