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Promises Under the Peach Tree
Joanne Rock
THE TROUBLE WITH HEARTACHENina Spencer swore she was done with Heartache, Tennessee, when she left the town-and her sexy ex, Mack-in her rearview mirror. But when her bakery business is rocked by scandal, she needs a place to regroup. What she doesn't need is Mack Finley reminding her of peach-flavored kisses and the hold he still has on her. Mack never forgot Nina-not that he didn't try. Yet between caring for his family and organizing the annual Harvest Fest, he's overwhelmed and he needs Nina's help. They can work together without getting swept up in memories and the rush of brand-new passion… right?


The trouble with Heartache
Nina Spencer swore she was done with Heartache, Tennessee, when she left the town—and her sexy ex, Mack—in her rearview mirror. But when her bakery business is rocked by scandal, she needs a place to regroup. What she doesn’t need is Mack Finley reminding her of peach-flavored kisses and the hold he still has on her.
Mack never forgot Nina—not that he didn’t try. Yet between caring for his family and organizing the annual Harvest Fest, he’s overwhelmed and he needs Nina’s help. They can work together without getting swept up in memories and the rush of brand-new passion…right?
“Does this feel like friendship to you?”
Mack tucked his hands behind her knees and swiveled Nina to face him. He palmed her calves through her jeans, pinning her knees to his.
They stared for a long, breathless moment, suspended beside one another and close enough to share each breath. Old feelings rose up inside her like a living thing, combining with new ones she hadn’t expected. The scent of his aftershave—bay rum and spices—made her want to breathe deeper.
Her mouth went dry as chalk, and she couldn’t answer. She shook her head. Licked her lips to try to speak…
But Mack was already leaning closer, his head tilting. She closed her eyes at the last second, savoring the press of his mouth to hers. His lips were warm and sure against hers, the pressure light but definite, just enough to let her know his intent before he took more.
Dear Reader (#ulink_f67c41a4-ac47-5720-9628-eb3034f76bee),
I’ve always loved a coming home story, so it made sense that I’d be called to write one for my very first book for Mills & Boon Superromance. Living far from the place I grew up, I can identify with the mix of nostalgic feelings that returning home evokes, and the way “home” means something unique to everyone. For Nina Spencer, home is a place full of happy memories and some dark times, too. At the center of it all is Mack Finley, her onetime love. Nina thought she’d put him in her rearview mirror along with the rest of Heartache, Tennessee, but when all roads lead back to the place where she was raised, she has no choice but to face old feelings for him—mixed up with some brand-new ones, too!
Small towns and first loves leave their imprints on our hearts. From the Heartache Harvest Festival to Nina and Mack’s first kiss, every best and worst moment of Nina’s teenage years remained a part of her long after she left home. And it’s strange how the things we run hardest from can be the same things that lure us back. I hope you enjoy Mack and Nina’s reunion as well as your time in Heartache. It’s a place I’ll want to return to, and I hope you do, too. It feels like home to me.
Happy reading,
Joanne Rock
Promises Under the Peach Tree
Joanne Rock


www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (#ulink_87129eed-87b3-5995-a38b-91fb43e409b0)
While working on her master’s degree in English literature, JOANNE ROCK took a break to write a romance novel and quickly realized a good book requires as much time as a master’s program itself. She became obsessed with writing the best romance possible, and sixty-some novels later, she hopes readers have enjoyed all the “almost there” attempts. Today, Joanne is a frequent workshop speaker and writing instructor at regional and national writer conferences. She credits much of her success to the generosity of her fellow writers, who are always willing to share insights on the process. More important, she credits her readers with their kind notes and warm encouragement over the years for her joy in the writing journey.
For Dean,
the sort of romantic hero I’d choose all over again.
Contents
Cover (#ucec49d29-1f9c-5b58-bdc2-b247f1ba44cb)
Back Cover Text (#u516e1650-6db4-5df7-a17f-341a55fd3e48)
Introduction (#ubdba9c4d-ca36-5dc8-8f59-eaa4cbab0a37)
Dear Reader (#ulink_572648b6-73ca-58f0-aa56-5ddd498e93df)
Title Page (#u38241ab8-7473-55e4-ae90-0f509c02bf86)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR (#ulink_433a3649-6ded-57a0-bade-dc6d758fda6d)
Dedication (#ua734086a-9abd-50f1-902c-15c9c12a0d69)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_c5858aa3-882a-5ebd-a43e-9a94219df3bf)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_76561188-c9d0-5654-b610-b55cb1ccaf63)
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_dd7213b6-7c8b-5235-907f-487b3c7795c7)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_4854bb27-aef1-5677-ab59-41e6d88ab0bf)
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_1204bce8-8358-5941-9f74-93d0399ae539)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_fd70cf82-8f56-5ac6-b531-da365a86752b)
THE NIGHT MACK FINLEY lost his virginity with Nina Spencer, the kisses had been peach-flavored and the summer night had been hot enough to sear the scent of the orchard into his brain.
Now, he couldn’t set foot in his Tennessee hometown of Heartache without memories of Nina lambasting him from all sides. It didn’t matter if it was late summer when the trees lined the road, heavy with ripe fruit. Or if someone simply mentioned her name. Today, when both things happened at once, Mack’s thoughts took an extended vacation to that teenage summer eight years ago.
“Mack?” His brother’s voice came through Mack’s Bluetooth as he wound through the Tennessee hills to the west of Interstate 65 in his old Eldorado convertible. “Are you still there? Can you hear me?”
Mack raked a hand through his hair as he cruised past the gazebo in the town park that had sheltered every family reunion and major wedding anniversary for as long as he could remember. He went past the ancient hardware store that was still independently run despite numerous attempts by chain stores to move into town.
“Yeah. I’m here.” In the tiny town of Heartache, where he’d grown up. He’d stepped away from his bar business for a few days in order to help his oldest brother, Scott, with the town’s Harvest Festival. It was a tradition their father—a longtime mayor—had resurrected to restore community pride during a tough economic period. After his dad’s death last spring, the town council lobbied hard for the Finley family to spearhead the event to honor their father’s memory. Mack dodged most family commitments, but he couldn’t pass off this one because his brother needed him. Not much else could have brought him back to this town. Heartache. Yep. Town’s name summed it up damn well for him. “But I must have heard you wrong.”
He hoped that was the case as he slowed in front of a stop sign near the sandwich shop that his father had gotten on the historic registry two years ago. The registry had described it as quaint. Looked just as rundown as it always had to Mack.
“You heard right.” Scott’s voice lowered as if he didn’t have a lot of privacy on his end of the call. “Nina Spencer is in town.”
“Hell.” The sucker punch still rattled Mack’s teeth the second time around. He drove by rote memory, his brain too stunned to process anything more than that one simple sentence and the overwhelming scent of peaches.
“I would have called sooner, but I only just found out.”
“Nina never comes back here.” About five years ago he’d stopped trying to make sure she wasn’t around whenever he came to town, as it became clear she avoided Heartache like the plague.
That had suited him fine, especially since he’d been married then. Another woman he did not want to think about, especially not today. His hands tightened on the wheel of the convertible as he coasted past an antiques store that marked the end of the main street.
“And she never came here. She’s over at Mom’s house.”
At their mother’s house?
Which meant Mack had all of a minute to get his head on straight before he faced her again. Damn, this was getting worse by the second.
The house where Mack had grown up sat at the end of a cul-de-sac that had once been his grandfather’s farm. Now, two of Mack’s four siblings had homes on the same street. The lot his father had given to Mack still sat vacant. His ex-wife hadn’t wanted to settle in Heartache any more than he had. That had been one of the few things they’d agreed on in their brief marriage.
“What is Nina doing there?” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he turned the corner past the high school football field where he’d left behind a record or two.
The same field where—underneath those bleachers—an ill-fated party had sent his life and Nina’s into a tailspin. “Beats me. I was working in the garage when I saw her pull into Mom’s driveway with her grandmother. They brought...looks like a homemade pie. Mrs. Spencer still bakes a lot when the peaches are in season.”
Nina Spencer was at his mother’s house. With a peach pie.
“Shit,” Scott muttered finally. “I know you drove a long way, and you did it to help me out. But if you want to turn around—”
“No.” Mack hadn’t just made the trip for the Harvest Fest. He’d made it because his brother’s wife was threatening to walk out, and the guy was dying at the thought of losing her and their teenage daughter. So if his being here could help his brother work on his home life, then nothing—not even Nina standing stark naked in front of him with that peach pie—could chase him off. “I’m not leaving. I’m going to stay and do whatever I can to take some of the pressure off you so you can spend time with your family.”
“Are you sure?”
Actually, he’d rather walk through fire. But family came first.
“I’m...yeah. I’m sure.” Mack squeezed the sides of his temples and willed away thoughts of peach-flavored kisses.
He’d always known they’d see each other again. For that matter, it was probably long overdue, if only to sweep the past under the rug and forget about it. Move. The Hell. On.
“Thanks for the heads-up, Scott. I’ll be there in a minute.” Disconnecting the call and now two streets away from his mom’s house, he steeled himself for the sight of Nina.
No matter the nightmarish way that he’d parted with her, he regretted that she wouldn’t have a minute to prepare herself, too. Damn it, he should have asked Scott to somehow give her a heads-up that Mack was on the way. Because he had the feeling this meeting wasn’t going to be any easier for her than it was for him.
But by that time, he was already pulling up to the old farmhouse. Switching off the ignition.
He listened to his engine tick, tick softly in the still summer air, his gaze landing on the old blue Ford pickup in front of him that had been an antique even when Nina had driven it during their senior year. Nina’s grandmother must have stored it in one of the barns at her place all these years. He’d changed the oil on that truck. Watched drive-in movies from a musty sleeping bag in the bed of it.
He shoved open the car door and stalked up the gravel driveway lined by old sheds that hadn’t held farm equipment in twenty years. Luce—his father’s black lab—wagged her tail in greeting and sniffed his pocket. Seeing no treat in her future, she didn’t bother walking him to the door, retreating to a shady spot under a massive red oak.
The farmhouse needed a coat of paint and new shutters, something his father hadn’t let Mack do while he’d been alive. Stubborn to a fault, the old man had liked to do things himself even when the effort had exhausted him. Maybe Mack would be able to accomplish more than just helping with the Harvest Fest while he was in town. He could use the distraction of painting if Nina was going to be nearby.
Then, without warning, he heard her voice from around the side of the house. What would she be doing back there?
His step faltered. Nina had a laugh he could have picked out from a thousand other women’s. Low and throaty, like she’d just confided a wicked secret. The sound drifted around the corner and out to the front of the deep wraparound porch just as he hit the painted wooden steps.
The screen door creaked on its hinge as the two Spencer women emerged from the old enclosure near the side door. Mack had a nanosecond to see Nina before she spotted him, and he drank in the sight.
Dark blue jeans hugged lean curves and a thin, silvery belt wrapped around a slim waist. A simple black T-shirt and a long chain around her neck with a heart pendant both looked like things she would have worn eight years ago.
Her shoulder-length blond hair was a shade darker and she had styled it sleek and straight. From her profile, he could tell she still had the same broad grin and moody gray eyes. She hadn’t aged a day. Then their gazes collided. Her gasp was audible. Sharp. And about as warm and welcoming as a woman who had just seen a ghost.
“Nina.” His voice caught on her name even though he tried to smile through it. “Welcome back.”
* * *
WHEN A WOMAN dreams of running into an old flame—the one who took her virginity then really and truly shredded her heart—she imagined looking like a million bucks, not something the cat coughed up.
