CHAPTER 1
Scott: Come on, Sadie. Answer my calls or at least text back. It’s been days.
Sadie Sandler scanned the text before shoving the cell back into her pocket.
Argh. She did not have the energy for Scott today. What shedidhave the energy for was cupcakes. Lots and lots of cupcakes.
She lifted the tray of pumpkin pie goodness from the kitchen counter. They’d just cooled, and yep, they smelled amazing. Usually, pumpkin pie cupcakes were seasonal and only sold between September and November, but they were so popular at Sugar and Spice that her grandmother sold them all year round.
On her way to the front of the store, she moved past her grandmother, who was serving a customer at the register, then crouched to fill a display shelf.
Pumpkin pie was definitely a favorite of hers, but then, she had many favorites. Golden vanilla. Red velvet. Cookies and cream. It really depended on her mood.
People often assumed that growing up spending her summers around cake, and now working in Sugar and Spice, she’d be sick of the stuff. Nope. Could a person get sick of pumpkin pie cupcakes? Or triple chocolate cookies? Thatwas impossible, right? Especially when they were the best in Tennessee. But then, she might be biased.
God, she’d missed them during the year she’d lived in Atlanta. She’d missed a lot of things about the small town of Misty Peak, but her grandmother and the shop were right at the top of the list. They were what made Misty Peak home.
Once the shelf was filled, she rose and set the tray back in the kitchen before grabbing an overflowing bag from the trash.
A week. She’d been back in Misty Peak for one entire week after a year away, and every day that passed just reaffirmed that coming home was the right decision. The people, the familiarity…even the smells of the town made her feel something that Atlanta had never made her feel.
When she stepped outside into the alley and moved to the dumpster, a truck to the right caught her attention. It was parked behind the Misty Peak Liquor Store, which sat beside her grandmother’s shop.
She frowned at the sight of Mr. Anderson, the liquor store owner, arguing with a guy, who she assumed was the truck driver. Mr. Anderson was shorter than the driver, with graying hair, but there was something in his eyes, an anger, that almost had Sadie slowing her steps. The men spoke in hushed voices, but Mr. Anderson seemed to be cutting the man off whenever he tried to get a word in.
Had something gone wrong with a liquor delivery?
Suddenly, Mr. Anderson’s gaze rose, colliding with Sadie’s.
Crap. She was staring.
Forcing a smile to her lips, she walked to the dumpster and dropped the bag inside. She was just turning around when her phone vibrated again.
Scott: Come on, Sadie. You left me at the altar. The least you owe me is a conversation.
That was the thing though—she didn’t owe him anything. She had a very good reason for walking out on him. A reason he conveniently wasn’t mentioning in these little text exchanges.
And yeah, maybe she should have stuck around the morning of her wedding to tell him why she wasn’t going through with it, but it had been a fight-or-flight moment, and she’d chosen flight.
Even so, Scott wasn’tthatstupid. He had to know that she knew what he’d done.
Sadie: I don’t owe you anything. Leave me alone.
Shoving the cell into her pocket, she gave one final glance over to Mr. Anderson—who’d now moved out of sight behind the truck—before stepping back inside the bakery. Her grandmother was still in the front, filling a box with half a dozen cupcakes.
“Let me guess,” Sadie said with a grin. “These are for Jenny?”
Her grandmother smiled up at her. “It’s like you never left. Yes, these are for Jenny. The same order every Monday for the last ten years.”
Yep, because that was Misty Peak—things rarely changed.
“People here are nothing if not creatures of habit.” Why she found those habits and the predictability that came with them so comforting, she wasn’t sure. Maybe because living in Atlanta for the last year had been so much harder than it should have been. But that had more to do with the feeling in her belly the entire year that she wasn’t where she was supposed to be.
Her grandmother straightened and looked at her. Likereallylooked at her.
Oh, Jesus. No one knew her better than this woman, and right now, it felt like she saw everything Sadie was trying to hide.
“How are you doing, Sadie?” her grandmother finally asked. “And don’t give me some wishy-washy ‘I’m fine’ answer that you think I want to hear. A week ago, you walked away from both your home and your wedding. That wouldn’t have been easy.”
