“It’s a paycheck,” I said. “Besides, it’s still good publicity. Everybody will be at his damn rally, and they’ll all be hungry. It’s like…an advertisement for the graduation parties coming this spring. I can remind people that I freelance.”
“Freelance bake?”
“Sounds better than I’m desperate and come with my own sprinkles.”
“But Nolan?” Delta’s tone shifted to that motherly warning she gave me when she thought I was being naïve. “He’s still trying to get in your pants.”
Gross. “He won’t.”
“He’s not bad looking.”
“He’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
Delta snorted. “Clothing he wants to strip.”
“I won’t trust him, but I’ll take his money. Lord knows he has more where that came from.”
“And then what?”
Easy. “And then we hope the check clears before I prove he burned down my candy shop.”
She sighed, but she pulled the phone away like I wouldn’t hear it. Her voice softened.
“Josie, Nolan didn’t set the fire. The police proved it, the fire marshal proved it—”
“He didn’t do it himself.” I wasn’t a fool. “He has the money and the connections to hire someone to do it for him. Hell, you know who his family is, where they get their money—”
“That was a long time ago. Times have changed. Nolan’s an egotistical asshole, but he’s running for state representative. His family bought the town fifty years ago, but they’re…legit now. Why would he risk his political career to destroy your store?”
Delta had been my best friend since kindergarten, but some things I couldn’t share with her. “He punished me because I refused his offer last year. He wanted more than the property; he got off on the thought of a little ebony princess hanging on his arm.”
“…He didn’t actually say that.”
“During his proposal. He happens to like that I’m the most…unique woman in town.”
“You mean the darkest.”
“Yep.”
Delta grumbled a profanity. “Well…even if he’s a creeper, he didn’t burn down your store.”
“I know it was him,” I said.
“Josie—”
“I’ve got almost all the proof I need to come forward—”
“This isn’t about Nolan.” Delta interrupted me. “You have to get over Maddox.”
And it circled back. Like it always did.
The shop was only one part of my frustration. I missed the candy and the cookies, the dozens of shiny baking sheets, and the framed picture over the register—me as kid with Granddad, Nana, and an ice cream cone four scoops too big.
My throat tightened. I pretended it didn’t. I wasn’t talking about Maddox in the middle of the ruined lot, surrounded by the entire town of Saint Christie as they walked their dogs and greeted neighbors and spread rumors after a long day of gossiping at work.
According to the town, Maddox was a criminal—a walking, talking, tattooed curse. When he visited, all of Saint Christie locked their doors at night. Single women crossed to the other side of the street, and the police—as well as every old lady peeping through her blinds—kept a close eye on him.
To them, he was the reason my shop was gone.
To me, he was the only man I ever loved.
“It’s getting late,” I said. “I’m gonna get started on the cookies. Nolan wants them hand-delivered the day after tomorrow.”
“You’re not going to his house?”
I knew better than that. “He agreed to meet me for coffee.”
“Do you need any help?”
The last time Delta entered my kitchen she accidentally baked a knife into an apple pie, broke the handle of my best copper-bottomed pan, and melted the groom topper on the Miller’s wedding cake with a Crème brûlée torch I specifically hid from her. Delta swiped a Lego man from her kid brother to replace the plastic figure, but it just wasn’t as elegant.
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “I like baking on the weekends. I like baking any time.”
“Freak.”
“Party-Animal.”
Delta howled, which I’m sure her office loved, but it was a Friday and they were probably relieved she wasn’t pole dancing next to the Xerox machine. I promised to call her on Saturday and headed home.
Or…I went to my apartment.
I lost my home in the fire—the cute little rooms over the shop. But my new apartment was comfortable, if only because I packed every available space with fifty-pound bags of flour, tubs of sugar, a variety of nuts, cocoa powders, chips, and baking spices. Even my linen closet was filled with brown sugar and corn syrup and cookie sheets.