Nina couldn’t have been any more humbled to come back to Heartache now, her career in ruins, while Mack Finley cruised up in a vintage Cadillac convertible and looking good enough to eat. There’d been a time when she’d confided all her secret ambitions of success in New York City to the tall, incredibly well-sculpted man standing in front of her.
How ironic that he’d found plenty of success a stone’s throw away in Nashville with a country-music bar, while she was crawling back home to debate the merits of declaring bankruptcy for her cupcake bakery.
From his light brown hair and square jaw to the rogue dimple in one cheek, he was a hot guy by anyone’s standard. And no matter how long she spent outside of Tennessee, Nina was still particularly vulnerable to a man who knew how to wear a pair of jeans—present company undoubtedly included if she allowed her eyes to venture any farther south than his shoulders.
Awkward silence stretched.
“Hi.” Her heart hammered a crazy rhythm in her chest, which pissed her off considering the way things had ended between them. “Thank you. Nice to see you, too. We were just leaving as your mother doesn’t appear to be home.”
A social nicety to say as much; Nina was certain Mack’s mom was hiding behind a curtain of that big farmhouse and glaring down at her even now. Mrs. Finley had bipolar disorder, a disease that made her unpredictable. She’d made it clear eight years ago that everything that had gone wrong in Mack’s life was Nina’s fault, and he’d be better off—they’d all be better off—if she left town.
Her grandmother, though, had been perplexed when Mack’s mom hadn’t answered the door, and they’d ended up leaving the pie inside the screen porch.
“Oh, good gracious, Mack Finley, let me look at you,” Nina’s grandmother exclaimed, her fingers digging into Nina’s arm for support as she inched forward across the wide plank floor with the help of a cane in deference to her bad knee.
“Careful,” Nina warned, her arm going around Gram’s waist as her priorities shifted to what really mattered—her eighty-four-year-old grandmother’s health. The only thing that could have dragged her back to Heartache.
Daisy Spencer had given Nina a home and a family even before her parents’ bitter divorce sent them to opposite coasts to get away from each other. And away from the burden of parenting. As a child, Nina had been dropped off at her grandmother’s house for longer and longer stretches until her parents just never returned. She owed her Gram more than she could ever repay.
“How are you, Mrs. Spencer?” Mack smiled before he reached down to carefully wrap his arms around her grandmother’s shoulders for a gentle hug. “It’s great to see you.”
The mayor’s son had inherited his father’s charm. Nina met his golden-flecked dark gaze over her grandmother’s shoulder, her body trapped close to his for that brief moment. She caught a hint of his aftershave and her thoughts caught on an old memory of whisker burn on her cheeks after a date at the drive-in.
“You’ve been too much of a stranger these last few years,” Gram chided him, shaking a manicured pink fingernail in his direction while Nina tried to pull herself together.
“But I’m home now,” Mack assured her grandmother, keeping a hand beneath Gram’s elbow in a way that put his fingers in close proximity to Nina’s where she held her grandmother’s waist. “I figured I should give Scott a hand with the Harvest Fest, so I’ll be sticking around for a couple of weeks.”
Nina stumbled. Her gaze shot to his over her grandmother’s head, but Mack was already talking about hay rides and the Harvest Dance as he helped her grandmother down the porch steps. Collecting herself, Nina matched her step to theirs along the front walkway, but realized that Mack was doing the majority of the work where Gram was concerned.
Had he honestly just said he was in town for two weeks? Right when her cupcake shop had failed and her business partner was up to her ears in scandal? Nina had never thought Mack was the type to gloat. Then again, they’d ended on bitter terms.
“I can manage from here,” Nina interrupted as the Finleys’ old black lab walked with them toward Nina’s pickup truck. “Thanks for the help, Mack, but we’ll be fine.”
Her heart beat hard in her chest. Indignation and wounded pride were stupid things to feel toward a guy who’d dumped her eight years ago. Apparently, coming home brought out her childish side.
“Actually.” Gram cleared her throat. “I have my own ride and I’ll be fine.” She freed her elbow from where Mack had held it and waved at a silver sedan just cruising up the street. In her pink track suit with a big silk daisy pinned to the collar, she was tough to miss.
“A ride where?” Nina squinted into the sunlight. “Gram, I came home to take care of you—”
“But I’m in very good hands,” Gram protested as the car slowed to a stop behind Nina’s truck. “Scott’s daughter, Ally, works at the hairdresser and I need a little color touch-up.” She cupped a handful of white curls and winked at Mack. “A girl is never too old to want to look her best.”
“That’s Ally?” Nina waved at the young woman behind the wheel of the car, trying to reconcile the sad-eyed teen with the wild-child nine-year-old she remembered from when she’d dated Mack. She used to babysit the girl regularly.
Ally held up a hand in the barest excuse for a wave, but her expression remained sullen.
“She picks me up once a month for my salon day,” Gram explained as she shuffled toward the car, favoring one knee. “This time, I texted her to let her know I’d be right around the corner from her house.”
Nina watched Mack help her grandmother move toward the car as he exchanged a few words with his niece and made sure that Luce didn’t trip up the older woman. Had Gram suspected Mack would be here today? Was that the reason for this hasty exit that would leave her alone with Mack?
Nina started digging for her keys to be sure she could make a fast departure of her own.
“Call me if you need a ride home, Gram.” She backed toward her truck once Mack had Gram comfortably settled in the car.
The two of them were chatting as easily as if they saw each other every day. Gram had always had a soft spot in her heart for Nina’s first boyfriend, but then, she didn’t know the whole story.
He’d always accused her of being too impulsive—one of many reasons they’d broken up. But she was different now. Stronger. Smarter. Though Mack Finley—and especially his mother—would likely always see her as little more than a headstrong teenager. Had Mack’s mom called him to say Nina was coming home? He hadn’t been surprised to find her here. No doubt the older woman had also filled him in on Nina’s recent humiliation.
“Ally brings me home on her break,” Gram called through the lowered window after Mack shut the door to the vehicle, wrenching Nina from her dark thoughts. “Don’t worry about me, sweetie. You should enjoy a few hours of freedom.”
Nina attempted a smile as the sedan drove away. But as soon as her grandmother was out of sight, she didn’t bother pretending anymore.
Mack Finley stood ten feet away from her. She hadn’t seen him for eight years and she was better off that way. So, striding closer, she got into his line of vision and folded her arms.
“Satisfied?” She tried not to fume. But it wasn’t easy when frustration roared inside her and the pain of her own failure was still so fresh.
He lifted a brow. Tucked a thumb in the front pocket of his jeans. Stared at her.
“With what, exactly?” His gold-flecked gaze wandered over her.
Her heart raced, which only ramped up her anger.
“With yourself.” She pointed to his well-cut dress shirt that was probably custom-made. To his expensive vintage convertible sitting nearby. “With this chance to make me feel like dirt when my life is imploding—”
“Whoa. Wait.” He held up both hands to stop her, his strong forearms bared where he’d rolled up his shirt sleeves. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, please.” She shook her head. “It can’t be a coincidence that you show up in Heartache just when my business has gone down in flames and my partner has fled to the Cayman Islands with all our assets and a celebrity groom.” Nina had always known her business partner was selfish, but she’d never expected her to do something criminal.
Mack frowned and raked a hand through his hair, a gesture she’d seen him make a hundred times before. Back when she’d spent her days studying algebra with him or playing cards on that sprawling front porch a few yards away. Back when she’d thought nothing of leaning over to kiss his cheek or walk her fingers up his shoulder just for an excuse to touch him.
“Me being here at the same time as you is a coincidence.” He lowered his voice and glanced toward his mother’s house. “At least, as much of a coincidence as it can be when two people from a podunk town end up back home in the same week. If you ask me, it’s a damn miracle it hasn’t happened before now.”
He’d stepped closer to make his case and the scent of his aftershave had her thinking about whisker burn again. It was all she could do not to put a hand on her cheek to make sure her skin wasn’t really stinging the way she imagined.
“Is that so?” She felt shaky. Embarrassed at the possibility that he hadn’t come to town to humiliate her at the suggestion of his mother.
What if her accusation had been yet another impulsive leap, just like he’d always accused her of?
“That’s the absolute truth.” His eyebrows furrowed in a way that meant business. “You’re the one at my house, remember? If anything, I ought to be calling you out for showing up at my mom’s house with—” his expression darkened “—peach pie.”
“Excuse me? You’re angry I brought food?” She didn’t understand him any better now than she had eight years ago. “For that matter, how did you know about the pie?”
She looked up at the house again, convinced more than ever that his mother was in there, grinding her teeth until Nina left.
Mack’s chin jutted. “Scott called to give me a heads-up that you were here.”
Even in their tight-knit family, the brothers had been particularly close. Mack said it was because Scott had hauled him out of a frozen pond once when Mack had fallen through while skating. Nina remembered Scott as the family ringleader, carting his siblings to sports practices and showing up at Mack’s football games.
“We came over because Gram did a lot of baking yesterday and had some extra pies. She figured your mother could use some company.” Mack’s mom had been widowed last spring, but even before then, she had rarely left the house due to...personal issues. Not wanting to dwell on the topic, Nina shifted gears in a hurry. “I’m staying with Gram for...a while.”
“How long?” He loomed over her and she realized her back was almost against the pickup truck.
Too bad reclaiming her ground would mean getting closer to him.
“A few weeks at least.” Needing a distraction, she whistled softly to Luce. The black lab lumbered over to have a seat beside her, offering her head for a scratch. “I originally planned to come here to escape the flak around my business’s closure. But Gram’s health has also gotten worse. Bad enough that my dad mentioned assisted living—”
She stopped herself from confiding anything more personal. Mack hadn’t been a friend for a long time.
“Nice of him to show up and help his mother out,” Mack muttered, obviously remembering her father well.
“No kidding.” For all that Mack had broken her heart, he would never have turned his back on his family as her father had done.
She’d always dreamed of a family of her own one day, and the chance to give her kids the kind of home she’d always wanted. She’d assumed Mack would share that dream. But he’d told her once he would never have his own children.
“I’m sure your grandmother appreciates having you here.”
“I never would have even known she was so frail if I hadn’t come here and seen her with my own eyes.” The last Nina had seen Gram six months ago, she’d been recovering nicely from knee surgery. “She fell recently and didn’t tell me—” And there she went again, sharing something personal with Mack. “Anyway, I’ll be in town for a while and it sounds like you will, too. We’ll just...avoid each other.”
There. Done. She gave him a nod and turned to get into the truck.
Fingers on the handle. Door levering open...
“Wait.” Mack dropped a large hand right beside hers on the open door.
She stilled, afraid a sudden movement might bring her in contact with him. He stood behind her, so close the small hairs rose at the back of her neck in a kind of good way. Her body must not have gotten the message that he’d broken her heart when he’d refused to leave Heartache with her.
And then a second time when he’d married...
“What?” The husky note in her voice revealed too much. She cleared her throat.
“Nina.”
A wealth of shared memories in that simple word. God, how many times had he spoken her name before?
“I’m listening.” She had no intention of turning around. No desire to fall into his gaze and be hurt by all the memories there.
“For the record, I hadn’t heard anything about your business and I’m sorry if Cupcake Romance isn’t working out.” The sincerity in his voice only reminded her of her failed dreams.
Although the fact that he remembered the name of her shop lifted her spirits just a little. Had he looked her up on Google at some point? Or asked Gram how she was doing? The thought eased some of the old hurt that he’d just written her off completely as soon as she’d left town. Not enough to forgive him, however.
“I don’t need your sympathy.” She faced him now, unwilling to let him believe that New York had gotten the better of her. “I’ll be fine.”
“I’m sure you will be.” He didn’t move away. “You may not believe it, but I’ve been rooting for you all along.”
