by Marina Adair
“Let me guess, the owners pay the girls with cider and charm?”
The woman laughed. “Oh, not girls.”
Confused, Kennedy gave a second, more thorough look, and holy hotness—
Beneath the LOOK AT THEM APPLES banner and behind the Barbies, surrounded by a swarm of single ladies flapping their bills, stood what appeared to be the cast from Magic Mike dressed in low-slung jeans and tissue-thin BAD APPLE T-shirts.
“What’s that?”
“That,” the woman sighed dreamily, “is the University of Washington hockey team. And behind them is their revered coach and honored leader.”
Forget Magic Mike, Kennedy thought, taking in the underwear model in a coach’s cap with enough biceps for the entire hockey league. The man was big, beautiful, but not the badass that had Kennedy’s insides cooking.
That honor went to Luke, in dark jeans, a dark T-shirt, and a dark ball cap pulled low. In case that wasn’t mysterious enough, he had on a pair of aviators—mirrored. He was a sexy corporate hottie lurking around in secret agent attire.
“They know their demographic,” Kennedy said, a little impressed, because as the women flocked to the players, the men in town flocked toward the women. It was brilliant really. “Smart and charming.”
“Is that a bad thing?” the woman asked with a smile.
“It is if you’re allergic to charm.”
“It’s the sweet part that always gets me,” she said in a way that had Kennedy wanting to take back her comment. Destiny Bay was a small town where everyone knew everyone, and it was obvious by the woman’s expression she knew one of them intimately.
Kennedy grimaced. “Oh, are you and Thor dating?”
“Thor? Oh, you mean Hawk? God no,” she said as if she’d rather swallow glass. Or maybe she was trying to convince herself of that. Either way, it seemed Kennedy had found common ground. “He was married to my sister.”
“Was?” Kennedy asked.
“Yeah, Hawk was her dream man until he busted his shoulder and a knee and it ended his career a few years back. She filed for divorce shortly after and then traded up for a newer model.”
“Ouch.”
“Massive ouch on the whole family,” she said. “I tried to lose both of them in the divorce, but Hawk decided to move back home, and resume his role as my keeper.” The woman held up a blowtorch. “Like I can’t take care of myself.”
She not only looked like she could take care of herself, she was an honest-to-God Nut Buster. Two things Kennedy could learn from. “Hi, I’m Kennedy, want a tart?”
“I don’t do handouts.” The woman set down her torch and extended a gloved hand, holding a twenty. “I’m Ali, your neighbor.” She pointed to a brick-faced storefront directly across Main Street from Sweetie Pies. “I am just out showcasing some of my new sculptures for the Apple Festival.”
Kennedy held up her basket of tarts. “Me, too.”
“Why didn’t you get a booth?”
Kennedy looked up and down the street at all the booths, lining both sides of the road. Her shop was one of the few that hadn’t taken their wares outside. “I figured that the shop is right there, people would come in.”
“And how did that work out?” Ali asked.
“Great,” Kennedy said, suddenly feeling the weight of burning the midnight oil settle down on her shoulders. “Until I sold out of Gold Tin apple pies, then the store was a ghost town.”
“Your luck will change as soon as word spreads about that coupon.” The way Ali said it made it clear that wasn’t a good thing. “I don’t think a Sweetie Pies apple pie has ever been discounted.”
“Because there is no need to discount perfection,” Fi said, storming over. She was wearing a bright floral top, mauve pants with an elastic waistband, sparkly silver Converse, and a look of extreme outrage. “Something you’d know if you weren’t so busy making those tarts. Tarts in a pie shop, who’d ever heard of such a thing? Next thing you’ll want to start selling crumbles.”
“It isn’t all that far of a leap,” Kennedy defended, because that was exactly what she was thinking. Running a bakery that sold only five items was hurting the bottom line.
“You going to make those out of squash, too? Because you’re in apple country, child. Around here, people are purists—they want two layers of crust with apples in the middle.”
