Page 59 of Working For Her Sweet Treats

I can’t keep my hands off her. I want to keep her like this … wrecked and happy, loose-limbed and unmoving, glued to my side. I want to wake up each day with her beside me, in my house, in my bed. I want all of it, even the parts that scare me.

Ava shifts, curling tighter against my chest, and I realize she’s falling asleep. I kiss her hair, her temple, the bare skin of her shoulder, and pull her closer until her breathing slows. I know she’s exhausted after being up nearly all night baking. The stress has been incredible for her. And then I remember, tonight … with me … her eyelid did not twitch. For once, nothing needs fixing. Everything is exactly where it belongs.

Epilogue

Ava

Three weeks later, Jake Dalton is still the first customer through the door of Sweet Treats. He is also still incapable of entering without bringing part of a construction site with him. I look from the muddy print on my clean floor to the large black mat beneath his boots.

Jake follows my gaze. “I wiped them.”

“Then the mud has developed independent mobility.”

He lifts one boot and examines the sole. “Road’s wet.”

“That is usually how mud happens.”

“Good morning to you, too.”

He steps back onto the mat and wipes both boots again. Thoroughly. I could point out the faint mark that remains near the door. Instead, I look at the man standing inside my bakery before sunrise and decide it can wait.

What is a little mud to clean up?

Jake crosses to the counter and leans over it far enough to kiss me. The kiss is warm, familiar, and completely inappropriate for a business owner who opens in four minutes.

I kiss him back anyway. When he pulls away, his eyes move immediately toward the pastry display.

“Where is it?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Ava.”

“Jake.”

“The new cinnamon roll.”

I wipe an invisible crumb from the counter. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

“The bourbon maple bacon cinnamon roll you have been refusing to let me taste for two weeks.”

“That sounds like confidential product-development information.”

“I supplied the original research.”

“You put bacon on one of my cinnamon rolls.”

“Exactly.”

“That was an act of pastry vandalism.”

“It was inspiration.”

He is not entirely wrong, but there is no reason to tell him that while I still have the advantage.

I point toward the coffee menu. “Today’s flavor is chocolate-hazelnut.”

“I want maple cinnamon.”