That’s why he’d let her go to pursue her dreams alone, right? That’s why he’d chosen his family instead, insisted on staying behind in Heartache to pick up the pieces of the lives ruined on graduation night...
Old anger flared. Just like her parents, Mack talked a good game but he hadn’t really wanted her.
“You’re right. I do find that hard to believe.” She needed to leave. Needed to make sure she didn’t talk to Mack Finley for eight more years. “I really have to get home.”
“Can I just ask you one more thing?”
Absolutely not. Breathing the same air as him was killing her.
“What?” She gripped the heart-shaped locket around her neck, a present Gram had sent her when she’d finished her college program on a scholarship.
“Did your grandmother say if she’s had a falling-out with my mom?”
Nina released a pent-up breath. The subject was safer—for her, at least. Mrs. Finley’s moods had always made her family walk on eggshells around her. Nina had witnessed a few episodes in the years she and Mack had dated, but never anything like the argument they’d had the night she’d left Heartache. Left Mack.
“No. Gram just mentioned that your mother is sticking close to home even more since your father’s death, which I was very sorry to hear about. Your dad did so much for this town.” Not only had Mr. Finley been mayor for longer than anyone else in the history of Heartache, he’d been a genuinely nice man.
“Thank you. We all miss him.” Mack swallowed hard before he glanced toward his mother’s house. “And Mom misses him the most, of course. Scott’s been having a tough time even getting her to her doctor appointments lately, and she’s stopped having Ally overnight on the weekends. I’m debating where to stay for the next couple of weeks while I help Scott with the Harvest Fest.”
He didn’t need to spell out the difficulties of staying with his mother. He’d been as anxious to leave Heartache as Nina, and most of his reasons had revolved around his mother.
“You’re really going to pitch in with the event?” She remembered other Harvest Fests. Especially the Harvest Dance at the end of the festival each year. The year she left, she and Mack had been voted the king and queen, their straw crowns ridiculous and fun. The whole night had been sweetly magical beneath a twirling, pumpkin-shaped disco ball.
She’d told him she loved him that night.
“It’s a lot for Scott to manage on his own. Especially now, when—” He shook his head.
“Is he okay?” She’d been close to the whole Finley family once, as she’d spent half her time at his house during senior year. “I mean, he’s not ill or anything?”
“No. Nothing like that.” He pressed a palm to his forehead for a second and then lowered his hand, but he still looked...pained. “His marriage is going through a rough patch. The tension in the house has been making Ally act out, too. It’s been a tough few months for their family.”
“Really? I’m sorry to hear it.” That news came as a shocker. Scott and Bethany Finley had been the town’s golden couple even before Nina left Heartache. He ran the family construction business and building-supply store. She’d taught preschool and volunteered at the local nursing home. They were solid. Happy. Then, anyway. She’d kept her distance from the Finley family in general on the intermittent weekends she’d visited her grandmother.
But Nina could appreciate the havoc that feuding parents could wreak on a kid. Her heart ached for what Ally must be going through.
“Divorce is painful.” Mack straightened. “I don’t want either of them to go through that.”
Right. Because he knew what it was like.
Another old pain that ached anew.
“It’s kind of you to try and spare them that hurt.” Her arms felt heavy and wooden as she finally opened the truck door. One foot on the running board, she pulled herself up into the driver’s seat and steeled herself to acknowledge Mack’s marriage. “For what it’s worth, I was sorry to hear about you and—” she fought to keep her voice even “—Jenny.”
She stared out the windshield for a long moment, not sure she could look him in the eye. She sensed his gaze on her, though. And it made her feel...
Too much.
“Thank you.” He stood beside the pickup window and pounded his fist gently once, twice on the open sill. “You should call her sometime. I’m sure she’d enjoy hearing from you.”
Nina shoved the key in the ignition of the old Ford and started it up. The mayor’s son had just taken his Nice Guy Act too far, because that was not going to happen.
“Jenny made it clear to me years ago that she blames me for Vince’s death on graduation night, the same as plenty of other people in this town. So if there’s one thing I’m certain of, it’s that your ex-wife doesn’t ever want to hear from me again.”
She didn’t bother saying goodbye. They’d already said it enough to last a lifetime.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_a17b7970-ae1f-591c-91c2-928f8c4f5993)
MACK WATCHED THE ancient blue pickup barrel away, Nina’s words still rattling around in his head.
Mack’s best friend had been hitting on Nina after a graduation party. Nina had called him out on it—making a scene in front of Vince’s girlfriend, Jenny, and the rest of their friends. Mack knew it was because Vince had gotten friendly once too often with Nina. But to the rest of their friends, her reaction had been harsh. Especially when they learned that afterward, Vince had taken off in Mack’s car and crashed into a steel bridge support, dying instantly.
For a couple of hours, people had assumed the body was actually Mack’s, working his bipolar mother into a state that eventually led to a brief hospitalization. It had all been...pure hell. Mack had been pulled in every direction, everyone in his life had needed something from him.
Meanwhile, Nina had dealt with it by speeding up her timetable for leaving Heartache. She packed her bags and took off. He hadn’t blamed her. But how could he have gone with her, considering the fragile state of everyone is his life? His mother. Vince’s mother. Vince’s girlfriend, Jenny. But Nina had never forgiven him for choosing them over her.
A screen door across the street slammed. Boots strode along pavement in an even, purposeful rhythm. Mack yanked his gaze from his mother’s house to see Scott heading toward him, two beers in his hand.
“You okay?” Scott asked as he approached, pressing one of the longnecks into Mack’s palm.
“Positively crappy.” He snapped the top off his beer and indulged in a rare drink. As an occasional bartender at his Nashville club, he cleaned up enough sticky alcohol at closing time to make him stay away from the stuff most days.
Today was not most days.
“That about sums it up.” Scott tapped the bottom of his drink against Mack’s. “I take it Mom didn’t bother answering the door?”
Mack shook his head. “They left the pie on the side porch. I’ll bring it in when I go say hello.”
“Mom doesn’t always answer for Bethany anymore, either.” Scott shrugged. “I’ve been meaning to ask her doctor about it, but she cancelled her last appointment.”
His mom had been quiet lately, not saying much when he phoned her. But he hadn’t realized she’d retreated to this extent. She’d always been happy to see Daisy Spencer.
“I noticed you and Nina exchanged a few words before she left.” Scott took a long drink and waited for information Mack had no intention of sharing. “You want to talk about it?” he asked finally.
“God, no.” Mack had kept his feelings for Nina Spencer locked down for a lot of years. He wasn’t about to break the seal on it now. He was here to help Scott. “I think we can only handle one woman-problem at a time.”
“It might be too late for me, brother.” Scott sat his beer at the base of the red oak tree and leaned a shoulder against the bark.
Tall and rangy, the firstborn Finley was a natural leader. Smart and capable, Scott had always been good at coming up with things for his brothers to do outside the house when their mother was having a bad day. He’d taken over Finley Building Supply Store when their father first ran for mayor so the old man could focus on the town’s problems. Mack often felt guilty that Scott had taken on so many family obligations while Mack lived in Nashville, away from the daily drama.
Nina seemed to believe that Mack had stayed “at home” because he’d never left Tennessee. But in his family’s eyes, he’d ditched them all by moving an hour up the interstate. His absence forced Scott to pull more than his share of the weight where family obligations were concerned. Their sisters were busy with a fledgling business and had even more complicated relationships with their mom than either Scott or Mack—and that was saying something. Scott’s contribution to the family was all the more reason to make sure this event went off without a hitch. Mack owed his dad, but he owed Scott even more. Mack refused to stand by while his brother’s marriage disintegrated.
“It can’t be too late. Why don’t you take off for a week or two? Plan a getaway with just you and Bethany and see if you can work things out?”
“I’m not sure we should leave Ally now when she’s having such a rough go of it. Plus, I can’t leave town with the festival coming up—”
“First of all, screw the festival.” Mack grabbed the nearby tire swing and wrapped his arms around it to steady the old truck tire. “I’ll take care of whatever needs doing there. And as for Ally, don’t you think it would go a long way toward helping her problems if you and Bethany got back on stable ground? You’ve got to work on the marriage first.”
“Like you did with Jenny?”
Mack nearly spewed his drink but ended up just coughing instead. He set the beer on the ground.
“That’s a low blow.”
“That didn’t come out right.” He swiped an impatient hand through the air. “I just mean, you ended that marriage after three years. Something must have told you it was over. How...” Scott scraped the toe of his boot through the patch of grass beneath the tree. “How did you know for sure there was nothing left?”
Nina.
Her name flashed in his brain but he wasn’t about to share that vague, ill-timed thought. As much as the sight of her had stirred his attraction to her today, that attraction had been tempered by resentment.
And he hadn’t been pining for Nina during his marriage. If Jenny hadn’t walked, he’d still be married and he would have turned the car around today to make damn sure Nina stayed out of his mind.
“Jenny made the decision, not me.” He lifted a boot to rest on the inside of the truck tire, the weight of his foot shaking free a few leaves from the oak to rain down around them. “I’m too stubborn to give up on anything once I commit to it. She was the one who changed the rules and decided she wanted kids when she was aware of how I felt about that. After that—for her—it was over. No going back.”
Mack had experienced the ravages of his mother’s disorder and understood the propensity was genetic. Why put a kid through that? As for Jenny...she had her own reasons after a miscarriage as a teen. He never would have asked her to marry him if he’d dreamed she’d change her mind about children.
“You must have fought for her, though.” Scott gave him the oldest brother, I-know-best scowl that he’d perfected as a teenager. “You didn’t just let her go without a fight.”
Mack debated how to answer that one. But Jenny wasn’t like Nina. She wasn’t the kind of woman you could argue with. Both women were strong-willed, but Jenny had become a bulldozer after Vince’s death—nothing got in her way. Not even her husband.
“You just let her go?” Scott prodded.
“This isn’t about me.” Mack took a long swallow of his beer and tried to get his head on straight again. The day was throwing him curveballs left and right. “I messed up with my marriage and won’t let you do the same.”
“I’m not sure Bethany is going to be as agreeable to your plans. But, assuming I still have a snowball’s chance in hell of winning her back, what do you suggest?”
“Take tomorrow off to be with your wife. Give me a list of what needs to happen for the Harvest Fest and I’ll cover for you there and at the store. If you can get Bethany to take off with you for a few days, just leave. I’ll watch out for Ally.”
“I don’t put many hours in the store these days, so you don’t have to cover for me there.” Scott leaned down to pet Luce even though the dog had curled up for a nap in a patch of flattened grass. “Besides, my wife will never go for this.”
Mack wondered where Scott was spending all his time if he wasn’t working at the store. That used to be his full-time gig. When they’d expanded the business, Bethany had quit her teaching job to help him manage the project.
“But you have to try, right? Isn’t that what you just finished telling me?”
“Fine.” Scott pulled out his phone. “I’ll send you my notes from the last town council meeting on the Harvest Fest.”
“Anything that needs to get done right away?” He should visit his mother. Maybe arrange for the house to be painted. He hated being idle. Gave him too damn much time to think.
Scott slid a finger across the screen to scroll through a document on his phone.
“There’s a festival subcommittee meeting tomorrow at three.” He frowned. Paused. “Also I’m supposed to pick up the hay wagons from Spencer Farm.” He glanced at Mack. “I can take care of that one, though.”
Mack remembered the last time he’d been there, the night he’d picked up Nina for the graduation party. How often had he wished he could rewind to that moment? Change any one thing about that day to make the result different.
