Chapter One
Naomi
Who says you can’t go home again?
I’m home—back in Bliss River, Georgia, the sweetest little town either side of the Mississippi—and loving every minute of it. Bliss River is exactly the same as it was when I was a kid, and with every passing day I can feel the misery of the past year falling away, revealing a happier, healthier me.
It’s the best.
Well…almost the best.
I can think of one thing that would make it a teensy bit better…and all it’s going to cost me is a thousand dollars and my pride.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” My younger sister, Maddie, pauses outside the Methodist fellowship hall, rubbing her red hands together to warm them.
Before moving home a few months ago, Maddie was living in the Caribbean. This is her first winter back in a place where it occasionally snows, and she’s completely unprepared.
This time last week I was in Miami, so I can empathize.
We made a quick trip to Atlanta to buy coats and hats—taking a day to celebrate closing on the location for Icing, the bakery we’re opening together—but we forgot to get scarves and mittens. Yesterday, that wasn’t a big deal, but tonight, the temperature hovers around thirty degrees.
After the six-block walk from the car, I can’t feel my face.
But that’s probably a good thing.
Hopefully, my frozen face will keep my nerves from showing.
“Seriously,” Maddie hisses. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
“So ready.” I loop my arm through hers with a nod, determined to fake it until I make it. “I’ve never been more ready for anything in my life.”
“You’re bluffing,” she says, her sigh forming a crystalline fog in the air.
I deflate, my shoulders slumping. “How can you tell?”
“I have the best bullshit detector in three states,” she says, before adding in a slightly sour voice, “except when it comes to my ex, of course.”
Maddie and her ex-husband, Serge—a Croatian hottie she met in Paris while studying to be a pastry chef—split up six months ago. Serge broke down and confessed to Maddie that he’s gay. He said he would always love her as a friend, but that he had to move on and live authentically, no matter what his homophobic father or anyone else thought about it.
Two days later, he started divorce proceedings and moved to San Francisco to start a new life with Craig, one of the lifeguards at the resort where he and Maddie both worked.
She pretends she isn’t devastated, but I know better. I might not have the best bullshit detector in three states—or even in one if my own relationship history is anything to judge by—but I know my baby sister.
Something inside Maddie is broken. Her blue eyes don’t sparkle the way they used to, and even her smile looks…sad around the edges.
“Hey,” I whisper, suddenly wondering if tonight is too much too soon for my fragile sis. “If you don’t want to be here, we can leave. It’s no big deal.”
She shakes her head, sending her dark-chocolate curls tumbling around her shoulders. They’re the same shade mine were before I streaked my hair with caramel highlights yesterday in an effort to perk up my outsides along with my insides. “No way.” She lifts her chin a little higher. “It’s important that you patch things up with Jake.”
At the mention of his name, a shiver runs across my skin that has nothing to do with the chill in the winter air.
“I’m not sure this is the best way to do it,” Maddie continues, “but you’ve got money in your purse and I’m here to help you spend it.”
I nudge her shoulder with mine. “Does that mean you’re going to let me buy one for you? I brought extra cash just in case.”
Maddie snorts. “You’re crazy. I’m not going to be able to watch this without giggling like a ten-year-old on a sugar high, let alone bid on a beefcake of my very own.”
I bite back a grin. “I know. But I can’t wait. Thank God for Methodists.”
“Amen,” she says, laughing as we head for the entrance, joining the throngs of women surging into the Methodist fellowship hall.
Only the Methodists would allow the firefighters to hold a “Hunk-for-a-Month” charity auction in their large basement. The Baptists across the street are undoubtedly scandalized by the idea of half-naked men in a house of worship. The Baptists aren’t big fans of dancing, let alone oiled-up firefighters strutting down a makeshift catwalk while local women hoot and holler and bid on the man they want to be their date for the next month of Fridays.
I, however, am not scandalized.
I am determined. Determined to use the fifteen hundred dollars burning a hole in my red leather purse to buy a chance at a fresh start with Jake Hansen.
Jake Hansen.
Another shiver of foreboding shimmies across my skin. I’m a nervous wreck, but all the anxiety will be worth it for a chance to make things right with Jake.