Read an Excerpt
Chapter 1
Cliff
I have a bad habit of staring at the phone. Arms crossed. Tongue in cheek. Foot tapping. Maybe it's unfair, but the thing doesn't ring when I need it to, so who's really the victim here?
"You sure there were no messages for me this morning?" I ask, leaning over the bakery counter, where my sister is staring as intently as I am at a framed cupcake painting. "Carol?"
"It doesn't look good," she announces.
"The painting?"
"It doesn't look good," she repeats.
"Sure it does," I answer. I swing open the half door to the linoleum-tiled lobby and wipe my hands on my apron. "It's great."
I honestly can't tell the difference between this and the last painting she picked, but with Carol, there can't be hesitation.
Carol's been redecorating the bakery's interior for weeks now. Green walls became pink, then yellow. Iron chairs were traded for dark wood, then light. The display cases have somehow remained untouched, but I give her another week until those are gone too. This place could have neon beer signs for all I care, but that's why she's in charge of presentation and I'm not. My job is to bake.
She's Burke's Bakery's brains; I'm the hands.
Carol swivels her eyes toward the bakery's floor-to-ceiling windows. Winston, our resident painter, is perched on a small stool on the sidewalk, creating the final strokes on our seasonal window art. It's a mural of autumn leaves, scarecrows, pumpkins, and apples. I told him to add a pie, but he said he couldn't draw pies, so plain apples it is.
Carol lets out a wistful sigh. "I couldn't do that."
"Of course you couldn't. That's why we hire Winston. The art looks fine," I reassure her again.
I look at the counter phone. I thought I'd heard a ring. Maybe I didn't.
"It's not working." Carol snatches the cupcake painting off the wall, places it on the floor, and power walks outside.
I follow her out, leaving the door cracked open so I can hear if the phone rings.
A breeze picks up. I tuck my hands into my denim pockets. Copper Run isn't even remotely as cold as it will be in future months. It's the beginning of September, and the leaves have begun shifting from summer greens to deep auburn and burnished golds. It's the first real blustery day, wind knocking leaves down around my feet.
"What do you think?" Winston asks from the sidewalk, gesturing to the glass mural, paintbrush poised in the air.
"Stunning," I say. "Your best work yet."
"Carol looks stressed."
"She's upset she's not as talented as you."
Winston chortles. "Everyone wishes they were as talented as me."
I clap his back in passing. "Good job not getting a big head, buddy."
He salutes me in response.
I follow Carol across the street to the town square. She reaches into her back pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. I raise my eyebrows.
"Shut up, Clifford. I'll quit tomorrow."
I hold up my hands. "I didn't say anything."
Carol flicks her lighter, takes in a breath, then blows the smoke through the corner of her mouth in the opposite direction.
"I'm a basket case," Carol moans.
If people were pastries, Carol would be a cannoli. When you take a bite of a perfect cannoli-even though it's perfect-it cracks apart, and all that's left is a gooey center. Carol is always on the verge of showing her soft side.
I sigh, dropping my arm over her shoulders. "You're not a basket case."
"I never get anything right."
Carol's always critical of herself, but she's been too critical lately. We've all been on edge since Birdie Cadell passed this summer, and we all cope in different ways. I overbake. Carol smokes. At least she does it far enough from the bakery that the smell of her smoke won't permeate the store.
She flicks her hand around, smoke trailing with it. "Do you ever feel like that? Like a loser?"
"No."
She shoots me a look, and I grin.
"Listen, we make sure the croissants are fluffy and that the door opens at six." I grip her shoulder with my palm and shake. "If we get that right, there are no problems. It's just a bakery, Carol."
She tilts her head to the side. "Just a bakery," she mocks. "You're such a liar."
She's right. Of course it's not any old bakery; it's our bakery-a bakery I dived into headfirst two years ago and one that thrives more than it has any right to. Burke's Bakery is both my biggest accomplishment and one of my biggest problems. I love it.
"The cupcake painting doesn't matter, all right? You're doing great. Promise."
Carol gives a weak smile. I pull her in for a side hug.
"Thanks," she mumbles.
"Now, let's get going."
Carol scrunches her nose. "You're not the boss of me."
I bark out a laugh. "Technically, I am."
"I hate you sometimes."