“No.” Mack wasn’t about to start shirking jobs he’d just volunteered for. “I’m here to handle this stuff. Besides, I don’t think Nina is going to be spending her days in the barn while she’s home. Odds are, I’m not going to run into her again for a while.”
Scott keyed in a few commands and then put his phone back in his pocket. “You forget how small Heartache is.”
Mack hadn’t forgotten. But he was sure Nina wanted to avoid him as much as he planned to avoid her. “All the more reason for you to get out of here for a few days.”
“If Bethany will even go.” Scott shook his head. Stared at the ground. “That’s a big if.”
“Did you screw up that badly?” He found that tough to imagine and fought the urge to ask for details. Those were up to his brother to share. “You two have been together for what...eighteen years? She must not want to throw that away any more than you do.”
“I’ve been doing the same exact things I’ve been doing for eighteen years. Then one day, that wasn’t good enough.” He shrugged. “Believe me, if I had screwed up, I’d be busting my ass to fix it. But getting bored with your life isn’t an excuse to bail on it. Not in my book.”
Scott’s jaw flexed. His mouth settled in a flat line. Even his tone warned Mack not to argue that point, although Mack seriously doubted Bethany was “just bored.” So for now, he simply nodded.
“Right. So maybe a couple of days alone together will help you figure things out.”
“Thanks.” Scott looked back at the house where they’d grown up. “You sure you don’t mind staying with Mom?”
“I’m going to clean up the apartment that Gramp’s field manager used to live in. Maybe do a little restoration work.” It hadn’t been occupied in years, but it was built above an equipment barn that had been well maintained even after the farm folded. “That ought to keep me out of her way and keep friction to a minimum.”
Scott raised his eyebrows, skepticism obvious. “Good luck with that.”
“I’m going to tell her it’ll raise the property value.” It was a cover story that wouldn’t hurt his mother’s feelings. She’d never admit that it was too much to have Mack in the house with her, but he knew perfectly well it would be. He’d only just convinced her to let a maid come in twice a week to do the heavy cleaning—a local woman who also kept tabs on her health. He didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize her routine.
“Mack, I get that this isn’t going to be fun for you. Especially now that Nina’s in the picture, too—”
“We’re family, bro. This is what we do.” It was a corny saying of their dad’s—one that he’d used to cover the whole town when he’d been mayor. It was practically a town motto.
“Well, this is above and beyond, as far as I’m concerned. You have a whole life in Nashville you put on hold for this. So...thanks.” Scott clapped him on the shoulder once before he grabbed his beer and headed toward his own house just two doors down. He only took a few steps before he turned and lifted his bottle in toast. “And who knows? Maybe having Nina around will help put the past to rest.”
Mack shook his head. “No comment.”
Scott drank to that and kept on walking.
Mack took his time finishing his own beer, needing a minute to get his head on straight before he went in the house to talk to his mother. What did Scott know about putting the past to rest?
He couldn’t deny that Nina stirred him up inside as much as ever. In fact, his ex-wife had accused him of never getting over Nina. Jenny had been wrong about that, though. He’d been furious with Nina Spencer. She hadn’t been able to shake the dust of Tennessee off her shoes fast enough at a time when he’d needed her most.
She’d called him the night after the accident, upset and crying, saying she was leaving that night for New York. Right then. And she begged him to come with her. No warning of her change of plans, she just wanted to go.
But he couldn’t leave his family when they were falling apart, and she’d never forgiven him for it. Then again, things had only gotten worse after she left, and he’d blamed her for not being there with him. For impulsively taking off. Within the month, they were done speaking for good.
So just because Mack’s temperature spiked into the triple digits whenever he saw her didn’t mean he’d ever forget the way she’d bailed on him.
* * *
WHEN NINA HAD left Manhattan, she’d taken only her espresso machine and her cat on a red-eye flight.
Now, two days later, the rest of her worldly possessions were being unloaded off the back of a sketchy-looking moving truck and into one of her grandmother’s barns. She hadn’t wanted her things being manhandled by repo men in New York.
“Careful with that!” Nina blurted to one of the movers as he struggled with an antique pie rack that had been a gift from a client. Her apartment furnishings would all remain in the city just in case she could figure out a way to get her life and her career on track again. She was in a holding pattern for now between the business and her grandmother’s health. She was mostly in Tennessee, but she’d left one foot in New York in case things were a total bust here. After all, if her grandmother truly needed to go into assisted living, there wouldn’t be anything tying her to Heartache.
But for now, Nina would stay in Tennessee until the scandal surrounding her business died and she’d liquidated some assets, then she’d figure out where to go next. Her partner had been in charge of the books for their shared bakery venture and she’d drained their account before eloping with a high-profile client on the eve of his wedding.
Big, fat mess.
“I’ve got it,” one of the movers assured her, sweat dripping off his forehead as he struggled to keep the pie rack off the concrete floor. “We can handle this.”
Telling herself not to micromanage, Nina nodded and took the opportunity to grab a cup of coffee from inside the house. She could smell bacon frying before she reached the screen door.
“Gram!” What was she going to do with her? Even with a cane, her grandmother stood at the stove with a fork in one hand.
Yanking open the screen, Nina hurried to take her place.
“You’re just in time for breakfast.” Gram tried shooing her away, her freshly colored blond locks tucked behind one ear. “I can get it, for crying out loud. How do you suppose I ate before you got here?”
“Humor me.” Nina guided her to a padded metal chair from a mismatched bunch of flea-market finds clustered around a butcher block table. “Let me at least serve, okay?”
“Only because I love you and want to make you happy.” Her grandmother kissed her cheek and took a seat, her swollen knuckles clutching the table as she lowered herself slowly. “Just don’t get in the habit of waiting on me, dear.”
“Okay.” Nina made quick work of plating the eggs and bacon, her stomach growling the whole time. “But if you’re doing well, why does Dad say you should be considering assisted living?”
She’d been surprised by his tersely worded email urging Nina to convince his mother to move into a new place where she would have someone checking on her.
“Because he doesn’t want to be bothered by phone calls from his mother.” Gram winked at her over the rim of her coffee cup, but Nina didn’t think she was joking.
She peered over the white ruffled café curtains on one window to check on the movers’ progress in the barn and then took a seat at the table.
“I know he’s selfish, Gram.” He’d never inconvenienced himself for them, and Nina doubted he was any different with his second wife or her children—half siblings Nina had met only because she insisted on visiting twice a year to at least make an effort. “But he’s never brought up something like assisted living before. Did the doctors voice new concerns to him?”
“I have no idea what any of my doctors would have told him.” Gram rose to refresh her coffee even though she’d hardly taken three sips.
“That sounds...carefully worded.” Nina’s eye strayed to the oversize vintage stove that Gram had used since her wedding, a Wedgewood appliance where Nina had learned how to bake.
This kitchen had been a refuge for a child continually shuttled between feuding parents. When she was in Heartache, she wasn’t in the crossfire. On the downside, being left here time after time as a child and then permanently when she was ten years old only underscored that she wasn’t wanted. “I may have tuned out some of what your father said.” Gram shuffled back to the table, slower this time. Because of the full coffee cup, or did that knee still bother her more than she wanted to admit?
Nina wanted to help, but also didn’t want to hover. She watched every cautious step and felt tense inside.
“Would you mind if I followed up with your doctors?” Nina sipped her orange juice and tried to focus on the moment and what needed to be done—and not on Mack Finley.
“You want to talk to my doctors. So they can tell you what? That I’m eighty-four and my bones are brittle?” Gram chuckled and pointed a pink fingernail at her. “We both know that already. I’m being careful. I don’t even wear cute shoes anymore.” She stuck out her mint-green-colored tennis sneaker as a reminder. “But if you really want to talk to them, sugar plum, of course you can.”
“Sugar plum?”
Gram smiled and patted her cheek. “I’ve missed you, pretty girl. You never visit for more than a weekend anymore, and I have a lot of endearments to cram into these days together.”
Guilt pinched, but this time, it mingled with nostalgia.
“I’ve missed you, too.” She sipped her coffee, her grandmother’s brew so strong she wondered if she’d have to hook up her espresso machine after all. “I don’t think I realized how much.”
“I knew the bacon would win you over.”
“Even the coffee is better here.” Everything tasted better at home. Maybe it was because she’d learned all that she knew about cooking and baking from the woman seated next to her. “I’m actually dying to cook in this kitchen again. I forgot how much I loved the stove. And I’ve been so focused on baking the last few years that I haven’t spent much time on other kinds of dishes.”
“You cook all you want. I’d rather have you in the kitchen than playing sleuth at my doctor’s office.” Gram frowned and tapped her newly manicured nails against her coffee cup for a moment before she met Nina’s gaze. “I don’t want to give up my independence or this house, hon. So, please, make sure your father doesn’t try and pull a fast one on me to get me out of here, okay?”
Worry made Nina’s stomach clench. Her grandmother had always seemed invincible. She’d carved out a living for herself in a big old empty farmhouse after her husband died when he’d been fifty-five. Gram had been on her own ever since, living frugally and selling off pieces of land and equipment to supplement odd jobs like canning and making jellies for a local farm store. Not until recently had she ever spent a nickel on herself, and that was only because Nina had given her a year’s worth of salon services for Christmas last year. Gram was crafty and cagey. A survivor. And it sent a sharp pain through Nina to hear a note of fear in this strong woman’s voice.
“Of course.” As soon as she made the promise, though, she wondered how she would keep it if she ended up moving home to New York. “I mean, I’ll talk to Dad and clear things with your doctors since obviously, we all want you to be safe, too. But you look great to me.”
Gram quirked an eyebrow, clearly hearing the backpedaling.
A sharp rap on the kitchen door startled her and saved her from digging herself any deeper into a hole.
“It’s Ethan, Mrs. Spencer,” a young man’s voice called through the closed door.
“Ethan?” Nina looked to her grandmother to enlighten her as she stood.
“A neighbor boy,” she explained to Nina just before she opened the door. “Well, hello there, young man.”
“Morning, Mrs. Spencer. I finished mowing the lawn and I wanted to see if you’d like me to pick some peaches or nectarines for you.” A shaggy-headed, dark-haired teenager held an empty bushel basket under one arm, his rumpled T-shirt and jeans covered with bits of hay suggesting he’d already been working for a while.
“The more the merrier, Ethan.” Gram waved at the boy but didn’t stand...a sure sign her knee was hurting. “I’ve got some reinforcements this week to help me with my last batch of jam now that the peach season is almost over. Nina, this is Ethan Brady. He’s the grandson of the gentleman who bought the dairy farm where the Hendersons used to live.”
“Nina Spencer.” Nina shook the teen’s hand. “I’m visiting my grandmother for a couple of weeks. Did you need help with the picking?” She peered out the door behind the boy toward the orchards in the distance, but couldn’t tell if the trees were loaded with fruit or not.
“No, thank you.” He looked like he might be hiding a smile. “I can handle it. I wouldn’t want to take Mrs. Spencer’s company away.”
“I don’t mind.” She hadn’t questioned how her grandmother was doing financially, but maybe she would welcome the extra jam and jelly sales while Nina was home to help her. For that matter, maybe she shouldn’t be helping her grandmother give away those peach pies when she should be charging for them. “I’ll just grab some gloves in the barn—”
“No, really,” Ethan protested, stepping off the small porch and backing away. “My gramp gave me strict instructions to take care of the picking myself because he owes Mrs. Spencer a favor,” he called through the screen. “And he said to tell you that the town of Heartache loves cupcakes.” The teen shrugged his shoulders awkwardly. “No clue what the means.”
Spinning on his heel, he darted through the tall grasses of an open meadow with his bushel basket and headed toward the orchards.
