Chapter One
“C’mon, have you at least considered opening up a shop in the city instead? This place is in the middle of nowhere. I mean, there isn’t even a Starbucks around here. It’s a hick town, Emma. No offense.”
Plenty taken.
Emma Stevens plated up a fresh chocolate croissant and sat down with a sigh, while Bill—her latest proof that the online dating app her sister had signed her up for was profoundly and disturbingly flawed—took a messy bite out of the flaky pastry he’d requested she have waiting for him when he came by this morning before work. Exactly an hour before her bakery opened, which, as she’d told him on numerous occasions, was her craziest time of day.
All because he wanted to give her “a chance to wish me good luck” over the big real estate investment he was going to land today.
Seriously.
And, of course, he didn’t even pretend to offer to pay for the croissant. Not that she’d really expected him to. Emma had been out on only two dates with the guy, yet somehow he’d managed to stop by her bakery for free pastries and desserts nearly a dozen times. The last had been for an entire cheesecake for his office a few days ago.
Mathematically speaking, this relationship was not doing so hot.
Now to add insult to injury, here he was disparaging her amazing little town, the only place that had felt like home for her in a really long time.
Never had the three-strikes rule in dating seemed so painfully overgenerous.
Since, per usual, he’d proceeded to simply bulldoze right along without waiting for an actual answer from her to his question, she took the opportunity to study him for a bit . . . as an anthropologist would when encountering a possible Homo jerkus, a male species of ego-vore, originating from Putzland.
Currently the subject was displaying his pompous plumes, sitting there with his power tie thrown over one shoulder—now officially her newest pet peeve—while belittling her neighbors’ businesses as he scarfed down his free pastry.
Huh, Megan’s right, he does kind of look like a Tyrannosaurus rex when he eats things with his hands.
Her sister, Megan, had first witnessed him in here eating the other week with his elbows held out like outstretched wings while holding his free glazed-blueberry scone with two hands, pinkies and ring fingers in the air, as if he were eating a royal hamburger with the queen of England.
Since then, the subject’s eating habits had been a frequent topic of analysis. Apparently it was all about his arm placement. According to Megan, when he had his elbows tucked in at the ribs like he was doing now, bam, T. rex arms.
The resemblance was really quite uncanny.
As he took his next big bite, Emma tried channeling some Jurassic Park–worthy sound effects in her head—rawr, snarfle, chomp, chomp—and nearly burst out laughing.
Misunderstanding the giggle that seeped out of her in a way that only he could, Bill went on to then reassure her with a firm hand squeeze. “Don’t laugh. With my help, this is possible. You could be making some real money if you took this little hobby of yours seriously. We’re talking distribution to big grocery chains, even franchising. You’d just need a few investors, a commercial space probably in a mall for visibility, and a strong commercial campaign to really get your name out there. I’d be willing to take one percent off my usual commission to help you find that perfect business space to lease.”
Emma had stopped being amused the moment he’d called her business a hobby. Now the T. rex growling that she was hearing was accompanied by the visual of her taking a big bite out of Bill’s overinflated, condescending head.
“That’s not the kind of bakery I want to run. I love it here. I love my regulars and all the town visitors. And I make a good living.”
The polite, patronizing scoff from Bill had Emma’s back teeth grinding. “Look, Bill, I need to finish up an anniversary cake and get ready for the morning crowd, so why don’t we just catch up later.”
Bill brushed all the crumbs from the pastry onto her formerly freshly swept floor as Emma looked on in disbelief.
“You’re right—I better get going. Coming out here was so far out of my way.” He patted her on the arm, and she only barely stopped herself from recoiling. Balling up his napkin and pushing it toward her on the empty plate, he asked distractedly, “So are we still on for dinner tonight? At that place I told you about?”
Emma groaned silently. It wasn’t that Bill was a bad guy per se. In fact, he was a catch in comparison with the last two dates the demented dating app had paired her with. She figured she should probably give the guy at least one more shot. Wasn’t there something to that whole opposites-attract theory?
“Do you want to just come back over here for dinner instead?” she offered. “They have some great specials at Sally’s Diner this week. And we could maybe catch an early movie afterward or just walk around town.”
Bill frowned. “But what about the new gastropub in Shawnee? I already made reservations. And there’s also this great nightclub I wanted to take you to. Give you a chance to ditch the apron for a bit—you know, get dolled up with a hot dress and some sexy heels.”
Oy, the man didn’t know her at all.
