Crack! The old oven was well alight before I made the fifteen-foot dash from the front of the bar, through the door, around the racks of pint glasses, and into the kitchen. What greeted me was an alarming sight, flames leaping off the top of the oven and beginning to spread across the counter, black smoke collecting near the ceiling.

“Dammit!” Cursing, I grabbed the fire extinguisher and cut loose. A thick cloud of white powder blanketed the oven, and nearly everything else in the room as I walked back and forth around the fire. The flames were beginning to die down when Bob, my part-time bartender, appeared in the doorway.

“Shee-it.” Bob scratched his head, running his fingers through his gray hair. “You okay, Cat?”

I sighed, putting the fire extinguisher down with a clang. “Yeah, I’m okay, but the oven sure as hell isn’t. No idea what happened. Any customers out front?”

Bob shook his head. “Nope, haven’t seen a soul. I think most people will be at the market until this evening.”

“Well, thank the Lord for small mercies. Let’s unplug this damn thing, then give me a hand to wipe off some of the powder and let’s see what the damage is.”

Ten minutes of wiping told me that things were even worse than expected. The front panel of the oven was a molten mess of fused wires and cracked plastic.

“Boss, this thing’s cooked its last pizza.” Bob stepped back, wiping his gnarled hands on the front of his apron. “Do you think you can get a replacement?”

“Replacement?” I leaned back on the table, my hands on my head. “I don’t even know if I could afford to get this one out of here, much less get another one in. It must weigh a ton if it weighs an ounce. It’s older than I am.”

Bob grinned. “You’re not that old, Boss. My daughter’s your age, remember? Look, maybe…you could get some replacement parts, maybe? These big old professional ovens were designed to last for years, and it’s only the electrics which are shot. Can’t set fire to cast iron. Anyone you can borrow some money from?”

I could ask my parents for money, but…

My imagination conjured up the look on my father’s face when he got an email from his Harvard Medical School-trained daughter asking for thousands of dollars to fix a broken oven on the far side of the planet. Surprise, mixed with disdainful exasperation, followed by another reasoned argument about giving up this ‘silliness’ and coming home to Boston. “Not easily, Bob. Not easily.”

Bob looked at the floor. “Boss, I’ve got a bit stashed away. I could…”

“Thanks, Bob, but I couldn’t.” I smiled at him. “The idea of this job is that I pay you, remember? Although I don’t pay you as much as I should.”

“It’s enough. Living here is pretty cheap, and all I really do is spend it on fishing gear. The fish don’t seem to mind.”

“That’s because you never damn well catch any.”

His creased face assumed an expression of mock-outrage. “I do too, young lady. Why, just last week I caught a—”

“Robert,” I wiped my brow with the towel, immediately regretting it as grease and soot was smeared across my face, “If this sentence is going to end in the word ‘whipper-snapper’, you can just STOP RIGHT NOW.”

Bob folded his arms, grinning broadly. “Whi—”

“Enough!” I pointed at him with the towel. “Come on, let’s see what we can do with cleaning up the rest of this mess, before customers show up.”

As we worked, wiping the smoke marks from the walls, and trying to unpick what was left of the plastic from the old oven, I ran through the possibilities in my mind, and didn’t much like what I came up with.

I’d ended up here six months ago, after giving up my life in Boston and my coveted spot in the medical program at Johns Hopkins, all in a rush. Buying a one-way ticket and packing up to leave one day, telling my parents the next. My father’s words came back to me, in that placating tone I found particularly infuriating.

“When you’ve got this teenage rebellion out of your system, Catherine, you can come back here where you belong and get on with your life and your career.”

Teenage rebellion? I’m twenty-eight, for Heaven’s sake. Maybe the reason I’d never rebelled was that I never got to be a teenager.

From high school valedictorian, to successful applications to Ivy League colleges, to medical school, everything I had done had been according to plan—a plan laid down by my parents—until six months ago.

“Yeesh. What a party, hon.”

My friend Farrah stood behind me, hands on hips. She raised a manicured hand to her brow. “Shame I missed the cleaning. What the hell happened?” Farrah somehow managed to look glamorous despite being a single mom and operating a busy winery full-time, where I, single and childless, felt like I was constantly covered in sweat and grime. Running a bar isn’t the most high-fashion job in the world, let’s face it.

I gestured to a pile of rags in the corner. “Basically, the oven decided it had had enough. I’d guess it was an electrical fire, although I don’t really know what I’m talking about. You haven’t missed the fun. Grab a rag and join in.”

“In this outfit?” Farrah wrinkled her nose. “I’d like to, but I’m meeting a corporate group in town and taking them back to the vineyard for a tasting. I can bring you some dinner later on, though—would that help? Looks like you might need it if you can’t cook here.”

