Home At Last. Deborah Raney

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      He headed out the front door, but halfway to the truck, he remembered the extra cinnamon rolls his mom had requested before all the excitement. Or was it coffee cake? He hurried back inside. “Sorry, I almost forgot! My mom wanted—”

      Behind the counter, Shayla stood with her face buried in the skirt of her flour-dusted apron, her shoulders heaving.

      Link’s heart stopped for the second time that day. “What’s wrong?” He looked around for the little girl. She was still coloring, seeming perfectly fine and oblivious to her mother’s tears.

      Shayla quickly turned away, dabbing at her face with the hem of the apron. But not before Link saw the tears blazing shiny trails down her smooth cheeks. When she faced him again, her forehead and cheeks were smudged with flour. “What do you need?”

      “Are you sure? Is everything okay?”

      “It’s fine.” Her lips firmed. “What else do you need?”

      Her tears rattled him now, and he stuttered. “My mom . . . um . . . she wanted something to serve for breakfast at the inn. She mentioned coffee cake, I think.”

      Shayla walked to the end of the pastry case and pointed to a ring-shaped confection with crumbly stuff on top. “We have this one. Or a pumpkin loaf.”

      “Okay. I’ll take two of those rings.” He hesitated, watching her closely. “You sure you’re okay?”

      She ignored his question and went to work boxing the coffee cakes. “That’ll be sixteen forty-seven.”

      “Um . . .” He waited for her to look up from the register. “You have flour”—he smiled and brushed his own cheek—“on your face. From your apron, I think.”

      She wheeled away, rubbing at her cheeks as if they were on fire.

      He laughed. “At least you’ve got some color in your cheeks now.” Stupid thing to say. “You were looking pretty pale—earlier, I mean.” Stupider thing to say. “You got it.” He pointed to her face. “It’s all off now. I just thought you’d want to know. Before your next customer comes in.”

      She glared at him. “That’ll be sixteen forty-seven,” she said again.

      “Oh. Sorry.” He filed through his wallet. He only had a ten, plus the change she’d given him earlier. He handed her his credit card.

      She ran it and slid the receipt across the counter for him to sign. He scribbled his name and handed it back.

      “Thank you.” She couldn’t quite meet his eyes and seemed anxious to get rid of him. Nothing like last time when he’d flirted, and she’d flirted back, offering him a sample of a new sticky bun recipe they were testing.

      Those warm, gold-flecked eyes flashed at him. Only today they flashed defiance, not the intense interest he thought he remembered from before.

      The back door opened and a tall black man stepped through. He nodded in Link’s direction. “Mornin’.” He looked at Shayla then back at Link. “Everything okay here, baby?” He came and put a protective arm on her back, his hand cradling her neck.

      Great. He’d been flirting with a married woman. He squelched a sigh. And now she’d probably tell her husband that he’d almost killed their daughter. He’d checked for a wedding ring the first time he met her. He was positive there’d never been one. But then, it probably wasn’t a good idea to wear a ring when you worked in a bread-dough factory. That’d teach him to assume.

      “Everything’s fine.” Shayla looked over to where Portia was coloring, then wriggled out from under the man’s embrace. She tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. But a second later, she crumpled back into the guy’s arms.

      He leveled a glare in Link’s direction. “What’d you do?” he growled, taking a step toward him, even with Shayla draped over him like a coat.

      “No!” Shayla pulled the man’s arm. “It’s okay.”

      Link took a step back, scrambling to explain. “Your little girl ran out into the street. I . . . almost hit her. With my truck.”

      “That true?” The man looked down at Shayla, then cut his glare toward the table where the child sat. His countenance visibly softened when his gaze landed on her. When Shayla didn’t answer, he tipped her face upward, as if he might read the truth in her expression.

      She cast her eyes down, but nodded. “She’s okay, Daddy. She wasn’t hurt.”

      The man narrowed his eyes at Link. “What happened?”

      Link swallowed. “Like I said, she ran out in front of me. I couldn’t get stopped on the ice. Truck skidded pretty good, but it didn’t even graze her. It was close though. She’s a lucky little girl.”

      He wanted Shayla to come to his defense—to tell the guy that he’d bailed out of his truck and rolled to safety with the little girl in his arms. He was pretty sure Shayla had seen that part, despite her accusations. But he kept it to himself, suddenly more eager to get the heck out of Dodge than to stand here and paint himself as a hero.

      The man looked to Shayla as if for confirmation. Link saw nothing in her eyes, but apparently the guy was satisfied Link hadn’t tried to kill anyone.

      “I’ll be going now. If . . . if you have any other questions or”—he shrugged—“whatever, Shayla knows where to contact me.”

      He gathered the cake boxes and strode to the front of the store, feeling foolish. And confused. She’d called the guy “Daddy.” His sisters called their husbands that sometimes when they were talking about their kids. And the guy didn’t look old enough to be her father, but a little too old to be her husband. Not that that meant anything these days. Of course even if the man was her father, she could still have a husband. She had a kid after all.

      He climbed in the truck, jabbed the key into the ignition, and revved the engine. She probably was married. He sure hadn’t known that when he’d flirted with her. And in his defense, she had never given him one single back-off-buddy-I’m-married signal. Not one.

      If she had, he would have run hard and fast in the opposite direction.

      Chapter 2

      2

      Thanks, honey. That’s perfect.” Audrey Whitman lifted the coffee cakes from the bakery boxes Link had delivered, then quickly covered them with a clean tea towel—that is, hid them from Grant. Her husband was not to be trusted around fresh bakery fare. “I was starting to think you’d forgotten.”

      Link shook his head. “Nope. Just took longer than I expected. Here’s your change from the twenty, but I had to put the coffee cakes on my credit card.” He laid a wad of wrinkled bills on the kitchen counter, then deposited a few coins on top. “Here’re your receipts.”

      “No, you keep the change. That’s your gas money. Hang tight, and I’ll pay you for the rest.” She smoothed the receipt out with the palm of her hand. “Sixteen dollars? For two little coffee cakes?” She shook her head. “I’m in the wrong business.”

      “If you don’t need anything СКАЧАТЬ