AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Rudolph Hutchins almost always came in right as they opened, ordering a bear claw from them before heading toward Sweet Thing to get a coffee. Mindy’s closest friend in town, Sarah Parks, owned the other bakery, and they often ran complementary deals.
Right now, they had a punch card reward system that was valid at each bakery, so if someone bought a baked treat at one shop and a coffee at the other in the same day three times, they’d get a coupon to both bakeries to use during their next visit. It was a great deal, and many of the townsfolk had been taking full advantage of it.
After the slightly grouchy older man grunted out his order and took it to go, a steady stream of people began to file into the warm bakery. Since it was the holiday season, it was the busiest time of the year for Snowy Pine Ridge, which saw a lot of visitors during this time of year. So many of the faces that crowded into the shop were unfamiliar, and after the first hour, Mindy’s cheeks had begun to hurt from smiling as she greeted new customers.
A lull in the customers fell over them around mid-morning, and she and Allison took the time to begin refilling a few of the items that had started to run low. As she was placing a new batch of blueberry crumble muffins into the display case, movement outside the window caught her attention.
Mindy’s gaze flicked toward the front of the store, and she watched a sleek black car pull up to the curb across the street from the bakery and come to a stop. She was about to turn her attention back to the task at hand, writing the car off as another tourist or someone just driving through town. But then the door opened, and curiosity got the better of her.
She kept looking out the window as a man in a tailored camel colored pea-coat slid smoothly out of the car. As he brought himself to his full height, he had his back turned toward the bakery, so she couldn’t get a good look at his face. Even at a distance, though, there was something about the set of the man’s shoulders and his dark, perfectly styled hair that seemed familiar to her.
She wasn’t entirely sure why, but her heart began to speed up at the sight of the man. He continued to look up and down the road on the other side of the street, and Mindy couldn’t quite tell if he was taking in the town, or if he was waiting for someone.
Slowly, the mystery man began to turn, continuing his perusal of his surroundings. As more of his face came into view, Mindy’s stomach dropped. Her breath caught in her throat, and her heart felt like it was going to pop out of her chest.
There was a reason that his stance and build had seemed so familiar to her. She had spent plenty of time memorizing his features back when they had dated.
Inch by inch, Noah Henderson’s full face came into view, and Mindy had to work to control her breathing as she stared at her ex-boyfriend. There was no doubt that it was him. Same broad shoulders, same high cheekbones and wide set mouth, same strong jaw and thick eyebrows. He had aged well since the last time she had seen him, becoming somehow even more handsome, although his dour expression undercut his good looks a bit.
“Excuse me?”
The voice came from directly in front of her, and Mindy blinked hastily as she ripped her gaze away from her ex-boyfriend and turned it toward the customer who was standing at the cash register. She had been so caught up in the shock of seeing Noah for the first time in years that she hadn’t even heard the cute old woman now standing in front of her approach.
The woman was looking at her with concern in her gray-blue eyes, her head tilted to the side. “Are you all right?”
“Yes! I’m so sorry,” Mindy said much more shakily than she’d intended. Then she plastered a smile on her face. “I was just daydreaming. What can I get for you?”
The old woman began rattling off her order, and Mindy rang her up. But her mind was still reeling over the sight of Noah. She had to ask the woman to repeat two different things because she couldn’t seem to fully concentrate on her words. The only things that Mindy was able to focus on were the questions that rang out loud and clear in her mind.
What on earth is Noah Henderson doing in Snowy Pine Ridge?
And how do I feel about it?
Unfortunately, she had to admit that her answer to both of those questions was a simple, unsatisfactory,I don’t know.
CHAPTERTWO
Noah Henderson nodded as he glanced around the town, taking in the picturesque buildings made of stone, brick, and wood, all of them painted in soft, quaint colors. There were Christmas lights hanging merrily from every roof, every light pole wrapped in garland and topped with holly, and nearly every tree had Christmas ornaments that sparkled in the sun.
“It looks like I’m trapped in the middle of a snow globe,” he muttered to himself as he swiveled his head again to take in more of the town.
He wasn’t particularly moved by the sight of all the decorations. While Noah could appreciate the amount of work it took to decorate an entire town from top to bottom, he’d never been one to be swayed by festive things or small-town charm. Although he did have to admit that in this particular circumstance, it would likely suit his purposes rather nicely.
His eyes landed on the words scrawled on the window of the business directly across the street from him.Baking Fiend. His eyebrows quirked up with interest, and he wondered for a moment if he had time to run in and see if they had coffee. But that thought was quickly pushed from his mind as a voice rang out from his right.
“There you are,” Hugh Brockton huffed as he hurrieddown the sidewalk toward Noah. “Was already down at the town hall when I got your text, so I nearly had to run here.”
Noah smiled at the local lawyer who had been hired to oversee the execution of his aunt Theresa’s will, and he extended his hand for the man to shake.
“I didn’t mean for you to rush. You could have taken your time,” he said. “It would have allowed me to get better acquainted with the town.”
“Can’t,” Hugh grunted, shaking his head so vigorously that the man’s impressively bushy mustache shifted with the force of it. “We’re already nearly late for your meeting with the mayor and some of the business owners in town.”
Noah’s heart kicked up a notch at that. He checked his watch, surprised to see that Hugh was right. He wasn’t late, but he was much closer to it than he liked being. Noah had often abided by the rule that being early was being on time, and if you were on time, that meant you were late.
But as the second hand on his watch continued to tick away, he realized that if he and Hugh didn’t get a move on, they were likely going to be actually late.
“All right then,” he said, motioning for his lawyer to lead the way. “Off we go.”
