That image was almost enough to make her smile.
Finn Dashwood: glitchy flirt, steady father, surprising friend?
Then her thoughts paused. What if... what ifhewasn’t the one running. Maybeshewas.
Her brain hitched on that idea.
Her tremulous heart began to shiver with a very real possibility that not every flirt, not every charming man, was her dad in the making. That perhaps Finn was exactly who her heart had been waiting for all along and she’d been so lost in her own assumptions, she’d failed to see the truth.
“Looks like those thoughts are settling in.” Granny D pushed a steaming mug toward her with a knowing glint in her eye. “I think a cup of tea is exactly what you need.”
Daphne reached for the cup... and stopped.
Across the front, in bright green letters, it read: “The tea is hot and so is the chef.”
“Just in case you need an extra nudge, sugar,” Granny D said, all innocence and no shame.
Daphne sighed.
Surrounded by traitors.
And amateur matchmakers.
And she still had a competition to win.
Finn couldn’t help it. He had to wear the shirt to the cook-off.
From the front, it looked like a nice button-down, crisp and blue with a tasteful #TeamPub embossed over the left side of the chest. Classy. Showed loyalty. Clear and concise.
But on the back?
His grin twitched.
“Warning: Contents may cause swooning.”
Thanks, Wisteria General Store.
He couldn’t wait to see Daphne’s reaction.
Walking through town in all its festival glory only deepened his sense of belonging. Autumn bunting crisscrossed the street above him. Booths spilled down the sidewalks. The scent of cinnamon kettle corn mingled with crisp air and roasting pecans.
And apples. The scent of apples flooded almost every intake of breath, and in various forms of deliciousness. Ah yes. He needed to use those in a recipe very soon.
People waved, raved about his food, asked how Lucy was doing, joked with him like they’d known him all his life.
He’d not even been open a week, and already he had regulars—people who stayed to chat over coffee, who updated him on town gossip whether he asked or not, who already knew how he organized his bar. But mostly, he’d felt the community embrace him.
They’d folded him into the story of Wisteria with an ease thatcaught him off guard and completely transformed his definition ofhome.
And of course the town had gone all in for the cook-off.
Banners stretched over shop windows. All sorts wore T-shirts declaring loyalty to either #TeamPub or #TeamTea. The local embroidery shop had added oven mitts and aprons to the mix. Some voters were loud about their allegiance. Others whispered it with shifty eyes like it was classified intel.
And still, the energy perked with pure fun. Friendly. No fights.
Yet.
Finn kept looking up the hill toward the pinnacle of the street where the focus of the festivities came to their crowded and most colorful culmination. One of the beauties of the town was how it rose from the bottom of Main Street at the Ashbourne River to the top in a slow incline until it crested at the point of the town hall, First Baptist Church, The Marches, and Wisteria Public Park... which happened to house an amphitheater with musicians ready to play.
