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Chapter One
Bela
It is the rich chocolate of his brown eyes that lingers with me the most. The way he can be across the street and the second he looks at me, I have to stop. Anytime our eyes lock, we stand there like we are caught in an invisible web. Or if I happen to have my back to the door when he walks into my bakery, I know, just know, it is him. No need to turn and check. It’s almost like the electricity shifts and all the hairs on my arms and neck lift.
What is up with that?
Fate is what my best friends like to call it, but me? I don’t know. Cherry Fall’s fire chief is a mystery to me every day of the week, and on a Sunday like today, I have way too much quiet time on my hands. A wandering muse can get a girl in trouble.
Even his name stirs the fires. Strong, dominant. Nothing wildly insane. Stable.
“Miles Malone,” I mutter to myself.
The soft click of heels hits my ears seconds before my back door swings open.
Sunbeams chase her feet as she closes the door behind her. “Wow. Simply, just...WOW!” She grabs my shoulders and peeks over at my work. “Damn girl, that’s gorgeous! Did you just wake up one day and say, this is it. I want to make cakes for the rest of my life?”
I tuck my straight shoulder-length hair behind an ear, flashing a smile. “Poppy O’ Henry, I was wondering when you would break away and come steal a cookie,” I say through a laugh. I don’t look up from my work when I hear the door to my sunroom slash laundry area creak open and my best friend walks in. Bubbly, energetic, and lover of all things with a pedal.
“Promise me you’ll do my cake when—if— the big day comes?”
“Of course! Like that’s even a question.”
She sets a fresh cup of black cherry mocha—to die for and addictive—from the Cherry Tree Coffee Co down the road. My mouth waters the second the decadent scent hits me while she picks a pink-iced cookie for us both.
My new place, Bela’s Bakery doesn’t open until noon on Sundays so Poppy knows to use her spare key on the back door. Plus, I keep all the freshly decorated cookies on a shelf to the right of the door, and she always loves being the first to scope one out.
“You would think being a pastry chef was always my dream but nah. I wanted to be a legit worm hunter for my dad, a snail rescuer thanks to my back-door neighbor who had more salt piles on her porch than—”
“Eww, gross,” Poppy cuts in. “But kinda cool too. Both probably landed you lots of boyfriends, huh?” she wiggles her brows and smirks.
“Err...sadly no.” Being a tomboy who could out-boy the cutest boy in school tended to scare the boys away.
“Sorry I cut in,” she gives a little shiver and leans a hip against my work counter, eyes drinking in one of the two projects I have spread out.
“What else? You had something else you were going to say. Let me guess, a candle maker?” She spies my collection tastefully placed amongst a variety of cakes and pies.
I shake my head, lips sealed shut.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you? There was something else you were going to say.” She points her cookie at me. “Come on, fess up.”
I shrug, batting away her assumption. When I first arrived in town a couple of months ago, Poppy was the first to welcome me to the small town of Cherry Falls. She loved my ideas for the new bakery I purchased from the fire chief’s adoptive parents, and I loved her ability to grow literally anything. Our styles are a little bit different—she’s super chic and mine is based on ‘if it pairs with jeans or a pretty skirt, we roll’. We became instant best friends.
Lucky for me the local flower girl liked cookies and had a sweet tooth the day I hung out my shingle because I needed a friend. Nothing is worse than coming to a new town and not knowing a soul. Added bonus we’re the same age. Twenty-four is an interesting age, my mom likes to say. The door to the world is open and you can pick any path. Mine led me to Cherry Falls. Leaving behind Syn City was painful at first, but a quaint town like this one grows on you fast.
A few months ago, I lost my dear gran, which pushed me into committing to an idea already baking in the back of my head. My gran was a woman who saw to it I knew how to make pancakes by five and any kind of cake by twelve. The talk of one day setting up her own bakery in Cherry Falls was a dream she never saw into reality.
I take in the filled dessert cases, the sweet pies and tarts, all treats she taught me how to make, and smile to myself.
With the inheritance Gran left, Bela’s Bakery is a dream come true for both of us. But it’s a lot of long hours and hard work.
I arch a brow, not taking my eye off the edible gold foil I am working up the ripped seam of a wedding cake. It’s going to be epic with the spilled amethyst-colored candied gems down the side and all the flowers. I still have another day’s worth of work ahead.
“What makes you think there’s a ‘something else’? Aren't those two bad enough?”
Poppy takes another chunk out of her heart cookie, the sprinkled glitter on top raining over her white blouse.
I smile.