Behind her, Gram laughed and said something about how Nina could charge more for one cupcake than she could for a whole case of preserves. But seeing Ethan jogging across sun-dappled fields made her think of a long-ago summer when another boy had knocked on the door to pick peaches and asked Nina to join him....
“Excuse me,” a deep voice called to her from the yard and she noticed one of the movers flagging her down. “You’ve got some company.”
He jerked his head in the direction of the moving truck, but she couldn’t see who had pulled up since the eighteen-wheeler took up her whole view.
“Gram, I’d better find out who it is.” She pushed open the screen, her gray tabby cat darting between her feet to join her.
Her instincts hummed as she neared the truck. The brightness made her squint, but she could still see an Eldorado convertible parked behind the movers’ vehicle.
“Need a hand?” Mack stepped around the bumper of the beat-up delivery truck, his gaze trained on the hodgepodge of furniture and boxes stacked precariously inside. “I hadn’t realized you’d have so much going on today or I would have waited to pick up the hay wagons for the Harvest Fest.”
His well-washed gray T-shirt had a green clover with Finleys’ written in script on the front. No matter what else had happened between them, she had to admit he wore a T-shirt incredibly well. For the second day in a row, she kept her eyes north of his jeans. Down that path lay madness.
Mack was very...fit. In school, he’d organized pickup games of basketball or impromptu lacrosse tournaments in the fields behind his house. It seemed he hadn’t lost that love of sports. His body was as toned as an athlete’s.
“It’s okay. The wagons are in the barn by the orchard.” She’d rather have this errand taken care of today than risk seeing him again another day. She couldn’t guarantee how long her eyes would behave. “I can get the key from the house.”
Nodding, he stepped back as the delivery guys juggled an industrial-size mixer. When Taz, Nina’s cat, started to dart across their path, Mack scooped the tabby up with one hand.
“Oh!” Nina reached for the animal, but Taz was already batting at the wristband of Mack’s watch, oblivious to her narrow escape. “Thank you.”
“No problem. Should I bring him up to the house?” He stared down at Taz, amusement crinkling the corners of his eyes. “I can ask your grandmother for the key and take care of the wagons myself.”
“Taz is a her, not a him.” Nina plucked the animal from Mack’s arm and the little feline mewed pitifully. “And it’s probably just as well I don’t watch my most prized possessions being stored next to rusty cultivators and plows. I might as well go with you.”
She was a grown-up. She could handle spending a couple of weeks in the same town as Mack. Besides, she wasn’t proud of her testy words the day before. She shouldn’t have accused him of coming to Heartache to rub her nose in her failures.
Worse, her harsh words about Jenny had been out of line. And she didn’t want Mack to think he affected her so much that the mention of his ex-wife would rile her up.
“Fair enough.” He stepped aside, letting her lead the way to a farmhouse even older than the one where he’d been raised.
Sunflowers and phlox stood next to deep purple asters in the overgrown flowerbeds lining the wide, grassy path to the two-story white clapboard structure. The scent of the nearby orchards and freshly mown grass rode the breeze. It was peaceful here, with a quiet so deep she almost had trouble sleeping. She kind of missed the constant din of city traffic and the comfort of busy, anonymous humanity outside her windows.
“It’s weird being back here, isn’t it?” She picked a long stem of grass poking through a bed of bushy yellow flowers she couldn’t identify.
Taz made a swipe for the grass, but Nina tucked the little cat tighter against her chest to be sure she wouldn’t get into any more trouble.
“I slept in the field manager’s quarters last night. So yeah, it’s definitely a strange homecoming.”
Their strides matched one another’s.
“Did you have a falling out with your mom?” Nina tried to keep the question light. She wasn’t sure how much Mrs. Finley had shared with Mack about their final blowout where his mother had accused Nina of ruining Mack’s life. She’d even suggested that he’d change his mind about having kids if she left. It wasn’t that he didn’t want children, she said, he just didn’t want them with Nina.
She’d been blown away about that one.
Knowing about Mrs. Finley’s struggles with bipolar disorder hadn’t eased the sting of her words, since her reasons for why Nina and Mack would never work had been accurate. Nina was a wanderer by nature who threw herself into the moment, for example, while Mack was a grounded guy with big ambition and concrete career goals. Bipolar or not, Mrs. Finley was a sharp woman with Mack’s best interests at heart.
“No. But a buffer between me and Mom is usually a good idea. I didn’t want her to be stressed about having company.” He paused at the foot of the stairs to the wide, wraparound porch while Nina jogged up toward the back door. “She asked me to thank you for the pie, by the way.”
Nina seriously doubted that. She opened the door and nudged Taz inside where her pet made a beeline for her water dish. The kitchen was empty again and the table had been cleared. Nina snagged a small red key from a rack of hooks just above the light switch and then closed the door again.
“That was really thoughtful of you to give your mother some space.” She tucked the key to the barn in her pocket as she rejoined him, trying her best to get through this difficult meeting as quickly as possible. “Especially since the field manager’s quarters are awfully cramped, at least they were the last time I saw them—”
Her cheeks flamed hot. Red-sizzle hot. Because the last time she’d been inside that little apartment had been with Mack, and things had gone too far, too fast.
“I remember.” Mack didn’t bother to hide the smile in his voice, damn him.
Her gaze shot his way. A wicked grin stole over his face, an expression she hadn’t seen in a long time. Funny how that warmed her in a different way.
“So. That was awkward.” She resisted the urge to fan her face at the memory of Mack kissing her shoulder and nudging off the strap of her tank top. Undressing her in the daylight had been a novel experience for both of them.
“Not the way I recall it.” His expression grew more serious, making her heart beat faster.
Her eyes stole over him. All of him.
Damn, but he looked better than ever in a pair of jeans.
“What I meant was—”
“I know what you meant.” Mack turned to face her on the path to the barn. “And you’re right. The apartment is cramped.”
Nina folded her arms across a white eyelet tank top. The tank and cutoffs had been comfortable this morning, but suddenly she felt severely underdressed. Then again, she could be wearing riot gear and still feel twitchy and breathless around Mack.
“I just don’t want you to get the impression that I’m flirting with you. Because that comment just leaped out without me even thinking it through.” She wanted to be very clear on that point. She had no intention of getting in the way of Mack’s future.
“Yes, I remember that impulsive streak.” One dark eyebrow arched as he gave her an assessing look. “Remember when you freed the Death Row Chickens on the Johnson farm that first summer you came here?”
“I’m still not sorry about that.” Being a city girl, she’d assumed the chickens were behind bars as a form of punishment, their death imminent. She’d raised a neighborhood campaign to save them, not knowing they were on the farm to give eggs. “Mr. Johnson could have explained about the eggs instead of laughing at me.”
“In all fairness, I don’t think he realized who he was dealing with.” Mack’s eyes met hers. Held.
Her mouth went so dry she had to lick her lips. “Too bad those chickens had no idea what to do with their freedom.”
She forced herself to keep walking. To keep moving. Standing still with Mack this close would be dangerous.
“Mrs. Johnson wasn’t happy to find them roosting in her flower beds after the big jailbreak.” Mack lifted a low-hanging branch on a pine tree, clearing the way for her to walk without ducking.
“You were pretty entertained by the whole thing, though.” Mack had insisted on bringing her back to the Johnson house the next morning where—from the safety of the bushes—she could witness the results of her elaborate plan to set the birds free.
Mack had showed her where to stand so they wouldn’t get caught, keeping an arm around her shoulders to prevent her from running after the chickens and smuggling them off the property.
“Somebody had to keep you safe from trouble.”
“You were always looking out for people.” She’d benefitted from that quality in him for a long time.
Until the day when he’d had others to take care of besides her. His mother. His best friend’s grieving girlfriend. Now, it was his brother. A better woman would have admired him all the more for that. But to Nina, it felt like others had always come first. Maybe she’d been too needy because of the way she’d been brought up. But when she’d fallen for Mack, she’d been all in. He was everything to her. So when she’d learned her spot on his priority list, she’d been deeply hurt.
Mack said nothing while she retrieved the key to the barn and popped the padlock. When she opened the clasp and slid the heavy door aside on the track, she noticed Mack staring back down the hill toward the moving van. The delivery guys dragged a dining room set into the barn.
“You’re moving a lot of things home for someone who is only going to be in town for a few weeks.” He leaned against a pole support in front of the barn. “Are you sure everything is okay?”
Grief and frustration over her career battled with embarrassment at her failure. But the details of the scandal were a Google search away. It’s not as if the locals wouldn’t find out about it. Maybe it would be better if he heard her side first. She couldn’t help feeling defensive about how the whole thing shook down.
“My business partner drained the funds from our bakery’s business account and then eloped with one of our clients the night before a wedding we’d been hired to cater.”
How could she have failed—the business, her clients, herself—so miserably? She’d developed her business because she’d loved seeing other people’s happily-ever-afters take shape. But she’d had to cancel over a dozen orders for other weddings this fall, leaving brides scrambling to find other confections for their special day.
“Have you talked to your partner since she left? Do you know where she is now?” Mack squinted in the bright sun, the day growing hotter by the minute.
“No. She left me a note with her apology and some garbage about true love not always being ‘convenient.’” Nina had discovered the note perched in front of the cupcake tower that would have paid the next month’s rent on their costly storefront on the Upper West Side. But with no wedding and a jilted bride in tears, Nina couldn’t exactly collect on the wedding cake. “Olivia—my partner—was always adventurous, and she loved the romance of our business. Little did I know, she would find romance in our client list with a well-known hotel magnate.”
Mack gave a low whistle and shook his head. “Wow. She sounds...immature.”
“Yes. But she’s also creative and energetic. Her father fronted us the money for the shop to begin with, and her wealthy friends helped to spread the word about us while we grew our reputation. I never could have gone into business without her. I really thought we were going to turn a corner this fall and start operating in the black, but...” Nina’s heart still hurt to think about all the people she’d let down by closing up shop. How could she ever go back now? “Anyway, Gram has been battling some health problems, so this was a good time to come home and check on her. I’ll go to New York and settle things there as soon as I regroup and figure out what to do next.”
“Because you still want to bake.” Mack seemed to weigh this. “And get back to the city?”
Maybe.
“That’s what I’ve always wanted,” she dodged, not quite ready to tackle the question for herself, let alone him. “Sooner or later, I’ll need an income source again. If not through the cupcake bakery, then through some other business.”
She could always apply to a restaurant as a dessert chef. The idea didn’t hold much appeal after all the creative independence she’d had at Cupcake Romance.
“Just making sure.” He nodded. Then, pivoting toward her, he gestured to a couple of old hay bales. “Do you have a minute? I’ve got a proposition that might help us both.”
The hay bales looked far too comfortable for her to share one with Mack. A bed of nails, perhaps.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” She remained standing.
She could pretend he didn’t affect her all she wanted, but she wasn’t going to test her restraint that way. Mack had called it when he’d said she had an impulsive streak. And her tendency to leap before she looked usually led her into trouble. She’d shot her mouth off at Vince and he’d died.
“Okay. So just listen.” Straightening, he stalked closer.
She held her breath.
“You need to generate some income while figuring out what to do with your business.” He studied her with serious eyes. “And I have a festival to oversee from the ground up so I can free my brother to work on his marriage. Why don’t we help each other?”
“I don’t understand. How?”
“Traditionally, the fee for renting a vendor booth at the festival is waived for subcommittee chairs. So take over the food management subcommittee for me. That way, you’ll get a booth for free to sell all the cupcakes you like.”
He was offering her a spot on the festival planning committee? It wouldn’t be so ludicrous except that Mack was at the helm.
“You can’t be serious. We’ve avoided each other for eight years and suddenly we should work together?” She shook her head. “Too much water under the bridge.”