"Not as much as Emily does."
She snorts. "Are you kidding? Emily idolizes you."
"Oh, right." I snap my fingers. "Forgot it was the opposite. My daughter loves me."
"You ass," Carol hisses through a reluctant smirk, pushing my shoulder. "One day, she'll be a normal teenager and see the light."
"Don't jinx me."
"Maybe she'll turn out to be a mess, like her dear ol' aunt," she muses, taking another inhale of her cigarette. "Oh God, I'm a mess."
I take the butt from her fingers and press it into the ashtray on the park's trash can.
"I do hate you," she says through narrowed eyes. "I mean it this time."
"I'm sure you do."
I lean against the lamppost but startle as orange lights wound around the pole stab into my back. Copper Run's square is decorated for the Harvest Festival. Haystacks line the walkways, scarecrows stand erect beside the white gazebo, and crowds of pumpkins form a small patch in the corner of the park. I need to decide what I'll bring to my booth this year. Last year, Burke's Bakery sold out of our apple crumb cakes.
Carol kicks out a foot, scratching fallen leaves on the sidewalk. "So . . . has the evil queen called?"
I rap a fist against the lamppost and tongue my cheek. "That's not nice."
"Has she?"
"No," I answer. "And there were no messages for me, right?"
"Nope."
I nod to myself. "Then no. Nothing."
"That's normal though."
"Unfortunately."
My ex-wife makes weekly calls from New York to our daughters, but it's not uncommon if she misses one. I've called her twice since Sunday, but I reached her answering machine both times. It's been two years since Tracy left Copper Run, and I worry about her, but I worry about her relationship with our daughters more.
If Carol is a cannoli, Tracy is a yule log-more difficult to bake than it needs to be and only seen by me at Christmas.
Carol places a gentle hand on my shoulder. I give a half-hearted smile.
"Let's go," I say. "Smoke break is over."
"You got it, boss."
"I knew you'd come around."
We move to cross the street, but down the sidewalk, striding toward the bakery, are my two daughters. I consider that maybe my watch is slow, but when I look-no. School is not out yet.
"What the-" I stride across the pavement, holding out a palm to stop our florist, Sandra, from hitting me with her van.
She playfully honks, but her smile drops when she spots my worried expression.
"Sorry, Cliff!" she calls out the window.
I give a passive thumbs-up.
I catch up to my sixteen-year-old daughter, already sliding her backpack down one arm, key chains rattling on the concrete.
"Emily, what happened?" I ask, darting my eyes between them.
Emily shrugs. "I saw Brittany outside the video store."
"And you didn't think to send your sister back to school?" I ask, rushing toward my six-year-old. I squat down to her level.
"She was crying," Emily explains.
"How'd she even leave without someone seeing?"
She shrugs. "Recess? I don't know."
Although both girls have their mother's honey-blond hair, they couldn't be more different. Emily inherited my pin-straight locks, and it's longer than it's ever been, cascading over thin headphones hanging around her neck and hitting halfway down her jean jacket. She's wearing a striped, cropped T-shirt, a sliver of exposed skin above her denim pants. I definitely told her not to wear that, but she's always been a little defiant, and I love that about her.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, there's my six-year-old, Brittany, wearing white overalls and sparkly sneakers. Her curly ponytail pulls back in a neon-pink scrunchie. She's not nearly as rebellious as Emily, but she mimics her sister enough that confidence isn't a problem.
I cup Brittany's cheek, thumbing over the streak of tears. "Britt, what happened?"
"Luke said . . ." She rubs her sniffling nose with the back of her hand. "He said that Steve was going to lose his match."
I squint. "Steve? Who's Steve?"
"Steve, Daddy." She pokes at her T-shirt. Peeking above the top flap of her overalls is a bald man in a leather vest.
"Oh." I playfully knock my palm against my forehead. "D'oh. Steve."
Brittany giggles through a sniffle.
I forget we're on a first-name basis with the wrestler of the year. Carol got her hooked on Steve Austin-of all people, Christ-and he's edging higher on my six-year-old's list of admirable men, right over those Backstreet Boys. Either way, her mother would kill me if she knew. If she ever called on time.
I squeeze Brittany's shoulders. "Now, come on. You know he's not going to lose."
"But Luke says he will."