Some girls loved their designer shoes and handbags; Emma much preferred her soft cotton pj’s and fuzzy slippers. “I’m sorry, but my mornings here start really early.” As she’d told him for the past few weeks. Repeatedly. “So that wouldn’t work for me.”
“Oh.” He pouted in disappointment. “I guess we could go out another night then.”
Translation: he was going to find another chick for his pub-and-club plans tonight.
“What about next weekend?” he asked, making a not-so-subtle visual scan of her legs and chest while licking his lips. Gross.
Clearly he still wasn’t understanding. She was getting ready to bust out a sock-puppet show with a catchy cartoon jingle to get through to him. “I have early mornings every morning, Bill. Sort of goes along with the whole running-a-bakery-seven-days-a-week thing. That’s why I’m usually in bed by eleven p.m.”
“You mean every night?”
Eureka, he finally got it . . . and now he was giving her a look as if she’d just broken out in warts.
Before Emma could propose a quick and merciful end to their clearly doomed relationship, a loud metallic crack suddenly boomed from the ceiling.
What the . . . ?
An ominous thunk and hiss resounded a few seconds later. She went racing to the back of the bakery to find bursts of pipe water already starting to spray in every direction and waterfall out of the seams of the ceiling panels and lighting fixtures.
“The cake!”
She ran forward to grab the beautiful cake she’d made for Mr. and Mrs. Johnson’s forty-seventh anniversary, only just barely managing to slip it into the nearest fridge before her ceiling basically exploded.
Two ceiling panels above her display cases came crashing down, freeing a deluge of rushing water so strong, it nearly knocked over her register. And judging by the screech from Bill, he’d gotten splashed by some water in the front, as well.
Not good. The place would be flooded in no time at this rate. Grabbing a big baking pan from the counter to hold over her head in case more ceiling panels came falling down around her, she made a run for the back door, snagging a wrench from her utility drawer in case the main water valve outside was rusted shut.
“Bill, can you run under the stairs and shut off the electrical breaker?” she shouted as she propped open the back door. The water was pooling on the floor. If the water level rose to the electrical outlets, she was in big trouble. “I’m going to try to shut the water off!”
Sure enough, the valve outside was nearly frozen solid with rust. She was practically horizontal with the wall in a super-Spidey crawl trying to torque the wrench when, finally, the valve began turning, at a micromillimeter pace.
With it no longer sounding like the base of Niagara Falls in the bakery, Emma slumped over in relief, feeling every muscle in her body burning over the exertion and adrenaline. A striking contrast to the icy-cold water that had drenched her from head to toe. Thank goodness the spring snowmelt had started the other week, or else she’d be a numb Popsicle by now.
Just as she was thinking she needed to go break out the thermal underwear again before she dealt with the mess inside, however, she witnessed something that had her blood heating up to an angry boil.
“Where are you going?” she shouted to Bill’s retreating back as she saw him sneaking off to his little silver coupe parked across the street.
He hesitated and then turned to give her a helpless shrug. “Sorry, babe. I couldn’t find the electrical panel thing you were talking about. Plus all that pipe water got on my suit! Hopefully it didn’t ruin it. I need to rush home to change before my big meeting. I’ve got a lot riding on this. I need to look sharp.”
“Are you freaking kidding me?” Her entire bakery was now submerged in ankle-deep water, and he was complaining about his suit getting a little damp.
“I promise I’ll call to check on you later.”
That was a total lie, and they both knew it.
“Un. Believable.”
She continued to glare at him for exactly one second—while he was swiping at the water splotches on his suit pants and cradling his suit jacket like a Fabergé football—before she stomped over to her butcher-block island and grabbed the nearest ruined cupcake.
If he was going to dry-clean the damn thing anyway . . .
She took aim, and launched the cupcake.
“You bitch!”
Nailed him right in the ass.
Looks like those middle school summers playing district league sports really had taught her valuable life skills.
She took out her camera phone and zoomed in on the cupcake sticking to Bill’s slacks like a snowy-white rabbit tail puff. Folks didn’t call her buttercream frosting the thickest and richest in the county for nothing. That sweet lil’ treat was good and stuck.
Say cheese!
As she pocketed her phone and headed back into the bakery to shut off the electrical panel, Emma made a mental note to add “excellent aim with projectile baked goods” to her online dating profile . . . along with this spiffy new photo for her profile pic. The site did say to choose one that best represented her, after all.
She couldn’t stand when folks weren’t honest on stuff like that.