Candy Crumble

by Shannyn Leah

  CANDY CRUMBLE

  The McAdams Sisters

  Book 3.5, Abby McAdams

  Shannyn Leah

  Copyright © 2016 by Shannyn Leah

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or transmitted by any electronic or mechanical means including information, storage and retrieval systems, without the permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Shannyn Leah

  www.ShannynLeah.com

  Also by Shannyn Leah

  A Cinnamon Bay Romance

  Treasure of My Heart

  Bad Boys of Willow Valley

  Dax

  Dax the Halls (A Bad Boy Dax Christmas Novella)

  Stone

  Duke

  Holidays in Willow Valley

  Battle of the Bulbs

  Lexcon Time Travel

  Winters Rising

  Single on Valentine's Day

  Can't Say No

  The Caliendo Resort: : A Small-Town Beach Romance

  Sunset Thunder

  Sunset Rivalry

  Sunset Sail

  Sunset Flare

  The CRD: Season One

  Bang Bang on the 4th: Season One, Episode Nine

  The CRD Series: Season One

  The Davenports, Season One, Episode One

  Lucy, Season One, Episode Two

  Yaya, Season One, Episode Three

  Ford, Season One, Episode Four

  Gemma, Season One, Episode 5

  Daisy, Season One, Episode Six

  The Wedding, Season One, Episode Seven

  Halloween Party: Season One, Episode 8

  The Crazy Rich Davenports Box Set: Books 1-3

  The Crazy Rich Davenports Box Set: Books 1-9

  The McAdams Sisters: A Small-Town Romance

  Lakeshore Secrets

  Lakeshore Legend

  Lakeshore Love

  Candy Crumble

  Lakeshore Candy

  Lakeshore Lyrics

  The McAdams Sisters Lakeshore Complete Boxed Set Series (Books 1-5, Boxed Set)

  Watch for more at Shannyn Leah’s site.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Also By Shannyn Leah

  Candy Crumble Novella (The McAdams Sisters, #3.5)

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lakeshore Candy Excerpt Chapter One

  Lakeshore Candy Excerpt Chapter Two

  Connect With Me

  Sign up for Shannyn Leah's Mailing List

  Further Reading: Lakeshore Candy

  Also By Shannyn Leah

  About the Author

  For my Secret Sisters who fell so hard in love with Abby and Riley they were curious to know a little more about them. You ladies are the reason I can keep writing!

  Sign up for the author’s New Releases mailing list and get a THREE FREE BOOKS!

  Chapter One

  ABBY MCADAMS’ SNEAKERS slapped against the dirt path in a steady, rapid pace that would leave all of her siblings behind her in a puff of dust...if they knew where to find her.

  The cold, sharp air stung her lungs. It was the only feeling besides grief and desolation she’d felt in days. The early morning darkness surrounded her like a smothering blanket. The path only added layers onto the blanket. On each side of her, the overgrown bush of shadowed trees encroached closer. The branches arched above her thickened the deeper she ran into the path, blocking out the rising sun to nothing more than sporadic glints between the limbs.

  She had to get back to the house.

  The thought was so distant that it almost felt unreal...surreal. Abby’s life felt surreal.

  But deep down she couldn’t forget the instructions from her middle sister Sydney, directed specifically at Abby: wear an appropriate outfit. No holes, no studs, and not a mini dress. Meet the rest of her sisters at the funeral home and finally: Do. Not. Be. Late.

  Just because Abby had heard Sydney, comprehended her orders on a level enough to know it existed and nod her head in agreement, didn’t mean that Abby was going to attend.

  What difference did it make whether she was present or not?

  Gran had everything pre-planned before she died. Abby’s presence was nothing more than a formality...and Abby wasn’t much for formality. Gran knew that. Gran knew her and now...Gran was gone.

  Abby’s steps thumped heavily along with her crushed soul, a little quicker than her racing heartbeat.

  Why were her sisters all of a sudden here and telling her what to do? Where were they two days ago? Where were they that night?

  That night.

  Abby ran faster.

  Not today, not yesterday...where were they the night before?

  That night. That night.

  The two small words that meant so little as just individual words, for Abby, were so jam-packed and bursting with meaning that it forced excruciating anguish throughout her body. Not even her swift feet could outrun the crashing storm of sickness those words gathered in her stomach.

  Sickness? Suddenly it was more than emotional. Her stomach lurched as her mouth grew hot with water. What was she going to throw up? The water she’d forced down this morning? Or the partial bagel Mrs. Calvert had been determined Abby was going to eat?

  Early that morning, when the sun was yet to say good morning, Abby’s solemn feet walked her through the alley that divided Mrs. Calvert’s bakery and Gran’s house. Mrs. Calvert had caught Abby before she’d made it to the beach.

  Abby didn’t know why she was going to the beach, or why she was up before five in the morning, but she found herself unable to sleep with thoughts of Gran gone...forever.

