Hometown Hope: A Small Town Romance Anthology

by Zoe York

  “Forty-seven.”

  He let out a quick laugh. “And you brought them all here with you?”

  “I’m going to be living here for a year. Of course I did.” She smiled. “The bright side is that we don’t have to buy cups for the pie shop. And considering we have no money, that’s awesome.”

  “Son of a bitch!”

  He and Cori both sighed.

  “You sure you don’t just want to go in and talk to her?” Cori asked, hopefully.

  Hell no, he wasn’t going in there alone. He gave her a look that his mother and friends couldn’t see. “Maybe you could take over for her back there while she comes out and chats for a bit,” he said. That wasn’t ideal either. He wasn’t sure Ava was in a mood to make a good impression. And this would be their first real public appearance. In front of his mother. And two women who really wanted him and Ava to not work out. This was going to be great.

  “But the kitchen is Ava’s domain,” Cori protested.

  “Nice try,” he said, for her ears only. “But no dice.” Evan started for the kitchen with her elbow still in hand. “I’m sure Ava will appreciate your help,” he said for the room.

  He was definitely not facing Ava alone.

  Cori sighed, but let him steer her into the kitchen. “Help yourself to coffee,” she called out behind her.

  “She has chocolate syrup too,” Walter said.

  “Of course she does,” Evan thought he heard Holly mutter.

  They stepped through the swinging door to the kitchen just as the back door to the kitchen slammed shut. The swinging door bumped Evan from behind as he and Cori stared at the back door.

  Ava had just left.

  And the kitchen was a disaster. There were bowls and spoons and measuring cups scattered over the countertops. There were four open egg cartons, all empty. There was a pile of apples next to the sink and the cupboard door under the sink was hanging open and water was slowly dripping from one of the pipes. The top of the oven was covered in pies. Or what should have been pies. Three were clearly burnt. One looked fine but had a hole dug out of the middle, as if someone had tasted it, and immediately abandoned it. And there was a fine dusting of flour over…everything.

  “Wow,” Evan said simply.

  Cori blew out a breath. “Yeah, she really sucks at this.”

  “And you’re not helping her?” Damn, the skin on the inner side of her elbow was really soft and warm. And she smelled amazing.

  Cori grinned at him. “Are you kidding? Did you hear the crashing and swearing?”

  “Yeah, you could be helping her not swear and throw things, couldn’t you?” he asked. If he had to guess he’d say Ava had thrown the metal mixing bowl that now lay on its side against the far wall.

  “No way,” Cori said. “She needs to yell and swear and break things.”

  “You want her doing that?”

  “That girl has so much emotion wound up tight inside of her she’s about to burst,” Cori said. “This is therapeutic.”

  Evan looked around the room. “She’s really this bad at cooking?”

  “She had to Google ‘whisking’,” Cori said with a grin.

  He turned to face her. This woman who had defended him to Holly, who seemed to just get him, who thought she only had fluff to offer. “You know how to whisk, though.”

  “Ava likes to figure things out for herself,” Cori said with a shrug.

  “Did you even offer?” he asked, somehow knowing she hadn’t.

  “She’d still look it up to be sure I was right.”

  Evan shook his head. “Then you tell her that you’re right and insist she start trusting you.”

  Cori swallowed and stared up at him. “There might be a better way,” she said with a shrug.

  “A better way to whisk?” he asked. “Better than your way?”

  She nodded. And he knew that she knew that this wasn’t about whisking. And that she wasn’t talking about Ava doubting Cori’s knowledge or skill. He suddenly hated that Rudy was taking this woman out of the kitchen, where she could show off her talents and get enthusiastic. Instead, she was adding and subtracting columns of numbers.

  What a waste.

  Evan’s phone dinged in his pocket and he reluctantly let go of Cori to reach for it. It was a text from Parker.

  Come remove this woman from my kitchen.

  Oh, boy.

  “Ava’s over at the diner. In Parker’s kitchen,” he told Cori.

  Cori looked around the room. “Okay, tell him to send her home. She’s had enough of this for the day.”