“Would you, babe? That would be wonderful. What about May?”

“I’ll bring her with me. She talks about wanting to come and see Auntie Cat all the time now.” Farrah’s daughter May was a precocious ten-year-old who was rapidly growing up to become a beautiful and determined young lady, and my bar was like a second home to her.

After Farrah’s husband had left—with his secretary—Farrah had been left with the job of raising May alone, and operating the winery. She’d taken to the challenge and sworn off men, although I knew she wasn’t above charming them, and wrapping them around her little finger, when she needed to.

“Okay, it’s a date. Bring some of your new vintage, too; I’d better ‘evaluate’ it for the bar.”

Farrah grinned. “Done. That’s about the only kind of date we’re likely to have any time soon.”

“Don’t remind me. I’m hiding out here at the end of the world to avoid them, and it’s working out pretty well for me so far.”

“Hiding out? In this beautiful town?” Farrah leaned against an unblackened part of the wall. “You’ve done pretty well for someone on the run, gorgeous—immediate circumstances excepted. Me, I’ve had my fill of men.” She toyed with the engagement ring she still wore. After her wealthy husband’s betrayal, Farrah had avoided an expensive and painful divorce settlement by stating that all she wanted was Foxworthy Vineyard, and full custody of their daughter. Farrah’s husband, relieved that his name wasn’t going to be dragged through the courts, quickly agreed and disappeared to Paris with his secretary. Farrah wore the engagement ring to remind herself about what she called ‘the perfidy of men.’

“Yeah, but you belong here. You’ve got May to look after, and the vineyard to run. You’re settled. Me, well…” Along with my medical career, I had left a long-term boyfriend, Kirk, top of his medical class and from ‘just the right kind of family’, according to my mother. In truth, Kirk and I had always been together more because it was convenient, than because of any great passion for each other. Doctors often ended up in relationships with other doctors, because the long hours and constant stress meant that other relationships were hard to maintain.

Kirk had been disappointed when I left, but far from heartbroken, and I knew that he hadn’t spent long moping; my mother had sent me a sniffy Facebook message last week that Kirk and his new partner, a dermatologist, had announced their engagement. “She has beautiful skin, Catherine.” Yeah, I bet she does, Mom.

I looked at my own hands, grimy and blackened, skin cracked from months of scrubbing and cleaning the wood of the old bar, and made a face.

“Come on, hon. You’re settled here. Just look what you’ve done with the bar in the last few months? People are in here every night, and everyone in town is talking about how nice it is to have Wunderbar up and running again.”

I had bought the place with the last of my savings when I ended up in the little town. Standing outside it, looking at the ‘for sale’ sign, a mad impulse had seized me, and I’d walked in to make an offer on the spot. The offer was almost insultingly low, and I’d been amazed when the owner, desperate to sell, accepted. Since then, I’d worked every day including weekends to fix the place up, and the opening just a few months ago had been a big success.

“Thanks, Farrah. I’m just glad that we’re getting some customers. Men, however, are not on the menu.”

For the first time in my life, I felt like I was doing something I wanted to do, instead of something my parents, or my social group, expected me to do. Even if I didn’t belong here, even if this was a silly diversion as my parents believed, I was happy for the moment. Surely that counts for something?

“You won’t be able to avoid dating forever, Cat.” Farrah smoothed down the front of her dress.

“I’m gonna try.” I scrubbed obstinately at the blackened surface of the oven. “Besides, this town isn’t exactly overflowing with eligible bachelors.”

“Too true. Where are all the decent men in the world? Not down here, that’s for sure.”

Bob, working under the table wiping the soot from the floor, coughed loudly. “I heard that. I’m wounded, Ms. Foxworthy. What am I, chopped liver?”

“Of course. How could I forget? You’re one hunk of man down there.” Reaching under the table, Farrah gave him a playful pinch on his ass. “Agh!” Bob cursed, and I heard a loud thump as he hit his head on the solid oak table.

Farrah giggled. “Sorry, Bob. That was meant to be a compliment.”

Backing out from under the table, Bob grumbled quietly as he rubbed the back of his head. “Man, they say the truth hurts, but not quite like that.”

I shook my finger at Farrah, admonishing her. “If you don’t have anything better to do around here than assault my staff…”

“Okay, okay, I’m leaving. Good luck with the cleanup. Back here at six, then?”

“That would be fantastic. Hope the corporate types are all impressed by your wine, and by you.”

Farrah tossed her hair theatrically. “How could they not be?”

“Woman, go and vogue your way on out of here; we have to finish cleaning up, and then I’ve got accounts to go over, while I figure out how I’m going to get myself out of this hole.”

Farrah disappeared with a wave, and I returned to sweeping, turning possibilities over in my head and abandoning them.

How am I going to fix this damn oven?