“Around here, people are also neighborly, Ms. Fi,” Ali said with so much sugar the older woman lost a little of her bluster. “Now, you trusted Kennedy enough to sell her the shop, right?”
“That was before she ran short on HumDingers on the most important day of the year and started disrespecting the apples.”
“I’m not disrespecting them,” Kennedy said gently. “Just sharing some of my other sweets.” She pulled out her tart and handed it to the older woman as a peace offering. “This pumpkin tart won a blue ribbon,” Kennedy said, leaving out the part that it was a Sunny Side Senior Shake While You Bake blue ribbon—amateur division.
“Well, Sweetie Pies is a Gold Tin winner, voted on by the National Apple Council,” Fi said, referring to one of the most respected organizations in baking. But she took the tart, smelled it, gave a shrug, and then stuck it in the seat compartment of her walker.
“All I’m trying to do is keep the business profitable,” Kennedy explained. “But I have gone over the books so many times, and can’t seem to figure out how you managed to make money selling pies so cheap. The price of the heirloom apples is eating up nearly all my profit.”
“Our pies always made a profit,” Fi said, one hand on her heart, the other in the air as if swearing under oath. “They sell good, too—we couldn’t make them fast enough.”
“Moving pies isn’t the problem,” Kennedy explained. “It’s the cost of the heirloom apples, they are so expensive. One solution is to change out the apples.”
“Those apples are the heart of Sweetie Pies. It is what makes us stand out.”
“I know.” Just like she knew that those apples were what gave Sweetie Pies its reputation and name in the industry. “Which leaves adding other, high-margin, apple-free items to the menu.” Fi gasped as if Kennedy had just announced she hated kittens. “Or we can increase the price of the pies?”
“Sweetie Pies has always been affordable. It’s one of the reasons people keep coming back,” Fi said, her voice solemn, as if taking the situation seriously. She shook her head. “Honest to God, child, we’ve never had a problem with the cost of the apples.”
“You don’t know what a barrel of Mutsu apples go for,” the last person in town she wanted to see right then said.
Kennedy told herself to ignore the way her body responded. Ignore how the throaty timbre of his voice had her temperature rising and her thighs quivering. Then she turned to face him and—big mistake! One glance at the six-feet-plus of solid muscle and alpha male swagger, and every happy place known to womankind went spiraling into a frenzy.
That he was looking over the rim of his mirrored glasses at her and appeared a little sweaty only added to the effect.
“It doesn’t matter if I know what a bushel goes for or not. I know pies, and I know this town,” Fi defended.
Luke’s face softened. “It matters if you’re doling out advice on pricing for pies when you’ve never paid for an apple in your life.”
“What?” Kennedy said, a hot rush of panic settling in her stomach and lighting her dreams on fire. “The shop never paid for the apples you used?”
“Why would it?” Fi asked. “I owned the orchard and the shop.”
Of course she did. A fact Kennedy knew going in. A fact she’d chosen to overlook even when the numbers were saying it was too good to be true. Because just like her mama, Kennedy had led with her heart instead of logic. Sure, she’d bought the shop, but it hadn’t come with the orchard. Just the apples at a discounted price. A price that was expected to be paid upon delivery.
She took a deep breath to keep her thoughts from spiraling into doom
sville, and her tears in check. When that didn’t work, she called on every ounce of restraint she owned, reminded herself there would be time for tears later, and asked, “That wasn’t something you thought to mention before now, seeing that it is the shop’s biggest expense?”
Fi looked around the group as if asking them for the answer. “You never asked. And when the signed contract came in, I assumed you had all the answers you needed.”
Right. There was that, because when you focused on greener pastures, it was hard to see the potholes in front of you. Kennedy closed her eyes against the threatening tears.
“But now that you bring it up, those apples we grow are expensive.”
“So I’ve been told,” she whispered, well aware that the person who told her was standing right there, so close she could smell the smugness rolling off him.