  Evan typed that in and sent it, then paused. “If she goes home, she can’t meet Holly and my mom.”

  Cori lifted a brow. “Do you really want her to in this mood?”

  Of course he didn’t.

  Parker responded She wants eggs. She came and took butter earlier. I’m not supporting the grocery bill for that pie shop.

  Evan sighed. Send her home or keep her busy. She can’t come back over here. My mom’s here.

  What am I supposed to do with her?

  Teach her to whisk something. Evan grinned in spite of himself as he sent that and tucked his phone into his pocket.

  “If they don’t meet her now, they’ll find her somewhere else, another time, when I’m not around,” Evan said to Cori. “I’d feel better if I was there to mediate the situation.”

  Cori pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. Her eyes roamed over his torso from shoulders to waist.

  Evan felt his body stirring, even with just her eyes on him. “Cori?”

  She stepped forward and ran her hand over his chest. “Take your shirt off.”

  Uh. Okay. Who was he to argue with…

  Cori shrugged out of the shirt she was wearing over her tank top.

  “Um, what are we doing?” Not that he was protesting.

  “Take your shirt off,” she repeated. Then she stripped her tank off.

  And Evan’s only thought was should have grabbed the whipped cream gun.

  When he still hadn’t moved, Cori stepped forward and started unbuttoning his shirt. His gaze dropped to the amazing breasts that were now cupped in peach silk. He’d subconsciously memorized the shape and feel of them when he’d seen them under the tank top and then had them pressed against his chest in New York.

  Yeah, he wasn’t going to be able to do something as complicated as unbuttoning.

  “Cori?”

  She looked up at him as she freed his last button and ran her hands up over his ribs to his shoulders where she pushed the shirt off. “Yeah?”

  “I really like your sprinkles, but is this the best time for this?” And when will be the best time, because I can be available whenever.

  Her mouth curled into a half smile. “I like your sprinkles too, Counselor. But right now we need to convince Holly, and everyone else, that you’re crazy about Ava’s sprinkles.”

  Ava. Right. The reason that there wasn’t going to be a best time for him and Cori. Fuck.

  She reached behind her and grabbed a plastic measuring cup. She threw it on the floor, where it bounced and then slid up against the oven. “Dammit.” She looked around, grabbed a glass bowl and chucked it, sending it arching and then crashing into the floor. She smiled at that. “Better.”

  “What the hell are you—”

  But all thoughts of, well, everything else in the world, were obliterated by the feel of Cori’s hands untucking the T-shirt he wore under his dress shirt and sliding up underneath to touch his bare skin.

  “I really need you to take this off,” she said, her voice huskier than it had been before.

  And he officially didn’t care who walked in or who thought what or even what was going on. Because Cori was going to reach behind her and unhook her bra next. Evan reached behind his head, grabbed the back of his T-shirt and yanked it off.

  Cori’s gaze tracked over him and she started to lift a hand, but seemed to think better of it at the last minute. Instead, she held h
er hand out. “Can I have it?”

  “My T-shirt?”

  She nodded and he handed it over. Her eyes stayed on his chest as she put her hands through the armholes of his shirt and then pulled it over her head. So no naked breasts. Great.

  “What are you doing?” he asked as the white cotton draped over the body that he officially wanted to never have covered again, ever.

  She tugged the neck hole until the shirt hung off one shoulder and then tied a knot in the bottom, making it hug her waist. “Changing my clothes as much as I can,” she said. She stepped past him and took an apron from the hook beside the door. She put it over her head and tied it behind her. “They need to think I’m Ava.”

  “Oh.” He looked at the swinging door.

  “She’s not here and we don’t really want her back in this mood. But I can stand in for her.”

  “Oh,” he said again. He supposed that would work. He shrugged back into his dress shirt.

  Then Cori reached up and pulled on something, causing her hair to tumble down. The wild waves cascaded past her shoulders, and Evan felt his cock stir again.

  Without thinking, he reached up and threaded his fingers into her hair at the base of her head. Cori seemed to freeze. He drew his fingers through the warm, silky tresses, untangling them. “No one’s ever going to believe you’re Ava,” he said, his voice strangely rough.

