NOTE: CRAVE will end at around the 50% mark on your Kindle. After that, keep turning the page to read another steamy Reckless Falls menage!
CHAPTER ONE
Bee
heart pounded in my throat as I stood in front of my shop and stared.
"No," I whispered, shaking my head and closing my eyes. I balled my fists and counted to three.
But when I opened my eyes again, the ugly picture in front of me remained the same.
The letters scratched their way across the brick front and onto the wide plate glass window that had cost me a freaking fortune to install. I'd had that window painted with a pretty decal only three weeks ago. Now Honey Bee's Bakery - written in cheery, welcoming pink letters - was almost blacked out completely by graffiti.
"GO HOME!!" the black letters shouted in angry block capitals at least four feet high. I inhaled sharply, trying like hell not to cry, and the scent of spray paint filled my lungs, making me gag and then choke.
I turned in a slow circle. The block was empty. Of course it was. My store was the first one to open in this new development. The rest were still half finished, wooden skeletons silhouetted against the darkening sky. It was so silent down here by the water that my own panicked breath sounded like a windstorm in my ears.
I swallowed hard and pulled my phone from my pocket and dialed the police department. Then I cleared my throat and steadied myself against the still-warm brick.
"Reckless Falls police."
"Hi there," I said, my voice sounding much calmer than I felt. "This is Beatrix Henry, owner of Honey Bee's Bakery? Uh..." My voice caught and I stammered as the next sentence caught in my throat. "I'd like to report a vandalism. Vandals... Uh, I've been vandalized."
The dispatcher paused for a moment and I swear I heard the sound of papers being shuffled. "Say your name again?" she asked.
I swallowed. "Beatrix Henry. Bee. You can call me Bee."
"Miss Henry," she said, ignoring my request completely. "Didn't you call and make the same complaint...?"
I licked my lips. "Last week," I sighed, nodding. "Yes." I looked back at the angry letters. "Yes, I know. It's happened again."
The dispatcher fell silent again. I opened my mouth to apologize, to justify, but she just inhaled sharply. "I'll send someone over," she said curtly and hung up the phone.
I hung up and shifted from side to side on the sidewalk. I didn't dare go inside and start up my mixers. I wouldn't be able to hear anything. So I stood there waiting.
The last remnants of the fiery sunset slipped away. Over the humped bulk of the western ridge the sky was still a faint aquamarine, but to the east a full moon was rising, its white light reflected in the dark water of the lake. It was so quiet out here that I imagined I could almost hear the far-off rush of the falls.
Then there was the sound of a motor and headlights swept across the dead-end street. I straightened up, expecting to see the patrol car.
But when I saw who it was, I stepped back into the shadow, my cheeks flaming.
Finn Walker. I only knew his name because, in a fit of creepy stalkerish-ness that was completely unheard of for me, I'd looked up the owner of the building going up next door to my bakery. It seemed that, in addition to looking like he'd stepped off the pages of some rugged outdoorsman magazine, with his tanned skin and thick blond waves, he was also some kind of business whiz. The articles I'd searched through didn't explain why he'd left New York City for this tourist trap upstate, but I was eternally grateful that he had. The opportunity to stare at him through my window as he strode through his building, meeting with his contractors and directing his workers was the reason I'd come in to work so early tonight in the first place.
He pulled into the alley that separated our two buildings and cut his engine. I heard the door slam and his footfall in the alley and ducked further back into the shadows, hoping like hell the patrol car wouldn't chose this moment to roll up and expose me.
His footfalls grew louder. In a fit of panic, I rushed around the other corner.
I heard him pause. I held my breath and wondered if he could see the graffiti. It was almost dark... but if he turned on the lights in his building, he would see it for sure.
My mind spiraled out from there in dizzy terror. If he saw the graffiti, he'd probably come over and see if I was okay. And if he did that, I'd have to look at him without blushing and somehow pretend I hadn't already Google-stalked him thoroughly. And if he asked me about myself, my loneliness would bubble up and I'd probably end up spilling my life story — married at eighteen, divorced and fully estranged from my family at twenty-four, new in town and clearly hopeless at running a business — rather than just being casual and pithy. I'd probably alternate between gushing wildly about the restaurant he was opening and clamming up awkwardly when I realized I'd revealed too much.
And then I'd see my awkwardness reflected in his blue eyes — the fact that I already knew they were blue was the worst part of it all — and then they'd glaze over and he'd look past me. Just like guys my age always did. And he'd get bored and go back into his restaurant and then I'd never talk to him again.
I ducked back against the side of my shop, pressing my body flush up against the bricks. After a moment, I heard his steps resume, and then the sound of the door to his restaurant swinging open.