“Don’t look so serious,” Fi said, giving her an awkward pat on the hand. “You’ll attract more flies with honey, and more customers with apples.”
“I’ve always been partial to honey,” Luke said silkily, and Kennedy did her best to ignore him. Hard to do when he seemed to be taking up all the space in the area.
“Then we are in agreement!” Fi clapped her hands as if the cost of apples, and her lack of disclosure, was no longer an issue. “All you need is honey, apples, and a little creativity to loosen up that frown of yours so you can explore the possibilities. I’ll go spread the word.”
“Creativity is my middle name,” Kennedy defended, but Fi was already toddling her way over to the apple butter booth.
Kennedy wanted to toddle away, too—all the way back to her cottage, where she could process what had happened and lick her wounds. But she had a business to resurrect.
“Creativity is always a good skill,” Luke agreed, his voice like honey and proving Fi’s earlier point. His attractiveness was impossible to ignore. “I have a few ideas on how to loosen you up, though. Want to hear them?”
“I don’t need your kind of help.” She didn’t need a man at all. Just because she’d bought a shop whose success relied on free apples didn’t mean Kennedy couldn’t make a success of it. On her own terms. “As for your ideas, if they’re anything like your previous ones, then I’m good.”
His grin turned wicked, and those zings turned heated. “I’m better.”
Maybe he was, but she was scrappy. Something that came with having no backup, no plan B. Heck, this was her plan B—C, D, and E if she were being honest. And she wasn’t about to let some smooth talker with a sexy smile and apple envy steal it. “Doesn’t matter since I have the apples. And flexing those big muscles and that golden boy smile won’t charm me into handing them over.”
“Sweetness, I’m not flexing. This is all natural. And I haven’t even tried to charm you,” he said lowly, a ripple of tingles sliding down her back.
“Well, don’t waste your breath, I’m not charmable.”
Luke released both dimples her way, in addition to a determined look that had her stomach fluttering. “Challenge accepted.”
* * *
After the festival, Luke packed up the booth and headed toward the orchard. No matter how many times he drove down this same stretch of road, as he got closer to his folks’ place, the memories always returned. Some were good, but most were the ones he wished he could go back and change.
He’d once hated the idea of working on the orchard, but that had been before he understood just how much he could have learned from his dad. Growing up with his future laid out in front of him had been like a noose, every year cinching tighter and tighter, until he felt as if he was going to drown in expectations. But as time went on, and Luke matured, he realized that he was the only one who’d placed those limits on himself.
Sure his dad wanted their legacy to continue, wanted his son to take over the family business, but he’d also wanted Luke to be happy. What Luke hadn’t seen was that he would have been happier staying right here by his family’s side—he might have felt suffocated, but at least there wouldn’t have been the paralyzing guilt.
An emotion that seemed to get heavier every day.
Where had today’s dose of guilt come from, though? That honor went to Kennedy in her little yellow dress with a matching cardigan sweater. Her hair had been loose, falling in long blond waves, and her boots had been high, hugging her legs all the way up to the hem of her dress—only leaving a sliver of skin visible. What had sucked him in, however, were those big blue eyes, so determined yet so damn uncertain.
A paradox—just like the woman herself.
Which was part of the reason he’d come to the orchard. If he was going to figure out a solution to this situation, he needed to understand why she’d uprooted her life to come to Destiny Bay. Surely there were a thousand and one bakeries she could have bought between here and there. So why this one?
“Because she’s smart,” he told himself as he pulled up to the Callahan farmhouse. “And it was an amazing deal.”
Throwing his truck in Park, he grabbed the take-out he’d picked up on his way out of town so that his mom wouldn’t be tempted to cook, and he headed up the front porch steps. Paula worked hard not to let her arthritis take over, but some days were harder than others. Today was one of those days. He’d seen it in the way her smile hadn’t reached her eyes.
