Your Beauty Never, Ever Scared Me - Wintumn Stories

More than Words pt. 2

A/N - This one may have gotten too cheesy near the end because I was having trouble sticking the landing...As always I appreciate you taking the time to read and comment <3

Winter he spoke endlessly about how he learned his love of cooking from his grandmother. His whole family loved cooking and sharing food with each other. They'd had weekly family dinners his entire childhood. That's why it was such a big deal when Autumn suggested doing that again once they got together.

When he was young he spent many weekends at her house learning her secrets in the kitchen. She passed when he was in high school but Winter had told Autumn about how his mum had held on to her huge book of recipes and that his mum had been adding to it since. It was one of the most important heirlooms in their family. He had copied some down but he had never gotten around to getting them all. He had most of his favorites, but there were some that he kept forgetting to ask for. He would make those meals for Autumn often and she loved them all. There was one, though, that he loved more than the rest

"Every year beginning when I could talk, I'd request Shepherd's Pie for my birthday dinner. It was the best thing my nan made and when she wasn't around anymore my mom would make it."

"I've seen that recipe in the cupboard with the others, my love. Why haven't we ever made one?"

"I just can't get the recipe exactly right on my own. Next time we have dinner with my parents I'll ask Mum to make one for you to try. You'll love it, it really is fantastic."

Winter didn't know why he had such a hard time with that recipe. He'd made passable shepherd's pies, but it was never the same as his grandmother had made. Winter was convinced there were just one or two ingredients that were missing from the copy he had that weren't exactly right.

So when thinking about what to do for Winter, Autumn had the perfect plan. It would have been very easy to just ask Winter's mum to make a shepherd's pie to take home as a surprise for him. She would have been more than happy to do so. But Autumn didn't think that was special enough for her love. She wanted to do something that showed the depth of her feelings for him, and just making a phone call would not be good enough.

So Autumn took the day off to make the trip to his parents house while Winter was at work. His mum had agreed to help her copy all the recipes down into a new book so he would finally have every single one. His mom looked over the version of shepherd's pie that Winter had written down and found his mistakes immediately. Just as Winter thought, two very small exclusions made the difference in the whole dish.

As they finished copying down all the recipes Autumn realized she had just enough time to run to the shops before she needed to get home to set everything up. She gathered up the new recipe book but before she could leave Renee stopped her.

"Autumn, dear, give me that one. Take the originals home with you."

"Oh I couldn't do that. Winter told me how important those are in your family. They should stay with you."

"Yes, they are very important in our family," she said, taking Autumn's hand. "And it's important they continue to get passed on. So I want you guys to have them and when the time's right I know you'll pass them on as well. Besides, I know how much this is going to mean to Winter, he and his nan were so close."

"Thank you, Renee." She gave her a quick hug on her way out of the house.

She went shopping and got home with plenty of time to get everything ready for Winter's surprise. She added a couple pages at the end of the book before hiding it away in the cupboard where his recipes had been. Those extra pages included some of Autumn's favorite recipes Winter had created and plenty of blank pages so he could keep adding to it. She had gotten a good start on the meat and potatoes just as he walked in the door. He came into the kitchen and wrapped his arms around her waist as she stood over the stove.

"This smells wonderful, my love. What are we making tonight?" Anytime she started dinner it was inevitable he'd end up finishing it. And he wouldn't have it any other way. He loved to spoil Autumn.

"Not sure yet, my sweet. We just had some ingredients we needed to use so I got them started. Why don't you look through your recipes and we'll see what we can throw together."

Winter opened the cupboard but he had stopped short seeing what had replaced his pile of loose recipes. He grabbed the book and flipped through the pages and couldn't help but smile as he saw the familiar handwriting. He turned back to Autumn who was leaning back on the counter while everything simmered away, watching his reaction intently.

"How did you get this?"

"It wasn't hard, my sweet. Just took a phone call and a day of work copying recipes with your mum. She wanted you to have the originals because she knew how much they meant to you. And so they could continue to be passed through the family. How would you feel about a shepherd's pie tonight, my sweet?"

Winter excitedly flipped to the exact page that the recipe was on. He seemed to have the whole book memorized. Just like his mom, he immediately noticed his mistakes from years of looking at his own recipe. The two worked together to make the meal and Winter said it was the best one he'd ever had.

"Even better than your nan's?" Autumn joked expecting the answer to be no.

"Absolutely. Because I got to share it with you, my love."

He kissed her forehead as he cleared the plates off the table. He returned a minute later with the book to look through it again. He finally came to the pages that Autumn added to the back. She saw how emotional he was becoming at seeing his recipe's alongside his grandmothers and mothers. She walked up behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek.

"Your recipes deserve to be passed down along with hers, my sweet. Someday our grandkids will want to make them exactly right."

The two spent the whole evening going through the recipe book. Winter shared memories of his family that he had associated with each meal. Autumn couldn't help but smile thinking about Winter as a child. How he seemed to have changed so little from those days and how she knew she would have loved him even back then. He would have been exactly what her younger self needed.

When they reached the blank pages Winter grabbed a pen from the desk in the hallway.

"Well, seeing as all the best Adam's recipes are in this book, we will have to add some of your bakes to it. The grandkids will want to have those too."

He kissed her hard as he handed her the pen. He never realized before how emotional he would get seeing his and Autumn's recipes being added to the book. For generations to come his family would know of the love they shared through food and how he'd found the love of his life who complimented him as well as her desserts complimented his main courses.

Before he showed too much emotion though, he broke the tension by telling Autumn exactly which recipe she needed to add first.

"Start with the scones, my love."