Mack shrugged. “If it’s water under the bridge, why not do each other a favor? I don’t mind admitting to you that I’m in over my head with the festival planning, but I’m going to fake it until the bitter end so that Scott doesn’t have to deal with it this year.” The stubborn set to his chin told her he was doing this only for the sake of his family.
Which shouldn’t surprise her in the least. But maybe a small part of her feminine pride stung that he wasn’t angling to spend time with her. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Then again, she was broke. And it didn’t seem as if her grandmother was any better off.
“I could sell baked goods, not just cupcakes?” she clarified, thinking she could sell Gram’s jellies and pies, too. They could both earn some extra cash, assuming she could find somebody to run a booth for them while she oversaw all the other food vendors.
It sounded like a big job. Then again, what else was she going to do while she was home?
“Absolutely.”
Nina could already see why Mack was a success in business. He didn’t let a little thing like old heartbreak stand in his way of doing a job. Maybe Nina ought to be paying more attention to his methods.
“I’ll consider it,” she agreed, more than ready to return to the house and leave Mack Finley to his own devices. She hadn’t been prepared for this conversation.
“It could help us move on,” he reminded her. “Make peace.”
Nina knew he’d already moved on long ago—when he’d married Jenny. Maybe that’s why she couldn’t tamp down the words that bubbled up her throat.
“I’ve made my peace with the past.” She shot him an even look. “Once I learned not to trust a man’s promises, I’ve been a whole lot better off.”
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_eaaaf9e1-52cb-5988-b2fe-5a043f20973d)
NINA STARED AT him with more animosity than ever.
“Maybe it’s best to keep promises out of it,” he suggested, approaching her the same way he’d speak to a difficult employee or an unhappy customer at the bar. Keep things level. “We can just maintain a working relationship and build from there.”
Mack hadn’t expected to run into her today, but he couldn’t regret it entirely. First because just seeing her was a pleasure. He’d forgotten that. She wasn’t textbook beautiful, exactly. He saw a lot of that in Nashville, a city overflowing with pretty faces. Nina was more interesting, with full lips and expressive eyes that worked with her strong cheekbones for a face that was perpetually animated. He couldn’t take his eyes off her when she was around.
Plus, in spite of everything, he was glad for this time to talk to her. Maybe Scott had a point about putting the past to rest. Their history together was unhappy enough without piling on the awkwardness of not speaking to each other when they were both in town.
“Well I will admit I haven’t had anyone knocking down the door to hire me for anything else,” Nina finally said, staring down at the ground.
“We wouldn’t really see that much of each other, we’d have totally separate responsibilities. It would give you a chance to keep up your skills and turn a profit while you’re here. And I’d be able to cross something else off Scott’s endless list of stuff to take care of for the festival.”
She planted a hand on one hip. “You expect me to believe that Scott included ‘find a cupcake baker’ on your to-do list?”
“Not in so many words, but I trust you to hold up your end of the bargain more than Cecily Alan over at the sandwich shop.” The woman who owned the old diner on Main Street was warmhearted but disorganized. “She gets more eccentric every year.”
“And crankier,” Nina muttered as she scuffed the toe of her tennis shoe through the tall grass and weeds, stirring the scent of goldenrod. “I tried ordering dinner for Gram from her a few times when I’ve come down here, but she always has some reason why she can’t do deliveries.”
“You see why I’d rather work with you?” He watched as her hair slid forward over her shoulder, the lace of her tank top edging away from the narrow satin of a pale pink bra strap beneath.
His throat went dry as dust.
“I can’t use the name Cupcake Romance at my booth. At least not while the insurance investigation is ongoing.” She shook her head, her jaw tight.
Didn’t she realize he was trying to help her out?
“So call it Cupcake Love.” Was that such a big deal? “Bars change their names all the time and no one ever blinks.”
“Are you doing this just to help me out?” She studied him through narrowed eyes. “Because I will find work one way or another.”
Clearly, she could read him as well as she always could. He’d better be totally honest.
“It occurred to me you might be glad to have some work, yes. But even though you might have an independent streak, I also know you’re a stubborn perfectionist, and if you agree to take care of the food, I won’t have to think about it again.”
Her throaty laugh went right through him, vibrating along his skin like a touch. “Is that so?”
“You could probably get a story about the new cupcake business in one of the Nashville papers if you were willing to ship specialty baked goods. You could play up that you came home to find your roots...they love that stuff.”
“You’re very good at this. No wonder your business is thriving.” She shook her head, her smile fading. “But since when do I have roots?”
“Sorry.” He understood her point and regretted his choice of wording. She’d been devastated as a kid when her parents had abandoned her and left her with her grandmother. “But everyone in this town claims you as one of us. This town is your roots.”
The words were automatic, a sentiment he’d expressed to her more than once when they were kids and she’d been reeling from her parents’ betrayal. He reached for her automatically, too. Just a hand on her arm. A kneejerk way to offer comfort.
Not until his hand was on her bare forearm did the risks occur to him. But he felt the charge between them. It leaped from his hand to her skin. Or maybe the other way around. Whatever happened, the jolt was enough to make her gray eyes dart to his. Yanking his hand away didn’t seem right. It would be an admission that touching her had been a mistake.
But damn. Attraction like that was a powerful thing. He swallowed hard and pulled his hand back slowly.
“Thanks.” She said finally, her normally expressive eyes now inscrutable. “I guess it makes sense that my roots are deep in Heartache.”
A soft, peach-scented breeze teased his nose and ruffled her hair.
“That makes two of us.” He watched her fidget and wondered how to get back on track. “I know you’re not sure about the Harvest Fest, Nina, but can’t we move forward...as friends?”
She didn’t look at him for a long moment, her attention fixed on some peeling paint on a low windowsill of the barn.
“It’s a nice idea,” she said finally. “But that’s a lot of layers of hurt, Mack.”
For him, too. Not that he was going to say it in so many words. She ought to know better than anyone.
“How does the saying go—shoot for the moon and you’ll still hit some stars? We could at least make a stab at forgiving each other.”
“I’d like that,” she said finally, tucking her fidgeting hands into the pockets of loose jean cutoffs. “I’ll try doing some of the baking for the Harvest Fest and we’ll see what happens. I’m here, so I might as well be involved. Besides, it will be good for me to get back to work.”
He was relieved she’d agreed, but her practical reasons surprised him. Nina had changed more than he realized; some of her passionate impulsiveness had been tempered.
“That’s great.” Normally, he’d shake hands to seal a deal, but since he couldn’t risk touching her after what had happened the last time, he ended up jamming his fists into his pockets, too. “I’m really glad. There’s a festival meeting today at three in the town hall if you want to go.”
“I’ll try, but I have to supervise the movers. How about I copy off your notes instead?” She arched an eyebrow at him before heading into the shadows of the barn. “Just like in high school.”
“Suit yourself. If I could copy off someone else’s notes, believe me, I’d ditch this committee gathering, too. But if you’re not going to be there, you should set up some appointments to talk to some of the local restaurant owners to see how they can contribute.” He followed her into the cool, musty depths of the barn. “I’m supposed to be meeting a couple of guys here who will be picking up the wagons. We can pull them out when they get here.”
“Okay.” She stalked to the back of one wagon, and leaned down to check a tire. “I just wanted to make sure there aren’t any flats. I’m sure there’s an air compressor here somewhere—”
“We’ll be fine.” As much as he wanted to patch up their relationship, he wasn’t ready to test it in the confines of a dark barn just yet.
He still saw that pink bra strap when he closed his eyes.
“Okay.” She straightened. “If anyone comes to the house I’ll send them back here.”
“The kid who cuts your grandmother’s grass is one of the people I’m expecting. Ethan Brady.”
“Right.” She snapped her fingers. “I met him this morning. He was going to pick peaches after he mowed the lawn, so I’m guessing he’s in the orchard.”
Peaches. Orchard.
Mack was right back on a blanket beneath the stars on a long, hot summer night. He closed his eyes to shut out the mental images of their first time together, but new images crowded with the old ones.
Nina’s throaty laugh. The pink strap. Her flushed cheeks when she remembered the day they’d fooled around in that little vacant apartment...
“Mack?” Her voice was close to his ear.
He opened his eyes. Shook his head.
“Are you okay?” She stood just a couple of feet away.
It was dark and hard to see in the barn, but she was close enough that he could smell the fragrance of her shampoo.
“I’m fine.” His voice was a heavy rasp of sound, his heart thudding in his chest. “Allergies,” he explained. “From the hay.”
“Oh.” She stepped away, the delicate curve of her bare collarbone still close enough he could have cupped her shoulder there. “Maybe we should step out of the barn.”
“Good idea.” He stalked away from her toward the sunlight, needing to breathe air that didn’t carry a hint of her fragrance.
Or ripe fruit.
Had he really told her they should try to be friends? Damn, but coming home had messed with his head.
“Hey, isn’t that the boy you were looking for?” Nina stretched an arm out, pointing toward the south with one long, bare arm. “Ethan?”
Mack followed her gaze and saw a hint of a blue shirt between the trees in the orchard beyond the field.
“Probably.” He pulled his phone from his pocket. “I’ll shoot him a text and remind him to meet me over here.”
She nodded absently, her eyes still on the figure in the distance.
“It’s been years since I picked peaches.” Her words hung in the air.
A gauntlet dropped.
His gaze went to hers, but her gray eyes gave away nothing. Did she realize she was killing him?
His fingers froze, hovering above the screen of his phone while he wrestled with how to respond to that.
But then, her eyes slid toward him. A sly smile curved her full lips. She turned on her heel and sauntered away.
Damn. Her.
This friendship thing was going to be the death of him.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_58055a4a-c598-5cbb-9003-344084905621)
ALLY FINLEY’S HEART skipped a beat when she spotted the only thing tying her to crappy Heartache, Tennessee. The small town was suffocating her as surely as her parents’ angry silences and the cold lack of love in her house. She had one, just one bright spot in her life these days.
Ethan Brady.
She watched him walk up the path toward her from her seat on one of the ladders used for picking. His broad shoulders rolled with his easy walk. Everything about Ethan was low-key. Fun. He never stressed about school or let a bad grade ruin his whole week, and he knew the location of every swimming hole in the county. Bonus? He was totally gorgeous.
From his light hazel eyes and ready smile to the lock of hair that tended to fall over one eye, he was the boy at school all the girls wanted. He’d never been a player, though. He told her once that too many people dated “like a recreational sport.” And while she thought she got what he meant, she worried that those kinds of confidences meant he’d lumped her in the “friends only” category forever.
“It took you long enough,” Ally called out to him as he drew closer. “I could have slept a whole hour more if I’d known you wouldn’t be here until after ten.”
She’d been in love with him since he moved to town when she was in eighth grade, but he’d never paid attention to her until last spring when they were paired up in a remedial math class. Ethan had been failing the class and she’d let her grades slip because poor marks were a way to get back at her parents for making her life hell lately.
After that class, Ethan had finally seemed aware of her existence. But he still looked at her in a “friend” way, which sucked.
“No one twisted your arm,” Ethan muttered, setting down a bushel basket beside an old wooden ladder propped up against a peach tree.
Ally tried not to let that sting. She’d stayed up late to paint her fingernails and woken before the sun rose to hang out with him today. But he was either totally uninterested or...
God, she hoped there was another explanation, even though nothing came to mind. Maybe he was just in a bad mood, but since when was Ethan ever a downer like that? She was usually the one with a black cloud hanging over her head.
“You’re right. Guess I’m starting to let the perpetual bitch-mode at my house infect me.” She zipped her lip and went to work picking some low-hanging fruit on the tree next to Ethan’s.