  “They will,” she said softly, with a nod.

  “You’re…too…different.” That wasn’t really what he’d meant to say, but how did he go on and on about how much freer and warmer and happier Cori was without seeming like an obsessed idiot? Which he feared he was becoming where this woman was concerned.

  Cori’s eyes softened for a moment, but she shook her head. “You just don’t know her.”

  Of course Cori would defend Ava.

  “I’m way more attracted to you than I am to her,” Evan confessed. “They’ll be able to tell the difference when I’m with her.”

  The heat in her eyes flared, but she shook her head. “People see what they want to see. If we make this first impression, then that’s what they’ll see in the future even if there’s less…”

  She trailed off and Evan smiled slightly. He didn’t think Cori was at a loss for words very often. He knew she was right about people seeing what they expected to see. At least at times. Yet, he suddenly hated that in her experience people didn’t look deeper. But they didn’t have time to go into all of that at the moment.

  “Less heat?” he supplied. “Less chemistry? Less chance that someone is going to end up with flour all over her bare ass?”

  She lifted an eyebrow, and he looked at the flour-covered countertop and then back to her.

  She swallowed and nodded. “Yeah, less of…that.”

  “We’re going to go out there and you pretend to be Ava long enough to satisfy them and get rid of them,” he said. He looked at the door again.

  “Do you think that you can act like you’re crazy about me?” she asked. “Act like we’re the ones who fell head over heels so quickly?”

  Evan looked down at her and felt a jolt that went from his chest through his gut. He cleared his throat and said, “Yeah, I think I can pull that off.”

  Cori broke the eye contact, reached for some flour and dashed it onto her cheek and chin. “Okay, then. Let’s go introduce your mom to your new girlfriend.”

  What the hell was she doing?

  Oh, yeah, playing a very dangerous came of pretend. Pretend to Be Crazy About the Guy You’re Crazy About While Pretending To Be Your Sister.

  Yeah, nothing could go wrong here.

  But Cori pasted on a bright smile, then dialed it back about three notches so it was more like an Ava smile, and pushed her way through the swinging doors with Evan’s hand in hers.

  “Hi, everybody,” she greeted, sounding exactly like Ava. It wasn’t like this was the first time they’d pretended to be one another. Switching Places was Chapter One in the How to Be An Identical Twin or Triplet handbook.

  “Everyone, this is Ava,” Evan said, wrapping his big, warm arm around her waist and resting his hand possessively on her hip.

  And Cori had to bite back a moan. Stripping off their shirts together had been spontaneous and she hadn’t thought of the consequences—like raging lust after seeing his chest and abs—before she’d done it. Which was typical. Thinking through consequences was not a strength of hers.

  She caught Brynn’s eye. Her sister arched an eyebrow, but Cori knew she wouldn’t blow her cover.

  “Ava, it’s very nice to meet you,” Diane said. “I know you’re busy. Thanks for coming to say hi.”

  “Well, of course.” Cori thought for a second about hugging Diane. She was Evan’s mom for God’s sake. But Ava would never do that, so Cori held back. She turned her attention on Liz and stuck out her hand. Ava was definitely a hand shaker. “Hi.”

  Liz took it with a polite, “Hello. I’m Liz. I’m an old friend of Evan’s.”

  Uh-huh. This woman had slept with Evan. Somehow Cori knew that Evan had messed around with a lot of girls in Bliss. And Jill’s bestie was on that list. Liz had seen him naked. She’d had his hands on her… Cori tamped those thoughts down quickly. Clearly, it hadn’t meant anything. And Cori wasn’t the jealous type anyway.

  And if she was going to be jealous of someone, it would be her sister, who, pretend or not, could be out here right now with Evan’s hand on her hip and his big, hard body pressed up against her side, and his soft cotton shirt caressing her skin and surrounding her with his scent in a horribly wonderfully distracting way.

  “Nice to meet you,” Cori said, coolly and politely as Ava would.

  “And this is Holly, Jill’s mom,” Evan said. Then he added, “The one I told you about.”