The door was unlocked, but that didn’t mean she was home. Paula and Fi had an open door policy that drove Luke nuts, because they’d open their door to Ted Bundy if they thought he was in need of a good home-cooked meal.
“Anyone home?” he called out.
When there was no answer, he hung his coat on the rack and went into the kitchen to put dinner in the oven to keep warm.
“Ding dong.”
Luke didn’t bother answering the door, since the bell sound came from his aunt’s pet cockatiel, who was perched on top of one of the cabinets, fanning out his coral tail feathers and bobbing his head.
Lola had the beak of a pterodactyl, the feathers of a Vegas showgirl, and an affinity for imitating smoke alarms and machine guns while dive-bombing people’s heads. He also fancied himself a pickpocket, collecting everything from bottle caps to ball caps.
So when the bird whistled and said, “Nice hat. Nice hat,” Luke held up a single finger.
“Don’t even think about it. One peck and you’ll end up pillow stuffing.”
Lola’s eyes went huge, zeroing in on Luke’s hat, and the rest of his body remained motionless, except his tail feathers, which fanned all the way out, as if in challenge.
With a stern glare, Luke grabbed a cider from the fridge, popped the top, and headed into the other room.
Mine. Mine-mine-mine.
Ignoring the fluster of feathers and kamikaze-inspired dive-bomb, which resulted in Luke losing yet another ball cap, Luke sat down in the big recliner in the corner of the family room. Before he could lean back, an opened folder caught his eye.
His body went on high alert when he saw Kennedy’s name at the top. His throat tightened with guilt when a quick glance revealed it contained all the financial documents relating to the sale of the bakery. Documents that would tell him the exact terms of the deal, and give him a better understanding of how things stood or, more important, how things could stand to change.
Documents he had no business riffling through.
A frustrated moan rumbled in his chest, followed by a defeated sigh. He knew what he was about to do was wrong—it was an invasion on so many levels. But Luke had broken his back the past five years, clawing Callahan Orchards back from near-bankruptcy, and he wasn’t about to go back there.
A lot of folks believed Luke had inherited a legacy, when in fact he’d inherited a sinking ship. Between college loans, past-due property taxes, and his dad’s medical bills, he’d been forced to do the one thing he’d promised his dad would never happen. He sold the weekend home on the bay in order to keep the other, more profitable, Callahan properties afloat. Something that logically couldn’t have been avoided, b
ut emotionally Luke could never get past it.
Now he had a chance to right that wrong and grow his company. A chance to get his mom back in her Bay View Orchards house, and make his and his dad’s dream of a successful hard cider company a reality.
First, though, he needed to assess the seriousness of the situation with the three acres of apples, then make his move, which would hopefully be nothing more than making the right offer. Which meant he needed to understand Kennedy’s financial standing.
Luke casually shifted the papers around until he found what he needed—a copy of the loan, which told him that Callahan Orchards was carrying the note on Sweetie Pies. But the further he read, the bigger the pulsing behind his right eye became. And then he reached the actual bill of sale and Luke nearly lost his shit.
“You’ve got to be kidding me!”
His mom, bless her generous bleeding heart, had not only promised a lifetime of the Mutsu apples he needed for his cider at wholesale, she’d also financed the woman who could take their entire expansion down in one harvest.
Luke flipped the pages and the pulsing became a loud, steady thumping. It was Kennedy’s personal financial statements. She would feel personally betrayed if he read any further, which should have been enough to force him to put them down and walk away.
He already knew she was struggling with the business, and that she hadn’t anticipated the high cost of apples. If he were just patient, in time she’d run herself out of business and he could sweep in and buy her out for a fraction of the cost.
Too bad time was the only thing Luke didn’t have. Well, besides the apples. So instead of leaving her private matters private, Luke called himself a dozen kinds of asshole, then took a quick peek.
Only the numbers caught his eye before his time was up, and the next thing he knew, he was studying her bank statements, accessing the information as if he were a corporate raider looking for her vulnerable spots. And there were many.
To damn many for her to make it.