She’d gotten good at giving the silent treatment, a ploy her parents used so often her house was a mausoleum most of the time. But anything she said would only reveal how much she was crushing on Ethan. Besides, she could use the quiet to gather her thoughts and study him.
Lanky and tall since ninth grade, he’d gotten bigger muscles last year. His dark hair brushed his eyebrows as he worked, his profile stark and serious.
Hot.
“I had to milk my parents’ cows,” Ethan said finally, the look of disgust on his face so dark and surly that it made her laugh.
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.” He started to pick the fruit faster, his tone sharp and aggravated.
“Sorry. Uh—that is, you don’t like milking cows?” There hadn’t been a lot of working farms in Heartache even a few years ago, but recently, some hipster families had moved into the old places to try and revive them with new, organic techniques.
Ethan’s farm was one of those. His parents gave tours of the place and spoke around the county about the “green” approach.
“It’s straight out of the Dark Ages. There are machines for that.” He chucked peaches in the basket hard enough that they were going to bruise. “And I didn’t come to this godforsaken town to be slave labor for a crappy farm where the equipment breaks down every few days.”
“Tell me about it.” At least this—anger—she could identify with. “You think I want to live here?”
He shrugged. “You’re a Finley. Your grandfather was the mayor for forever. Your dad runs the building-supply store. I figured you must like it well enough.”
“Do you like the same stuff the rest of your family does?”
“Good point.” He rubbed one of the peaches on his T-shirt and took a bite, a little river of juice running down his chin.
“My parents barely speak, and when they do, it’s to yell—at each other or at me. I took a crappy job sweeping up hair in a salon just to get out of the house.” Actually, the job wasn’t that bad. But the point was, she’d had to take it or she would have lost her mind being in that house. Even her grandmother had stopped inviting her over since Grandpa died, robbing Ally of that escape, too. “And then they’re surprised when I’m screwing up my senior year of school? I doubt they’d get an A in physics when the stress is so thick at the dinner table you can’t ask for the butter without stirring up some ancient resentment involving the butter dish.”
Ethan’s eyebrows rose. “For real?”
“True story. Swear to God.” She crossed her heart. “Apparently the dish was a wedding gift and my mom wrote all the thank-you notes. That was like...a million years ago. But she’s still pissed.”
“That sucks.” He wiped the peach juice from his chin on the back of his wrist. The scent of the fruit hung in the air, the buzz of summer bugs winding up as the day heated.
“Big-time. We were having corn on the cob that night. I didn’t even get any.” She was trying to make a joke, but he was looking off in the distance toward the barns, the only buildings you could see from the orchards.
“Less than a year and I’m out of here.” Ethan cocked his arm back and launched the peach pit into the air. He leaned one shoulder into the tree and gazed down at her with moody hazel eyes.
Ally’s heart beat faster. What would she do once he was gone? The thought of him was all that had gotten her through the worst summer of her life. The stress in her house was literally eating her from the inside out. Or so it seemed when the sores opened up on her arms from where she’d scratched them. She’d started wearing tons of friendship bracelets on each arm to hide the marks.
“I’m not waiting that long.” She blurted the words before she even considered what she was saying.
“What do you mean?” He frowned, but at least he was paying attention.
She swallowed hard. A buzzing started in her ears and it wasn’t from the bees that hummed lazily around the fruit. Her fate seemed to hang in the balance, every moment of her life just a prelude to this moment and Ethan Brady’s hazel eyes.
“I mean I’m getting out of this place soon. Like...after the Harvest Festival.” She couldn’t call herself a Finley and not help out at the Harvest Fest, a tradition her grandfather had reinstated during his long tenure as mayor of Heartache. Besides that, there was a dance at the end of the Harvest Fest and—call her shallow—she’d dreamed every year since Ethan had moved to town of getting to dance with him there. Maybe this year would be her chance.
“You’re really going to...run away?” A gleam of emotion flickered in his eyes, but she couldn’t tell if it was admiration at her plan or contempt for being childish.
“Not run away. Leaving town. Quitting school.” The more she thought about it, the more Ally liked the idea. She’d had enough of trying to please parents who were determined to be miserable no matter how hard she worked. “I’ll be eighteen in December anyway, so I can be on my own legally then. I’ve got enough credits to graduate by the end of the year.”
She sounded smart. As if she’d actually thought through this insanity. Or maybe it was Ethan’s surprised smile that was making her feel proud of herself for the plan.
“Wow.” He shook his head. “I never pictured you as the kind of girl who would ruffle the family feathers.”
Defensiveness straightened her spine.
“Is that so?” Her skin started itching and it was all she could do not to scratch.
“You just always seem so...I don’t know. Perfect, I guess. Like the kind of girl who wouldn’t get into trouble.” Ethan took a step down the ladder and then another until they stood on even ground.
Where he was still so much taller than her.
“You’re wrong, Ethan Brady.” She felt shaky all over, but in a good kind of way. He’d never been this close to her. “I wouldn’t be getting into trouble. I’d be leaving it behind.”
What could her parents do once she turned eighteen anyhow? Besides, Ethan was the one good thing in her life and if he left this town, she didn’t want to be in it.
He shook his head as if he didn’t quite believe her. That easygoing smile she’d always loved returned to his face.
“I don’t know about you, Ally,” he teased, picking up a lock of her brown hair and rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger.
Her heart stopped.
Then started again at a jackrabbit pace.
“Maybe you ought to change that,” she challenged him, hoping it sounded as flirty as she wanted it to.
His smile widened.
Ally drew a deep breath and took a gamble.
“So...you want to come with me?”
* * *
Where were you today?

Wiping the flour off her hands onto one of Gram’s old aprons, Nina read the text from an unknown number with a Tennessee area code. She’d been baking for hours and the kitchen currently smelled like hazelnut from the batch of Linzer torte cupcakes she’d made. Gram’s old oven was bigger than modern models, and it worked as well as Nina recalled, but she still couldn’t make nearly as many at a time as she could with professional-grade equipment.
She was just starting to reply Who is this? when another text popped up on her screen.

I thought you were coming to the Harvest Fest meeting?

“How does Mack have my cell-phone number?” She glanced at her grandmother who sat at the kitchen table stirring sugar into her cup of tea.
The spoon clinked against the side a few times before Gram looked up from the newspaper.
“He messaged me about an hour ago to ask for it,” Gram admitted, shifting her raised knee on the pillows Nina had stacked on a hassock for her. “He said you were supposed to be at a meeting, I think?”
Mischief sparkled in her blue eyes as she peered over the frames of her reading glasses.
Nina sighed. “I suppose you have the number for half of Heartache in that phone.”
Gram dragged her cell closer, the purple-and-pink floral case brighter than most teenagers would carry. “Can I help it that I like technology?”
“No. But you could warn me when you give people my number,” Nina grumbled as she plunked out a message for Mack into her sleek phone, the high-tech model a “business” expense purchased by her now ex-partner. The silicone case was black with the white-and-red Cupcake Romance logo.

You said you’d give me the notes.

“I’ve missed having Mack around.” Gram took her glasses off and slid the chain off them so that it dangled freely. Then, she dragged it across Taz’s head, inciting the cat to go into full-on hunter mode to chase the chain. “Even after you left, Nina, he still came by sometimes to say hello and ask if I needed anything.”
Taz practically did a backflip trying to catch the chain, and Nina smiled to see Gram having fun with her pet. No doubt it got lonely for her here.
“He likes taking care of people,” Nina admitted, setting down her phone when the timer buzzed for her latest batch of cupcakes.
In fact, Mack had liked taking care of people so much that he’d forgotten about his love for Nina when his best friend’s girlfriend had needed comforting. Not that she was bitter about it anymore. But it had hurt at the time.
“It’s more than that, and you know it. He’s a good man.” Gram laughed when Taz managed to yank the chain away completely and fought it with all his feline-might. “Did he talk you into helping out with the festival?”
“How did you guess?” Nina slid the last two trays of cupcakes into the oven and set the timer again.
“He’s a smart man with a lot of new responsibilities. You just rolled into town with a barn full of baking equipment and too many hours on your hands.” Gram shrugged. “Wild guess?”
“You’re right and I’m happy to help, Gram, but I can’t attend a bunch of meetings where people spend hours arguing about whether to use a pumpkin or a cornucopia in the festival ads. Things like that make me crazy.” When she’d started Cupcake Romance with Olivia, they’d divvied up duties according to their strengths, with Nina doing most of the work in the kitchen and Olivia being the face of the business and keeping the books.
Then again, in that instance, avoiding boring meetings hadn’t worked out so well for Nina.
“You always did prefer to keep busy,” Gram observed, retrieving the eyeglass chain from Taz and securing it back onto her glasses. “Just like your mom and dad. It was as if a whirlwind was blowing through this house when you all came to visit.”
Nina wanted to argue that she wasn’t anything like her parents, but her phone distracted her.

Notes are on their way. We volunteered you for all the jobs no one else wanted since you weren’t there to say no.

“Seriously?” Nina started typing a protest, but she punched the keys so hard with her finger that she typed more errors than anything.
Gram tugged aside the sheer curtains at the window near the table. “Were you expecting someone, love? There’s a car coming up the driveway.”
“Really? Why would he text me if he was stopping by anyhow?” Nina’s hand went automatically to the apron ties around her waist and undid them. Then, catching herself, she refastened the tie. Damn it, what did she care what she looked like?
Just because they were going to try to forgive each other for the past didn’t mean he wanted any more from her than that. She’d been wrong to flirt with him out by the barn earlier. It was as if she’d fallen into some autopilot mode, which was weird since she’d never exhibited a flirtatious side with anyone else she’d ever met.
“It’s not a he,” Gram clarified. “I believe it’s Scott Finley’s wife.”
Bethany? Too surprised by the unannounced visit to be embarrassed at jumping to conclusions about Mack, Nina brushed the extra flour off the apron and moved toward the door.
She opened it wide to let in the fall sunshine and fresh air. Bethany Finley hopped out of a small, extended-cab pickup with a custom paint job that read Finley Building Supply. Scott’s wife still had the thick, wavy hair that Nina remembered—a distinctive feature that she’d passed on to Ally. But she was thinner now to the point of appearing unhealthy—as if eating hadn’t occurred to her for quite a while. Bethany carried an arm full of binders, her sleeveless white blouse showing how angular she looked. Spotting Nina, Bethany quickened her pace, her red flip-flops slapping the pavement as she walked.
“Welcome home, Nina.” She held out one arm and enveloped her in a quick hug. “It’s so good to see you.”
“Thank you.” Nina stepped back. “I hoped to catch you yesterday when I stopped at your mother-in-law’s house, but you must have been working.”
“Always.” She gave a tight smile as she came in the house and set the stack of binders on the kitchen table. “Hello, Mrs. Spencer.” She gave Gram a hug, too. “You haven’t spoken to Ally today, have you? I thought she was going to text me an update of her plans before supper, but I haven’t heard from her since she left the house early this morning.”
Nina’s timer went off for the cupcakes and she pulled them out of the oven while Gram explained she hadn’t seen Ally since she’d driven her home from her hair appointment the day before. Nina shut down the baking operation, putting the last trays on cooling racks. She could frost everything later.
“I don’t mean to get in your way if you’re working, but I’d volunteered to bring you some of the notes on the festival.” She pointed toward the binders, her cell phone vibrating in her hand. She glanced at the screen but ignored the call. “Mack said you might be able to help out with the food?”
“Yes.” Guilt pinched that she’d blown off the meeting. “Sorry I wasn’t there today.”
“Have a seat, honey,” Gram gestured to Bethany to sit down. “You want some tea?”
