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“Hey! Have some respect for your injured big brother.”
“So now you want the sympathy? I don’t think so. I figured you’d fight me about coming home so I’ve made other arrangements for you.”
Avery stopped petting the cat and sat up straight. Alarm bells rang loud and clear. His sister had tried more than once to set him up on blind dates. He’d successfully avoided all of them. He wasn’t about to get caught up in Beth’s matchmaking now.
“I’m not going on any blind dates.” His tone was firm.
“Okay. But I haven’t set you up.”
He swallowed hard. “Then what exactly have you arranged for me?”
“Why do you sound so worried?”
“Because I am. You don’t exactly have the most conservative plans. And you do know that I’m not as mobile as I’d like to be.”
“You worry too much. Sometimes you act more like our father than our brother. You really need to loosen up and act your age.”
In truth, he did feel quite a few years beyond his biological age. After all, he’d been a guardian to his brother and sister since they were twelve. For six years, he’d been raising them. And those teenage years were not easy. His sympathies went out to his parents over what he’d put them through. He’d had no idea of the worries that were involved in parenting. He was not planning to repeat the experience—ever.
“Enough with picking on me,” he said. “What exactly have you done this time?”
“Something that will keep you from sitting at home and sulking over missing out on the rodeo—”
“Beth,” he prompted. His patience was at an end.
“I entered you in the Bachelor Bake-Off.”
“The what?”
“You know. The big fundraiser the town is planning.”
“No. I don’t know.”
“How can you live there and yet I know more about the goings-on of Marietta than you do? Boy, you don’t keep up on things, do you?”
“Beth.”
“Well, the town wanted to do something to remember Harry Monroe. And someone donated that old run-down house beside the Chamber of Commerce, but it’s going to take a lot of money to fix it up.”
“Fix it up for what?”
“Harry’s House. It’ll be a kid’s activity center. Isn’t that great?”
Avery was trying to take this all in and how it involved him. “The house sounds like a great idea. I’m sure Harry would have approved.”
Avery had gone to school with Harry. They’d played on some of the same sports teams. And Avery wanted to do his part for the fundraiser, but surely no one would enter him in a baking competition. He could manage cooking hot dogs and hamburgers, but cakes would push his limits.
“Beth, you surely don’t expect me to bake anything that someone would want to eat, do you?”
“You can do it. Those cupcakes you bake every year for my birthday are perfect. You can make those.”
He choked down his denial. What his little sister didn’t know is that those cupcakes were special ordered from the Copper Mountain Gingerbread and Dessert Company. He’d paid extra to have them use his mother’s recipes—strawberry cupcakes for Beth and cinnamon apple for Jordan. And here he’d been so proud of himself that every year he’d been able to sneak them in the house. No one had ever caught on to his secret. Now it was all coming back to bite him in a big way.
“Beth, this isn’t a good idea—”
“Oh.” There was a distinct note of poutiness in her voice. “I thought you would have been happy to take part. Harry’s family is even sponsoring you and paying your entry fee. Well, it’s their grocery store that’s the named sponsor, but you know what I mean.”
And the pressure continued to mount. Avery cleared his throat. “Harry’s family already knows about this idea?”