"Huh, guess he doesn't lock it," I thought to myself, filing that away into the mental Rolodex I kept about Finn Walker. Not locking up meant he was completely confident, that he believed Reckless Falls was safe.
The angry words scrawled across my storefront told me otherwise.
I tapped my fingers against the bricks. This development was going up on land that used to belong to a resident. It used to be a marina, that's what the real estate agent had told me when I met with her. "Granger Point is going to completely reshape this town," she'd said confidently. "A highly walkable waterfront shopping destination, full of high-end boutiques and the best restaurants in the region. It's all very exciting."
And it had felt very exciting at the time, especially as I sat there in the office with my suitcase at my side. Starting over again in a new town while the town itself was starting over seemed too much like synchronicity for me to ignore.
But now I wondered if maybe the townspeople themselves didn't want to start over. And were making their displeasure known in the form of four-foot high graffiti on my store.
I leaned my head back on the bricks and stared up into the sky. One by one the stars were coming out overhead. I really needed to start my baking, but I seemed rooted to the spot, stuck between moving forward and being dragged back in time.
It was fully dark by the time the cruiser arrived, lighting up the darkened block in reds and blues. "You again?" the cop behind the wheel called out before stepping out of his car.
Shame washed through me right down to my toes. I closed my eyes and for a moment I could see Zach standing right there in front of me, slowly shaking his head. "This is so stupid, Bee," imaginary Zach drawled in his bored tone. "Just give it up already."
"No," I whispered.
"What was that, ma'am?" the cop asked.
I snapped my eyes open again. "Nothing. Sorry."
The cop was in his mid-forties, with closely cropped hair and a full, bushy mustache. He was solid and dependable looking, and the wedding ring on his finger meant he wasn't frightening at all. I felt myself relax just a fraction.
He looked at my ruined storefront and let out a low whistle. "Damn, girl. Who'd you piss off?"
I bristled. "Nobody," I said, raising my chin. "I’m a baker. I make cupcakes and sweets. How could anyone be mad at me?"
The cop did a slow double take. I straightened up to my full five feet four inches and gave him my winningest smile. "In fact, I was thinking. We don't need to stand out here in the dark. Why don't you come in and sit down? Have you tried my honey buns yet?"
"No ma'am, I can't say that I have. I didn't even know there was a bakery down here until you started having your trouble..."
"See now," I interrupted. "That's a shame. I have the best buns in the world, and that's not an exaggeration," I said, dragging out the innuendo. Falling into the old patterns was so easy to do. "You can see for yourself."
At that his eyes nearly bugged out of his head. I grinned and turned to unlock the front door. "Take that, Zachary," I whispered to myself as I felt the cop’s eyes sliding down my backside. "I'm capable and sexy. I don't need anyone to take care of me. I can take care of myself just fine."
You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, my mother's voice sang out in my head. I stumbled for a second midstride, then caught myself and did a little skip-hop dance over to the light switch and flipped it on.
"Here, let me get you something," I told the cop. "What did you say your name was?"
"Abbott. Jerry Abbott." The cop looked bewildered, but sat down at one of my tables anyway.
"Well thank you for coming out Jerry," I said, bustling around behind the counter. Gathering a plate and a napkin, it felt like I was moving on autopilot. Hospitality was a habit of mine, ingrained in my DNA, it seemed. "I'm sorry this keeps happening, me having to call you out like this."
"Thank you," Jerry said as I set his plate in front of him and stepped back.
"You're welcome, of course," I replied, watching him anxiously.
He lifted the sticky sweet bun to his mouth. I tapped my foot on the floor, feeling the familiar nervousness that came over me whenever someone tried my baking.
But I clearly didn't have to worry. Because the second that the glazed dough touched his tongue, Jerry was putty in my hands. He devoured the bun in two bites and suddenly my case seemed to be a lot more important to him.
"Don't worry, Bee," he told me once I'd given my statement, his voice full of gruff seriousness. "We're going to get to the bottom of this."
A flaky piece of crumb still clung to his mustache. I looked away and sighed. "I hope so," I said. "Because I've only just opened, you see. It's been a rough couple of weeks. I have to clean the graffiti off now before it drives away my customers."
What customers? Zach's voice asked in my head. I bit my lip and silently ushered Jerry out the door, waving goodbye with a smile that didn’t meet my eyes. You've barely sold a thing. This whole idea is completely terrible. Wouldn't it be easier if you just gave up and came home?
I closed the door firmly. "No," I whispered aloud in my empty, defaced store. "I can do this. I can do this. By myself."