“I’m just a man. I’m going to fuck up, but I need you to trust that I’ll have your best interests at heart. I’ll always want what you want.”
She blinked back another flood of tears and failed. “You want to go to pastry school?”
I took her hands. Emotion flooded the air around us, but I couldn’t have her hiding from them. She’d probably been berated about them in the past. “You promise that if you ever get the chance, you’ll go?”
“I can’t?—”
“Madison.”
“I’m not leaving my family. Okay?” She brushed at her eyes. “Scott left me everything to take care of them. They’re all I have.”
“You have me now too.”
“This is so new, Teller.” A fear I’d never seen filled her eyes.
“One day at a time, all right? You’ll get your parents’ place sold, and you’ll secure long-term care for your mom. You’ll have enough left over to buy your own house, with a kitchen you can bake in.” Or she’d move in with me permanently. But she might need her own space after the dust of the renovations settled. I’d give her that. I’d give her anything. “Then you’ll go do fun things with your nephew.”
Her eyes welled up again. “If I ever get to see him.”
“Trust me,” I said dryly, “once Wendi hears how much the property goes for, she’ll be around. She’ll use her son to siphon it off you.”
Madison released a watery laugh. “I hate that you’re right.”
“Then we’ll get the bar going, and you’ll have regulars and new customers who’ll keep you afloat so you can keep baking and having sex with me.”
“Sounds pretty long term, Bailey.”
“I thought you were going to think of an annoying nickname.”
“Turns out I’m not so irritated by you.”
I grinned. It wasn’t like I hadn’t been calledBaileybefore, but I had two brothers and there’d been my dad. People had to use our first names to differentiate us. Yet every time she said it, it went straight to my dick. She never called anyone elseBailey. “I like the sound of long term, Mad Maddy.”
“I’m not feeling so mad these days.”
Madison
Teller pulled up in front of a bakery. Stella’s Sweets. The large sign above the door featured a lineup of pastries. I checked the time. It was six. We’d left as soon as he’d gotten off work, but bakeries closed early.
“Is this place open?” But lights were on inside and people were sitting at tables.
“Sure is. They even have a café menu.” He got out and jogged around the front of the pickup.
I put my hand on the handle, but I was still staring at the place. It wasn’t like seeing my dream. I’d meant it when I’d told Teller that I couldn’t open a bakery in Bourbon Canyon. There was too much animosity between me and too many others in that town, and even if there hadn’t been, would I even get enough business to stay open? Bakeries didn’t serve alcohol, and that was Flatlanders’ saving grace.
The town could use more quick lunch places that weren’t Curly’s and the coffee shop. If someone was so inclined. Not me though.
Teller opened my door and my gaze jumped to him, taking in the man before me. Mydate. He wore a dark blue polo with no logo and a dark pair of jeans with his boots, but he still gave off boardroom CEO energy. Apparently, cowboy boss was my thing.
He waited expectantly.
“I haven’t been to a bakery since I was visiting Aunt Tilly in high school,” I said to cover how I’d been ogling him.
“Aren’t there any in Missoula?”
“Yes, but as a broke college student, I wasn’t going there. Then I was a broke newlywed. And then...” I chewed the inside of my cheek as I clocked the pink-striped wallpaper inside and the donut shapes hanging off the ceiling. A screen over the counter flashed from donuts to fritters to bagels to fluffy loaves of bread. Gah. It was so cute. “By then I was making everything myself, and it was treated like a waste of money. As if I’d ever been anything less than frugal.”
“As if all sorts of coffee he doesn’t drink wasn’t a waste.”
