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Chapter 1
Even if she had spotted Finn on time, for the life of her, she couldn’t have ducked to hide under the bakery’s counter. The main downside to being five-foot-ten was that Anne was never able to blend into the background and be a proper wallflower. Then again, she never did things properly. Even the man she had fallen in love with, who was now making his way toward the counter, had married her cousin.
Anne planted her feet on the somewhat sticky floor, hoping the way her joints were suddenly replaced with cotton wool and her heart leaped from her chest into her throat wasn’t visible to anyone. The scented warmth of the bakery’s ovens coming from the back was the crutch her soul leaned on.
The packed space of Breading Dreams, the people who stood along the counter either paying or choosing their pastries while chatting to her parents as they served them, and even Hope Hays, her friend who came in just to say hi, were all forgotten. All she saw was Finn’s face, the one she had imagined she’d caught a glimpse of through the display window an hour ago; the one she hadn’t seen in five years. She had hoped she’d been wrong. She had hoped that even if she were right, he wouldn’t come in, as he never had since she had moved back to town. But he had, and now she couldn’t take her eyes off him.
“Anne?” Hope’s voice startled her into realizing the comforting hand that she had placed on Hope’s arm just a moment before had turned into a clutch.
Her only reply was to loosen her grip.
Anne stared at the dark-blond-haired man with the prominent, pool-blue eyes who now stood in the disarrayed line among the Riviera View locals and out-of-towners who had arrived for the town’s Goodbye To Summer fair.
Finn’s eyes met hers over Hope’s head. He stepped closer, standing almost next to Hope.
“Hi, Jane.” Her old yet unforgotten name dropped from his lips.
Anne felt Hope’s gaze shift between them in bafflement. Though Hope had moved to town long after Finn had moved away, she was familiar with the history of her choice to go by her middle name. Ironically, it had been Eric, Hope’s ex-husband’s nickname for her in high school that had pushed her to change it.
“Finn,” was all she managed to say, unable to break her gaze from the ocean in Finn’s eyes, feeling blood drain from her face, which probably turned her usual milky complexion even paler. These days she protected her skin, but there had been a time when she had done everything she could to gain a tan, although all it ever did was turn her lobster-red and peeling rather than the beautiful golden shades many sported in surfer towns like Riviera View. Growing up, her whiter shade of pale was considered almost unforgivable, and she suspected that was one reason she had earned the nickname Plain Jane in high school.
She was so engrossed that she almost missed Hope’s exit from the bakery with a confused expression on her face. She waved at her with a hand that felt like clay.
The voices of the other customers and her parents, who were busy serving sticky buns and cupcakes, along with kind smiles as they had been doing for the last twenty-five years, resurfaced, as if a volume button had suddenly been turned back up and reality burst back into her Finn-centric vision.
“What can I get you?” she asked as if he was just another customer when he finally stood in front of her with nothing but the counter separating them. She knew it was only her imagination that made her smell a whiff of pool water. She wanted him out of there before her parents noticed him and would be all familial with him, or before Avery—her cousin and his ex-wife—would follow him into the bakery with their son.
He gave her a soft, understanding smile, knowing why she was sticking to business-as-usual mode. With their history and convoluted family ties, there was no other choice. “I’ll take one of each of these, please.” He pointed at the red velvet and hummingbird cupcakes. “I’m in town for Max, and I know he loves these. You make them?”
Anne placed the cupcakes in a box carrying the Breading Dreams logo. “Sometimes,” she replied. Laconic replies were all he ever got from her, all she ever could offer him or afford in the family get-togethers that forced them to share space.
When she handed him the box with the sweets for his and Avery’s son and reached for the credit card that he handed over, Finn caught her fingers for one drawn-out moment that peeled layers of years from her heart. She snatched her hand back and turned to the register, promising herself to get a contactless payment device as soon as possible.
“Can we talk sometime, Jane?” Finn asked in a lowered voice, a voice that had once whispered, “Fuck, I can’t ever unlove you,” with lips that kissed every inch of her body.
“Thank you for your purchase. Have a great day,” she said, plastering on a customer-friendly smile. She then turned it to the lady who stood behind Finn and, with a gesture of her chin, added, “Hi, Mrs. Kim. How are you enjoying the fair so far, and what can I get you today?”
“Hi, Anne, dear,” the woman replied enthusiastically. “It’s lovely and crowded outside! So many people. Can you please get me …?”
Anne hardly heard her. Though her gaze wasn’t on him, her attention, unwittingly, was. In her periphery, she saw how he steeled his lips and hardly budged, even when Mrs. Kim shouldered her way past him to the front of the line.
“I’m sorry. It’s a bit noisy today. What will it be again?” Anne asked the older lady as soon as Finn finally turned and strutted his wide shoulders and swimmer’s build out to the street. The door that opened every few minutes swept in waves of music, chatter of a large crowd, and ocean breeze.
She wished she could hate him, be mad at him, or at least unlove him. God knew she had tried. But she never did. She never could. Not even when he had married her cousin, the woman whom she had been raised to think of as the sister she’d never had. Not even when she had to keep secret everything that had happened between them before. Not even when she’d had to attend their wedding and decorate their wedding cake.
