Their Secret Baby Bond. Stephanie Dees

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       Chapter One

      Wynn Sheehan unlocked the back door and stepped inside the dark storage room. In less than an hour, the quiet would be overwhelmed by clanging pots, sizzling bacon, coffeepots hissing and the murmur of simultaneous conversation. For now, though, she had the Hilltop Café all to herself.

      She tucked her long blond hair into a knot and started the morning checklist. Open the blinds, turn on the lights, start the first pot of coffee and the first batch of cinnamon rolls, scramble the eggs, make the batter. She’d watched her mother go through these same motions, and there was something comforting about it. No matter where she had gone, or what she had done, things here, at least, stayed the same.

      Measuring flour, shortening and buttermilk, she made the biscuits from a recipe she would’ve sworn she’d long ago banished from her memory. She’d had plans, a sackful of dreams to leave this little town and make her mark on history. She was going to change the world. She’d been passionate and driven.

      And naive. So unbelievably naive.

      Never would she have thought she would be back at the Hilltop, or back in Red Hill Springs, for that matter, but the Wynn who left for college with stars in her eyes, never planning to come back, was gone.

      She’d found herself with no choices and worse, no friends. She didn’t even know when it had happened, how she’d gotten so isolated. Well, looking back, she did know how. She’d been so focused on her job and her boss, the charismatic congressman from Virginia, that she hadn’t had time for anyone else.

      She hadn’t even seen anyone else.

      The timer dinged and she pulled the cinnamon rolls out of the oven, then slid the first pan of biscuits into place. Next up, the frosting for the cinnamon rolls.

      By the time she got to the task of unlocking the doors, it had been an hour and a half. Six a.m. straight on the dot. And Mr. Haney and Mr. Donovan were waiting outside the door, just like they always were.

      Mickey, the cook, let himself in the back door and made his way into the kitchen, lifting his apron off the hook and dropping it around his neck.

      “Cutting it close, aren’t you, Uncle Mickey?”

      His bushy gray eyebrows lowered even farther over his eyes. “Where’s your mother?”

      “She’s out at the farm helping Claire get the kids ready for school. Joe had an emergency callout in the middle of the night. Don’t worry, I didn’t mess anything up.”

      He slid his hand into a pot holder and pulled out the biscuits before sending her a sideways glance. “Never said you did, girlie. Now get out there and see what the customers want. Lanna doesn’t come in until seven today.”

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