He's Got Her Goat by Christine Page A

He began gently placing the contents in the freezer.
    “Really?” Paige upended the crate in his hands and let them fall inside. “Hold this.” She handed him back the empty crate and bent deep into the freezer. He admired the ideal view of her mud-covered backside. He hadn’t dated a single woman who would dare be seen with a smudge on her clothing, let alone walk around town filthy. Oddly, it was refreshing.
    She threw bag after bag of frozen milk into the crate they'd just emptied. Soon it was had as many bags as it had before he dumped it, but now they were solid ice milk packets. Satisfied, she closed the freezer, retrieved a similarly filled crate for herself, which had been sitting in the corner and headed back to the house. He followed.
    She directed him to put the plastic carton on the kitchen floor and went for her keys. “Okay. I keep my promises. Let’s take you home.”
    He wondered why he ever wanted to go. “So what’s that for?” He pointed to the frozen goat’s milk.
    “To keep other promises.” She opened the front door.
    He faced her. “What does that mean?”
    “I’ve still got to make soap tonight, or I’ll never meet the orders you made. I don’t want to make a liar out of you to all those new clients, do I?”
    He looked at the bags of milk. If each was a gallon, that would be over ten gallons of liquid which he imagined was just a portion of the ingredients. “How much soap is that?”
    She tilted her head toward the car. “Only 24 tins. Let’s go.”
    A clock in the shape of an apple hung from the kitchen wall. “But it’s after nine. You won’t be back until eleven.”
    “You don’t have to worry about me. I’ll be fine.”
    He could see a shadow below each of her eyes, and she was a little paler than before. A single curl swayed in front of her eyes. He almost reached up to tuck the lock of hair back in place, so it wouldn’t block an inch of her perfect face. “Can I help? I’ve never made soap before. For real this time.”
    That brought a grin to her lips, and in return, one to his own. She shut the door and headed back into the house. “If you’re sure your up to it.”
    When he had first seen the kitchen, it seemed lived in, not dirty. Like his house growing up during canning season. Now, as he inspected it more closely, he realized that it was immaculate. There was not a speck of dust or grime in the corners, and the floor was so clean it could have been recently installed if it weren’t for the fact it was ancient linoleum, yellowed in the corners.
    From a drawer she retrieved two black rubber aprons with bright yellow gloves. “I would have washed up last night, but I was beat, so we’ve got to do that first.” Producing a mop from the pantry, she shoved it into his hands. You can do the floor while I take on the tins.”
    After the kitchen and dishes were scoured, she got Sterling busy wrapping the cakes made last night at the oak dinette while she donned goggles and began her work. The soap cakes were round, the size of a flattened muffin, each embossed on the top to distinguish its variety. The molds were double wide muffin tins that she probably bought from a specialty store. He did some math. Each tin yielded 24 soap cakes, and she had one dozen tins of completed soap. That was 288 items. The round wrapping paper was specially folded six times and then a label glued on the top. Though the result was appealing, Sterling wondered if it was the best use of her time, especially if she wanted to expand. The process had to be streamlined.
    A few hours later, she finished mixing up the batches ready to be cooked, but he wasn’t quite done wrapping the newly cured soap cakes. Paige sat next to him to help with the last two tins and got her first one done in record time. It took three more bars before he got down her technique, and it became a wrapping race. By the last one, they were neck and neck. When he slapped on his last sticker, he threw his hands in