"Okay, well, you can tell that little punk Luke that he's wrong, and he'll always be wrong, and he should just get used to it now, okay?"
My daughter'starts mouthing my words back to herself, as if reciting lines for a play.
"Don't actually tell him that," I rush in. "What's said in or near the bakery is kept in the bakery, all right?"
"But we told Birdie everything."
Emily and I exchange a look.
"Right," I say slowly, swiveling back to Brittany. "But remember that Birdie was an exception. What's said in Bird & Breakfast also stays in Bird & Breakfast."
Birdie Cadell and her endearingly quiet husband, Paul, ran Bird & Breakfast for the past year. Since we live next to the inn and because Brittany's never seen a yard she didn't like to run through, we grew close to the Cadells quickly. Birdie would watch Brittany after school, and Emily would take advantage of their biscuit surplus. It's been a weird adjustment for my girls since she passed.
"I miss Birdie," Brittany murmurs.
Emily cringes.
"Hey, she's in a better place now, remember?" I tell her, though I hope my words carry to Emily too.
Brittany nods slowly, and I wonder if she's reliving our conversation about death outside the chapel at Birdie's wake. We took a big summer road trip out to Seattle to pay our respects, but I have no clue how much Britt remembers about death. All I know is, she loves bringing it up.
"Do you think Sara will be fun?" Brittany asks.
I shrug. "I don't know. Hopefully."
When we called Birdie in the hospital before her bypass surgery, she mentioned that her daughter Sara would take over the inn. I jokingly told her it was too early to make contingency plans, but she must have known something I didn't. I can only assume Sara will show up eventually, but with no calls or letters from Paul yet, we're in the dark.
"Cliff!" I look up to find Betty peering out her sandwich shop door. "You need help?"
I wave with a grimace. "We're all right, Bets."
She glances down at Brittany, then back up. "Are you sure?"
I shake my hand harder. "I'm good, Bets!"
"Well, let me know-"
"Sure will!"
My face heats. Betty is only the start; more heads will poke out from their stores soon. Copper Run residents insist on helping like that. Hell, I insist like that. But the last thing I want is to burden my kind neighbors with our silly issues.
"Do I have to go back?" Brittany asks.
"What, to school?"
She nods. I sigh. God, my kid looks pitiful with her puffy eyes and out-of-breath chest rising and falling like she ran a marathon.
"No," I say on an exhale. "You don't have to go back to school. Head inside. I baked cookies." I playfully tug on her ponytail. "I'll call the school so they don't think you're dead."
Her eyes light up. "Really?"
"Really."
I pat her on the back, and like I've flipped a light switch, she's laughing with her arms straight out by her sides, making airplane noises as she zooms into the bakery.
"Only one cookie, okay?" I call out, but she doesn't hear me-or doesn't want to.
I click my tongue and peer at Emily. "I just got played, didn't I?"
She smiles. "Duh."
I groan as she slides her headphones back over her ears. I hook a finger in the side to tug them back down.
"Aren't you supposed to be at work?" I ask. "Lisa is gonna kill you."
"I finished up everything," she responds with a shrug.
Emily's afternoon work-study is at the post office across the square, and it's the only reason she should be out of school. But Lisa, the elderly postmistress living on a breath and a prayer, is of the mindset that you can leave when your work is done. Normally, I'd agree, but I know my daughter. Hell, I know about being a teenager in Copper Run all too well.
"You said you saw Brittany outside the video store." I narrow my eyes. "Why were you at the video store?"
She stiffens and shrugs. I know that gesture.
"I went to see what came out this week," she says.
She's a terrible liar.
"You were seeing that kid again."
Emily's eyes widen. "No!"
My eyebrows fall into a single line. "Really?"
She tilts her chin up. "Really."
"So, you weren't visiting James-"
"Josh."
"Right. That's what I said."
She narrows her eyes to match my own. But I know what she's thinking, and she knows I know.
"Fine," she concedes. "I was hanging out with Josh."
"Uh-huh-"
"But I was thinking . . . since my grades are good . . . I was wondering if-"
"No," I groan, placing my thumb and forefinger over the bridge of my nose.
Emily slaps her thighs. "Oh, come on! We've been dating for two weeks now!"
"And that's not enough time for him to grace my doorstep."