“No, thank you. I can’t stay. The store is really busy this time of year and I spent a couple of hours away for the festival meeting. Scott got Mack to sub for him, but unfortunately, I don’t have a sibling to come to my rescue.” She laughed, but there was an edge to it. Aware of what she was going through with Scott, Nina wasn’t sure how to respond.
“Did you set a date for the next meeting?” Nina eyed the binders, wondering if she’d gotten in over her head.
“Next Friday at three, but if you want to go over any of the notes with me before then, just give me a shout at the store. It would be great to have some company for a while.”
There was a lonely desperation in her eyes and Nina promised herself she would visit soon.
“I’d like that, too.” She pointed toward the cupcakes everywhere. “I’ll bring some treats for you and the staff once I get them frosted. Want me to fix you one to take home?”
She tried not to eye Bethany’s thin arms while she willed her to accept the gift.
“They smell fantastic, but I just ate.” Bethany stepped toward the door. “I’m sure the staff at the store would turn cartwheels to try them, though. And in the meantime, if you see Ally, will you remind her to call me? I know Ethan Brady works over here occasionally, and where Ethan goes, Ally is soon to follow.”
“He’s a dear boy,” Gram reminded her. “Nice to see you, Bethany.”
“I’ll walk you to your car,” Nina offered, holding the screen door for her. “Thanks again for coming out here.”
As the door swung closed behind them, Bethany lowered her voice. “I volunteered because I wanted to make sure you knew that I’m really glad you’re staying in town for a couple of weeks. I was so distracted with my own family and the business after the accident, I didn’t say goodbye or wish you well when you left for college.”
“Oh. No worries. That was a long time ago.” Nina hadn’t guessed Bethany would feel any regret about that. She’d always been kind to her. “Things were so awkward afterward, I thought it best to just...leave.”
“But I should have written. I meant to after you’d been so good to Ally.” Bethany’s phone kept buzzing, making Nina think business must be going pretty well at the building-supply store.
“I know things were hard for Mack, too.” She remembered the handful of phone conversations they’d had when they’d still been speaking that summer. Mack had been truly devastated to lose Vince and had gone over that night a million times in his head—and aloud to her—about what they could have done differently.
But hadn’t it come down to what she should have done differently? That’s what had hurt most. Mack kept wondering why she’d had to be so hotheaded and come down so hard on Vince. As if she wouldn’t already be haunted for the rest of her life knowing that her last words to that boy had been thoughtless and harsh. That he’d been so hurt he’d...
“Mack had his whole family.” Bethany laid a hand on Nina’s forearm. Squeezed gently. “And with the Finleys, that’s a formidable amount of support. I should have reached out to you.”
Nina glanced down to where Bethany touched her and noticed her fingernails were chewed down to the quick, the polish chipped and faded at the tips. Bethany pulled her hand away.
“Mack and I are going to try and put it behind us,” Nina assured her. “We agreed we needed to move on.”
“I’m glad.” She smiled, but there was something strained about her expression, as if she hadn’t really smiled for a while. But then it faded and she leaned closer. “Nina? Did Mack tell you about Scott and me?”
“He said he came to town to help out so Scott and you could have some time—”
“We’re separating. He hasn’t really looked at or listened to me for years, so he probably hasn’t gotten the message.” The sadness in her voice was unmistakable as she spun her wedding ring around and around her finger with her thumb, almost like she couldn’t wait to get it off. “I’m trying to wait it out until Ally graduates, but things are so bad now, I’m not sure we’ll make it that long.”
“I’m so sorry.” Her heart went out to this woman, remembering how happy Mack’s brother and sister-in-law used to be. Did Mack know they’d already decided to call it quits? “You two were the perfect couple.”
“I used to think so, too.” She blinked fast and then folded her arms across her chest. “But I figured you should be aware because it will have repercussions in the family, and if you and Mack—”
“There’s no ‘me and Mack.’” She wanted to make that clear right away. “It was by accident that we ended up in town at the same time. We’ll be lucky if we can salvage some kind of friendship. We’re definitely not—” She shook her head even as she remembered how she’d flirted with Mack earlier that same day. “Too much water under the bridge.”
“Yeah?” Bethany tipped her head to one side, as if deciding whether or not she believed that. “There was a time when a lot of people thought you two were the perfect couple.”
That dream had died in a car on Washburn Creek Bridge, right beside Vince McClean. But then, that hadn’t been the only dream riding shotgun that night.
Nina cleared her throat. “If there’s anything I can do for your family while you are going through this—”
“Actually, there is.” Bethany stuffed her hands in her pockets. “Ally could use a friend right now. She’s completely shut down at home. Her grades have dropped. She’s angry with both Scott and me. It’s tearing me apart to see what this is doing to her.”
Nina remembered how confusing it had been when her own parents had split. She’d been younger than Ally, but she hadn’t understood what went wrong any better at seventeen than at ten years old. It didn’t help that neither of her parents had ever bothered explaining what had happened.
“I’ll bring Gram to her next hair appointment and try to catch Ally then. I don’t know if she’ll have much to say to me, but I can certainly offer an ear if you think it will help.”
Bethany bit her lip. “She would never want me to interfere in her life. But I just thought...if you happen to be talking to her...”
“Of course.”
“I meant what I said about being glad to have you back in town, Nina.” Bethany’s smile was crooked, but didn’t look quite so pained this time. “Will you consider staying? Mack said you moved some of your baking equipment into the barn.”
Nina smiled at how fast news traveled in a small town.
“I’m keeping my apartment in New York for now. I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do.” Her stomach clenched whenever she thought about it. She didn’t want to leave Gram on her own. But how could she ever stay in this small town that had suffocated her and then—after that accident—looked at her as the woman whose words had driven Vince to his death? At least, that’s how she’d felt on the weekends she came home during college. When she’d tried asking one of her closest friends about it, she’d confided that most people had “sided with Jenny,” agreeing that Nina had let her temper get the better of her when she lashed out at Vince the night of his death.
That had hurt. Still did.
“New York.” Bethany backed up a step toward her pickup truck, considering. “Maybe I’ll go with you, then. The city sounds like the perfect place to start over.”
Had she started over, though? Or had she just run away?
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_9672173e-b3b2-55c1-a6a0-b018702104a5)
“MACK FINLEY, you’re a sight for sore eyes.” The waitress at Lucky’s Back Porch sized him up as she chewed on the end of her pencil in a not-so-subtle attempt to flirt. “A fine, fine sight.”
On weekend nights, Lucky’s Grocery turned into an outdoor rib joint with live music and picnic tables dragged over from the town gazebo. The town council had debated the permit for over a year before approving it, arguing that the family atmosphere of the town square would be compromised. But having live music and dancing outside brought out people in droves. All the vendors on the town square stayed open later and did more business because of it. Mack had dropped by to check out the place, always interested to see a successful bar business in action. Plus, tonight’s band had a growing following for their country-bluegrass blend of music.
At sunset, the place was already rocking with a supper crowd feasting on barbecue chicken and ribs. Kids played on the playground near the gazebo while moms clutched their after-dinner coffee mugs and followed them around, the dads sharing beers on the “back porch”—an extended platform deck that was added on to the existing patio for the weekends. A bunch of white lights hung from low tree branches and a couple of patio heaters flanked the porch, but since the evening was mild enough, they hadn’t been switched on.
Mack stared up at the waitress and tried to remember how he knew her.
“Nice to see you, too—” he peeked at her name badge, half hidden under a blond ponytail that rested on the front of her shoulder “—Shirley.”
“Sherry.” She rolled her eyes and took her pencil out of her mouth. “Thanks, Mack. I was only your lab partner in biology for a whole year.”
Ah, crap. He definitely hadn’t inherited his father’s ease with names and faces, which sucked all the more because everyone in town knew him.
“Sorry, Sherry.” He shook his head. “My mind was a million miles away.”
She frowned. “Are you sure your mind wasn’t on Nina Spencer?” She pointed to Nina and her grandmother sitting off to one side of the crowd. Daisy Spencer had her leg propped on a chair while she clapped in time to the music. Nina shared something from her plate with a bulldog on a leash held by Kaleb Riggs, a guy they’d graduated with. “Because I seem to remember that Nina was the reason I couldn’t snag your attention in biology, either.”
He’d probably ducked Sherry’s attention for more reasons than Nina if she was as abrasive then as she was now. He honestly didn’t remember. Mack handed her back the menu and tried not to stare at Nina while she smiled at some other guy.
Not that it ought to matter to Mack.
“I’ll just have a Coke and the rib special. Thanks.” He obviously hadn’t succeeded in not staring at Nina because she turned toward him just then and their gazes locked.
Seeing her still messed with his head. And not just because of the past they shared. If he’d never laid eyes on her before tonight, he’d still be attracted to her. And damned if that wasn’t going to be a problem.
What had he been thinking to suggest they could be friends? He trusted she’d do a great job with the festival because she’d never done anything in half measures in her whole life. But just because she threw everything she had into it, didn’t mean that she’d do it the way he wanted her to. And that meant they’d be thrown together far more often than was probably healthy.
“One rib special. Coming right up,” Sherry scribbled on her notepad and tucked it into her apron pocket. “You think Nina will move home for good now that her business went under? I heard she’s going to have to sell off all the assets if she doesn’t want to go bankrupt. That’s why she moved everything into the barn.”
“I’m sure she just wants to spend some time with her grandmother.” Mack may not have learned the trick to memorizing names and faces from his old man, but he sure as hell had learned how to deflect conversational landmines after growing up with his mom.
“Can you believe that partner of hers ran off with one of their clients the night before his wedding?” Sherry poked him in the arm with the menu she carried, as if they’d shared an inside joke. “Disaster has a way of finding that girl—”
She broke off in the middle of her sentence as if realizing how freaking insensitive she sounded. The whole town knew the biggest tragedy of Nina’s life had been her argument with Vince the night he died.
“Sorry, Mack.” She clamped the menu under one arm. “I’ll go put your order in.”
If Mack’s ears were ringing with this kind of crap, what must Nina be going through on her side of the bar? He stole another look in her direction even as he told himself to forget about her and focus on why he was here—to scope out Lucky’s and escape the house for a few hours.
Except for the people who came up to ask him about Harvest Fest, it was a perfect, clear night with a town full of people celebrating the fact that it was Friday. Bluegrass serenaded him as he finished his ribs and made lots of mental notes on Lucky’s bar business.
But he couldn’t seem to forget that Nina was ten tables away, and after an hour, he had no excuse not to go say hello to Nina and her grandmother.
Except by the time he got to his feet, an old farmer in his best Saturday-night jeans sat in Nina’s seat, chatting up Daisy Spencer. Mack knew Nina wouldn’t leave her grandmother there alone, so where had she gone?
He looked toward the gazebo and saw her on the dance floor with Kaleb Freaking Riggs. Mack didn’t care...yet he found his feet walking straight toward them.
Turn around.
Turn around.
An upbeat song played, and a handful of couples two-stepped on the grass near the stage beneath a canopy of white twinkle lights. Nina was smiling up at Kaleb in a way that made it impossible for Mack to just walk away, even though he cursed himself out about it the whole time he approached them.
“Nina.” He arrived beside them just as the song ended and the crowd applauded.
The smile faded from her face, her expression shifting to surprise.
“Kaleb, I got an earlier promise on this one, okay?” Mack couldn’t even take his eyes off Nina long enough to look at the guy as the band changed tunes and slowed down the pace.
“I’ve gotta get home anyhow and put the kids to bed.” Kaleb shifted closer to Nina, but if the guy thought he was going to steal a good-night kiss after one dance, he had another think coming.

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