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“Are you heading back?” Candice asks, glancing up from her phone.
I nod. “I’m tired.”
Her fingers fly over her screen. “Okay. Drive safe!”
“Next time you take a vacation, Jen, promise me you’ll take an actual vacation. Like, outside of the town limits.” Iliana arches a brow. “I can recommend some places for you to visit.”
Pausing at the door as I hike my purse over my shoulder, I glance at my friend’s sister and give her a smile. “That sounds good, Lily. I’d like that.”
And it’s the truth. Because I know there will be a next time. I’ll be taking more vacations from now on.
The drive back to the Heart’s Cove Manor Retreat is full of elongating shadows and pastel skies I spy through the gaps in the trees. Tonight, I’ll finish the last book in my collection and come up with an action plan. Then I’ll call Fallon and tell him to get his butt back here.
But when I pull into the parking lot, my heart jumps. There’s a familiar Jeep parked in one of the spaces.
Fallon’s Jeep.
He came back? I creep closer, glancing in the jeep to see one of his sweatshirts balled up in the back seat. He came back!
Is that who Candice was texting so frantically earlier?
Fallon’s here!
I suck in a breath, ready to sprint inside the main farmhouse, then I freeze. I haven’t formulated a plan yet. Shit! I need to make him understand that I don’t care about his past. I like him for who he is now.
Gus’s words come back to me. I could start by thanking him—and not just for the prize money, because I fully intend on splitting it. No, I can thank him for being there for me for the past month. For putting me in contact with Amanda and making my recipe book a reality. For being a steady presence at my side during many a baking meltdown.
When I hurry along the path, I’m surprised to see lights on inside the barn. One of the big doors is cracked open, and I drift closer. The familiar kitchen islands are still set up, with refrigerators lining the back wall. I inhale the scent of the room, memories of the past month flooding my head. I fell head over heels with Fallon in this room.
Maybe we can take cooking classes together here. Maybe we can teach cooking classes together here.
The shape of a man is bent over a refrigerator on the far wall, his body silhouetted in the light.
“Fallon?” I call out, easing my way inside the door. “What are you doing?”
The man straightens, and it’s not Fallon at all. He turns, and the first thing I notice is that he’s shirtless. The second thing I notice is smears of something on his chest…blood?
No.
Pie. The man has cherry pie all over his chest and mouth, like a toddler, a chunk clutched in his hand.
Then I register his face.
“Guillaume?”
“Ma chérie,” he croons, stumbling closer to me. “Finally you came to me.”
Cherry pie is smeared all over his lips, his chin, dripping onto his bare chest, as if he stuffed his face right into the pie.
What the fuck?
“What are you doing here?” I’m frozen on the spot, heart racing.
My old boss takes another step toward me. “I’ve been waiting for you to realize we belong together. I know you love me.”
Uh…
Oh, hell no. Another one? Two in one week? Is there something in the water? Why are these men now obsessed with me, thinking I feel the same way? I haven’t had a real boyfriend for two decades, but all of a sudden these men are coming out of the woodwork trying to get with me? What the hell is going on?