My apartment still teased with a vanilla scent from the last batch of cookies I made. It’d only get better. I dumped my recipe book on the table and sorted through what’d work best for the event. Nolan ordered an obscene quantity of cookies…
…Probably because the creep liked the thought of my slaving over a hot stove.
And other places I refused to imagine.
I had no place to prep. Most of my counters were crowded with too many papers and folders. They were the final piece in my puzzle—the crown of my yearlong investigation of Nolan that would prove his involvement in the fire. It took a while to find, but I finally had the blueprints, plans, and engineering schematics Nolan commissioned for my shop. The plans were delivered the week he made the offer on my property. Public record was a funny thing, and having a former classmate on the inside of the busiest engineering firm in the county helped when I needed more information.
The engineers designed plans for Nolan’s renovation and reconstruction of Sweet Nibbles from bakery to a trendy bed-and-breakfast. If nothing else, the plans were presumptuous, the makings of a man used to getting what he wanted when he wanted it. Had I agreed to the sale, he’d have taken his first reservation for the inn the night I signed the transfer. But I refused him and his perverted proposal, and my store burned to the ground.
I spun sugar for a living, but when the licorice whip needed to crack, I was all business. It took me a year, but I’d prove Nolan belonged behind bars. Then, nothing would stop me from getting my shop back.
Nothing.
Except a knock at the door.
I dove over the papers, shoving them in the first available hiding space…which happened to be my refrigerator. I edged the milk and a couple containers of yogurt out of the way and jammed my future legal case beside the week-old lunch meat.
Damn, Delta. It was just like her to be too sweet to let me spend a weekend alone. She stayed with me every Friday since the break-up, since the trials started and he was gone. I loved having her around, but tonight was a date with two dozen oatmeal raisin cookies before moving to nut horns and the pecan tassies before the…
The knocking thudded louder, insistent. A fist punished the door frame. I bit my lip.
That wasn’t Delta.
I edged close, flinching as the pounding shook the door. Almost angry.
But who would be angry? My stomach clenched. The reaction was ridiculous. Nothing bad ever happened in our sugar-starved little town.
Nothing except arson.
Nothing except almost losing my life in a terrible fire.
But who was counting?
The slamming practically jarred my teeth. Something wasn’t right. I should have dialed the police or called someone for help.
Instead, I opened the door and made the biggest mistake of my life.
He waited on my porch. Silent. Staring.
Maddox was free.
And he’d come for me.
Chapter Two – Josie
Nothing I did could save me from him now.
My breath caught somewhere between my chest and the imagined words I’d whispered to him in the worst moments of my loneliness.
The last time I saw Maddox, the police were shoving him into their cruiser. The EMTs hid me in the ambulance. I didn’t remember much. My shop was burning. Granddad was already in transit. And the love of my life stared at me, his eyes blazing as fierce and hot as the flames that consumed my world.
He’d saved me from the fire.
And then they took him to jail.
Maddox stood in my doorway, as huge and intimidating as I remembered. His leather jacket clung to his body, so much bigger than the last time I saw him. He’d bulked up in jail. Massively. The town feared him when he was just lean muscle and attitude. Now he grew silent and imposing.
He was still the most amazingly beautiful man I’d ever seen.
And he couldn’t be here. Not now. Not when I was so close. It’d ruin everything and jeopardize everyone.
Tears prickled my eyes, but not out of relief. Not because my fractured heart healed itself as the man who controlled its every beat replaced the scattered pieces with the only thing more dangerous than his presence.
Hope.
And fear.
If he was back, then none of us were safe.
“Maddox?” I didn’t recognize my voice. Didn’t recognize the word on my lips.
It wasn’t possible.
But I was so glad it was…and I was terrified of what would happen.
“Josie.”
Maddox’s voice seared through me, igniting everything I’d buried deep down, hidden in ash and misery. The word sizzled through me. Hot.
If fire came to life, it’d take the form of Andrew Maddox. Someone violent when uncontrolled, beautiful when tamed, and unpredictable and strong, even as the world attempted to extinguish it.