  Mrs. Calvert had folded her arms over her starch white apron, holding a bagel toward Abby while blending a stubborn and sweet look that left Abby unable to fight her. She’d accepted the freshly baked bagel lightly brushed with butter and took a bite. Not for her empty stomach or to appease Mrs. Calvert, but to avoid the argument on the tip of Abby’s tongue. She wasn’t the root of Mrs. Calvert’s concern...it was Gran. The two older ladies had been such close friends, and Abby suspected Mrs. Calvert’s motives were Gran influenced.

  Abby didn’t want pity from Mrs. Calvert or anyone. Since the day her mother died, Abby had been on the end of the towns pity stick and when she was old enough to realize it, she took charge and stepped away from that image. Abby didn’t need or want anyone...except Gran.

  That night. That night.

  The repetitive beating rhythm in her head now was in prefect line with her pounding temples. Gran was her rock, her savior and now she was gone. Gone!

  The bagel won.

  Abby was barely able to skid to a stop and move off the path as the bagel burned in her throat, forcing its way up and leaving her with nothing but dry heaves.

  She sat on the gravel path and tears streamed down her face and that night replayed in her head.

  Gran had been up later than usual, after spending the evening
baking pies for church brunch the following morning. Abby had helped, but mostly she snuck spoonfuls of pie filling. When Gran had finally retired for the night, she had called Abby into her bedroom. Abby finished dabbing gloss over her lips, adding some glisten to the already bright red lipstick. Finishing touches before she headed for a night out on the town with her best friend, Izzy Caliendo.

  In the cute little cottage, Abby had pushed open Gran’s squeaky wooden bedroom door to find her all snuggled under a patchwork quilt. “Where are you going?” Gran had asked, as she ran the brush through her short grey hair one last time and set it on her night stand. Who would have thought that would be the very last time?

  “Gran,” Abby had started, with her smart smile and teasing tone. “It must seem pretty darn late to you, but honestly, ten is not that late and I’m just meeting up with Izzy at The Cliff House for a couple drinks. Then home I will be.” Not straight home, if she found some handsome tourist to spend the night with.

  Gran had smirked at her. “Are you calling me old?” she teased, acting all defensive, crossing her arms and sending her a half glare.

  Abby shook her head, laughed and gave her favorite person in the world an over exaggerated hug. “You’re just old-fashioned is all Gran. Nothing to do with your young age,” she teased back and kissed her forehead.

  “Don’t you stay out too late. We have church in the morning.”

  “I won’t. I promise. Love ya Gran!”

  Where had her sisters been that night? Where had she been that night?

  Abby stood now, needing to run away from the forming guilt. She didn’t blame her sisters for not being there for Gran...she blamed them for not being there for Abby, but that was an entirely different matter that Abby refused to ever discuss with them.

  Abby blamed herself for Gran’s death. When Abby promised to be home, she’d spent the night with some random guy whose name she couldn’t even remember.

  Abby’s feet were moving faster now down the path alongside the anger rising within her. Guilt combined with sadness that devoured her as she was lost back to that morning, reliving her walk through the abnormally quiet cottage to find Gran in her bed...dead.

  Abby didn’t notice her legs were hardly keeping up or that her feet were stumbling on stones along the rocky path. The flashes of the next morning blinded her, and the current path was overtaken by images of Gran’s bedroom.

  She could feel Gran’s limp body in her arms. She could see Gran’s lost face. She felt no heartbeat as she hugged Gran, pressing their bodies together, and in that instant was the moment Abby lost her heart.

  Abby pushed her running body to the limit and it finally gave out. She lost balance. She fell with images of Gran rather than the scenery around her.

  Her knees hit the ground first, tearing her pants and the skin across her legs. She didn’t feel it. Her hands automatically flew in front her, but nothing protected her, skinning her palms and then her knuckles as her body flew into a roll, landing her flat on her back and taking her breath.

  She gasped for air, but did she really want it? As she caught her breath she slowly blinked her eyes back to the now. They stared through the branches at the sky above, where the sun would rise and fall and another day would pass. And Abby would be alone, day after day.

  Chapter Two

  TWO O’CLOCK ROLLED around and Riley was done work for the day. He preferred to work straight through the supper crowd, but Mrs. C, owner of Mrs. Calvert’s Bakery, where he was currently employed, though five in the morning until two in the afternoon was enough hours for him.

  Riley disagreed.

  He wasn’t looking for more money or benefits. His desire to put in longer hours had nothing to do with either of those aspects, but instead it was a means to divert the thoughts in his head. That, and Riley was used to working long hours his whole life. Forty-eight hours a week felt like playtime.

  Working at his record label, he remembered multiple days a week pulling all-nighters to effectively put together an artist’s music.

  That was his old life and now only working until two in the afternoon left him an excessive amount of time to think about that life. The life he’d built from nothing and triumphed into everything. The same life he’d walked away from when his actions destroyed the lives of the most important people around him. All because of his hunger to succeed.

