Page 1 of Riptide
1
The Sugar& Salt Bakery smelled like heaven at six-thirty in the morning.
Cara Sweet—she'd almost stopped flinching at the fake name—pulled the final tray of cinnamon rolls from the oven and set them on the cooling rack. Three weeks since she and her new friends had helped Gabe Sawyer save his brother, David, and she'd finally settled into something that felt dangerously close to normal.
Dangerous being the operative word.
She arranged the rolls in the display case, then stepped back to survey her morning's work. Sourdough loaves, blueberry muffins, chocolate croissants, and her increasingly popular cardamom buns. Not bad for a former con artist who'd burned toast six months ago.
The bell above the door chimed.
Cara's pulse jumped—old instincts dying hard—but it was just Pearl Henderson, Haven Cove's self-appointed town crier and her most reliable early customer.
"Morning, Cara!" Pearl bustled in, trailing the scent of hairspray and determination. "Are those cardamom buns fresh?"
"Just finished the glaze."
"I'll take four. Book club's at my house tonight." Pearl leaned conspiratorially across the counter. "Between you and me, I'm bribing them. Nobody's finishingMoby Dick, and I refuse to discuss a book alone."
Cara boxed the buns, smiling. This was what she'd been missing her whole life—mundane conversations about book clubs and pastries. No cons. No angles. No calculating what someone wanted so she could use it against them later.
Just... normal.
"That'll be eight forty-seven."
Pearl handed over a ten. "Keep the change. You're a godsend, you know that? Ever since Margaret died, we've missed having a real bakery in town."
The words settled warm in Cara's chest as Pearl swept out. Three weeks ago, she'd helped save David Sawyer’s life. And now, people actually looked forward to her pastries. Maybe she wasn't just Carly Reid, convicted con artist and federal fugitive.
Maybe she could actually be Cara Sweet, baker and part-time investigator.
The thought lasted exactly thirty seconds before the fear crept back in.
Because Gabriel Sawyer was Haven Cove's new Police Chief.
Former FBI Counterintelligence. Currently the man who stopped by her bakery every morning for coffee and made her heart do complicated things she absolutely couldn't afford. The man whose background check capabilities could destroy her life in approximately three minutes.
The man she was maybe, possibly, definitely falling for.
Which was a problem.
Several problems, actually. Starting with the federal fugitive thing and ending with the lying-about-her-entire-identity thing.
The bell chimed again.
Cara's hands stilled on the coffee pot.
Gabe filled the doorway, tall and solid in his new Haven Cove PD uniform, dark hair slightly disheveled like he'd been running his hands through it. Which meant he'd already dealt with something irritating this morning. Probably Harold Bianchi's chickens getting loose again.
"Morning." His voice carried that low warmth that did unfortunate things to her pulse. "Please tell me you have coffee ready."
"When have I not had coffee ready?"
"Fair point." He crossed to the counter, and she poured him a large black coffee before he could ask. Three weeks of this routine, and she'd memorized how he took it. Which was definitely not dangerous at all.
Their fingers brushed as she handed him the cup.
She pulled back too quickly.
