Preston Pruitt put aside his dreams of becoming a gourmet chef at a high-end restaurant to raise his daughter while her mother was on active duty in Afghanistan. Now Abby is a precocious eight-year-old in love with fairies and princesses, and Preston works at an unimaginative and monotonous job as a short order cook.<br><br>Abby has her quirks, and when she tries to wear a pair of costume wings for her school pictures, her father is called to help talk her out of them. That's when Preston meets Cam Richards, a handsome photographer with his own studio in town. Between Cam's quick smile and flirty manner, Preston is smitten and surprises himself by asking the guy out. Late night phone calls lead to dinner dates, and soon Preston is falling for Cam. It helps that Abby approves of her father's new special friend.<br><br>With Cam’s encouragement, Preston gets the chance to interview for an executive chef position. Now that he has all the ingredients, will he finally fulfill his dream of becoming a top chef and find the perfect recipe for romance?

Recipe for Romance

The clock on the computer read 7:21when the desktop finally loaded. Skype took another minute or so to open, and Preston wasn’t the least surprised to see Tess already online. As he was moving the USB microphone into place—they had a separate one so Abby could pull it closer when she spoke, otherwise Tess wasn’t able to hear her very well—an incoming call came through. Preston clicked the button to answer it.


A moment later, a video feed opened on the screen and he saw Tess smiling at him, her long blond hair pulled back into a loose knot at the nape of her neck. She wore an Army green T-shirt and dog tags around her neck. “Hey there, handsome,” she said. “My baby girl still eating breakfast?”


“Three guesses what she’s having,” Preston joked, “and the first two don’t count.”


Tess rolled her eyes. “What do you do when the store is out of blueberry? Because sometimes they are, right?”


Chapter 20