  Now, a movement from beyond the fence behind Mrs. C’s bakery to Grace McAdams backyard caught Riley Boyd’s attention.

  Everything caught Riley’s attention.

  He acknowledged, observed and walked away. If he stayed out of the lives of others, then they would stay out of his. That had been his theory for the last couple years and so far it had been working.

  He finished throwing the garbage bags in the dumpster, letting the lid crash shut and hoping the loud sound of plastics and metal would chase away the annoying curiosity rising inside him.

  Riley’s feet turned him toward his apartment over the bakery. A small apartment where he planned to sit on the couch and punish himself by staring at a guitar he refused to pick up. A guitar that had once brought him pleasure. Sure there was a television he could watch, but he wouldn’t. A television was an escape from his personal sentence.

  Even though he was headed toward the bakery, his eyes couldn’t tear away from the other property, knowing only one person would be over there: Abby McAdams.

  It’s not your problem. She’s not your problem.

  Abby had a large family in comparison to Riley and his only sister. The sister he left behind and hadn’t seen in almost two years. It was better this way. He was saving Cece from a future he would destroy and more pain he would cause.

  Riley swallowed down the familiar tormenting emotions that arose whenever he thought of home, which was more often than once a day.

  He tried his hardest to ignore his past while he was rolling dough and filling pastries, only to relive it the rest of the hours in his days. An agonizing reminder that he welcomed to recap why he didn’t get involved with people. Riley hurt people...especially those closest to him.

  Flashes of his daughter and her mother blinded him momentarily. He was used to it. But it didn’t make the memory of identifying their lifeless faces as they lay in the morgue any less excruciating.

  Two years later and those pictures turned his body hot and sent a blaze of guilt that invaded every part of him.

  Abby had her dad, three sisters, a brother, and a niece. Plus Mrs. C was like her family. Abby didn’t need Riley being all stalker slash protective over her.

  Protective over her?

  That thought made him vigorously shake his head. He didn’t protect anyone. Riley was a selfish and arrogant jerk, which was why his family had died in the car accident. It was his fault.

  Turn around.

  He didn’t.

  Maybe if Riley had dropped Mrs. C off at the hospital doors two days ago, instead of escorting her inside, he would have turned around and walked away today.

  But he hadn’t.

  That wasn’t the worst part. When Mrs. C had walked away with a nurse, leaving Riley and Abby alone, had been the moment that made Riley watch Abby now.

  Abby blamed herself for Grace’s death.

  Riley wasn’t even sure if Abby remembered saying the words to him, but she had.

  As the moment at the hospital had played out, Riley felt like they had been the feature couple in a movie on the big screen. That slow-motion moment when two people connected and no one understood the underlying meaning. He sure as hell didn’t understand it, but he knew it was there. As the confession had softly left her lips and Riley watched her wide, round, horror-filled brown eyes look up at him, he silently identified her pain and her guilt. Boom, a connection and, just like that, after a year of trying to ignore her, she oozed like hot lava into his thoughts, igniting his insides after he’d worked so hard to extinguish them.

  A connection?

  He needed to walk away instead
of listening to her shoes crunch against the autumn array of November leaves across the grass. He shouldn’t have allowed her to draw him closer to the gate.

  Get your hand off the latch.

  But someone had to tell Abby that she wasn’t to blame for Grace’s death. Grace had died of natural causes and even if Abby had been at home, she couldn’t have prevented her death.

  Abby’s circumstances were distinctly different from Riley’s. His family had died because he wasn’t there to protect them.

  Protect them?

  That was contrary to the truth. The accident had occurred after Riley had another serious falling out with Dani and he had sent her and their newborn daughter into the snowstorm that claimed their lives. It might not have been his hand, but he held himself accountable for their deaths.

  A cold chill invaded his body that had nothing to do with the crisp breeze finding its way under his leather jacket.

  He definitely wasn’t the person to talk to Abby.

  Riley started to turn around but caught Abby collapse on the stairs out of the corner of his eyes.

  His hand snapped up the latch and his long legs took him across the backyard.

  The closer he got to her, the more he saw. There was blood everywhere. Across her pale skin on her face, smeared on her trembling hands, and coating her clothes. He couldn’t define the source of the dark liquid, but he hoped it was only from the rips in the knees of her pants.

  As she sat up, Riley dropped to his knees in front of her. “Abby?”

  She didn’t look up.

  “Are you alright?”

  He got a delayed shrug out of her.

  Riley touched her chin and forced her to look at him. Her skin was ice cold. It was then he realized she was wearing only jogging pants and a t-shirt.

  Her confused and glazed eyes stared right through him, like she didn’t even know who he was. Nothing like three days ago, when she’d popped into the bakery with Grace and spent their quick fifteen-minute visit harassing Riley and trying to get a rise out of him.