  Ah. Evan wanted an Ava response to Holly and her earlier bitchiness. Cori had been surprised by how blatant the woman had been about her disapproval of Evan and her suspicion about his relationship with Ava.

  Okay, truthfully, she was probably right to be suspicious if Evan really was the laid-back playboy that it seemed he was. And okay, there wasn’t really a relationship, so she was kind of right in that case. But the way she’d been all judgmental? And the way Evan’s own mom hadn’t stepped in? What the hell?

  “Oh, yes, Mrs. Morris. I’m glad I have the opportunity to assure you that you don’t need to worry about Evan getting his sprinkles on anyone else around here. I intend to keep them all to myself from here on out.”

  Yes, that was really more something that Cori would say. But they didn’t know that. And the snooty voice she’d used was all Ava.

  Holly was clearly taken aback. “I just hope that Evan can take this seriously enough for you.”

  “Well, I find it interesting that you’re so sure he can’t, yet you want him to be with your daughter,” Cori said. Because that really was weird in her opinion.

  “Jill and Evan would be great together,” Holly said.

  “Well, I think Evan, and Jill, both deserve better than great.” Cori knew, even as she said it, that she was issuing a challenge. That her sister was going to have to meet. But she couldn’t help it.

  Holly lifted her chin. “I guess we’ll see. I’d hate for you to have moved to a new town, started a new business, and a new relationship, just to see it all fall apart.”

  Cori felt Evan’s fingers curl into her hip. “Holly,” he said, his voice low and full of warning. But Cori had this. Or Ava did anyway.

  “There’s something about Ava Carmichael that you should probably know,” she said, with complete honesty. “She’s never not gotten something that she wanted and worked for.” Talking about ‘herself’ in the third person was obnoxious, but it was all true. And that truth was what was keeping Cori optimistic about the pie shop that had no money in the bank, a loan to pay off, and—for now anyway—no baker.

  “Then I hope it all works out,” Holly said, her tone chilly.

  Yeah, Cori did too. And if she was do
ing this on her own, she’d have her doubts. But she had Ava and Brynn. And Evan. He was definitely on their side. And that made her feel strangely better.

  Holly stood up from her seat and stepped toward the door. “I’ve changed my mind about the coffee.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” Cori said.

  Holly clearly knew that she didn’t mean it. “Liz, are you coming?”

  “Sure.” Liz smiled tightly at Evan and then Cori. “It was nice to meet you, Ava. Take care of him.”

  Cori hugged Evan against her, even as she felt like a piece of lead had settled in her chest. She wanted to take care of him. But not only did he not really want that, but she wasn’t good at that.

  Holly and Liz headed out the door and waited on the sidewalk for Diane to join them.

  “I would love to get to know you better, Ava,” Diane said. “Maybe lunch sometime.”

  This time when Cori felt Evan’s fingers dig into her hip, she knew it was a warning. She smiled brightly and said, “I’d love that.”

  Evan’s hand slid to her butt and he gave her a little pinch. She jumped, then smiled bigger to cover it.

  “We’ll set up a time then,” Diane said. She looked at her son. “Can I walk with you back to your office?”

  “Sure, Mom. I’ll be right out.”

  Diane joined her friend on the sidewalk, and Evan turned to Cori.

  “You’re trouble,” he said.

  “You have no idea.”

  “Oh, I think I just might.” Then he slid his hand into her hair, tipped her head back, and kissed her.

  The kiss was definitely not a goodbye kiss. This was a see-you-later-and-you-better-meet-me-at-the-door-naked kiss. She took a fistful of Evan’s shirt and arched closer. She ran her tongue along his lower lip and his resultant groan rocketed through her, settling low and deep and hot in her pelvis. He stroked along her tongue with his own and she could practically feel the just-wait-until-I-get-you-alone.

  Finally, he broke the kiss, lifted his head, and stared into her eyes. “Well, I’m convinced,” he said gruffly.

  She ran her tongue over her tingling lips and asked, “Convinced of what?”

  “That we’re crazy about each other.”