Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 27438 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 137(@200wpm)___ 110(@250wpm)___ 91(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27438 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 137(@200wpm)___ 110(@250wpm)___ 91(@300wpm)
I don’t want to leave her, but if I stay, I’ll end up killing him, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life in jail. I don’t want to live like this anymore.
I need to leave.
This town never did anything good for me. Aside from Brooke, who I don’t even speak to anymore because my life went into the shitter, and I didn’t have the balls to talk to her about it.
Nothing good has come from being in Cunningham Falls.
I throw my one bag of clothes and personal things behind the seat of my Ford truck and speed off, not looking back.
Chapter One
~Brooke~
“I stopped at the post office and got the mail,” my sister, Maisey, announces as she marches into my shop and drops a stack of envelopes and catalogues on my table.
“Thanks.” I reach for the envelopes first and thumb through them. “Lots of bills here.”
“Always,” she says with a smirk. “Who knew that being a business owner would be so expensive?”
I stare at her for a moment and then bust out laughing. “We did.”
“Oh yeah.” She sniffs at some pink hydrangea blooms, fussing over them. Maisey and I are less than a year apart, so we’ve always been close. Opening businesses at the same time, and supporting each other through that process, just seemed natural.
An off-white envelope catches my eye, and I pull it out from the rest, immediately opening it.
“Holy shit,” I mutter.
“What?”
“Hold on.” I skim the letter, and then shake my head. “No. Absolutely not.”
“What the hell?” Maisey demands, so I read the letter aloud.
Dear Ms. Henderson,
I’ve recently inherited the building your business resides in. I intend to sell the building. This is your sixty-day notice to vacate. I’ll be in Cunningham Falls next week to meet with you in person, should it be necessary.
Respectfully,
Brody Chabot
“Shit,” Maisey whispers and drags her fingers down her face. “I guess that means I can’t rent the space next door now.”
Maisey makes delicious wedding cakes, and her business has skyrocketed in the past year. She’s been baking out of her house, and we host tastings here in my shop. When the space next door became vacant, she was hoping to move her bakery in there.
We both were.
“This isn’t going to happen,” I insist and fold the letter, place it back in its envelope, and move on to the next thing.
“With all due respect, how in the hell do you propose to stop it? It’s not like we can afford to buy the building. In downtown Cunningham Falls, this would go for several million dollars.”
“I’m going to talk him out of it.”
She stares at me, then shakes her head and lets out a laugh. “Okay, I gotta hear this. How, exactly, do you intend to do that? I know that you and Brody were close when we were kids, but you haven’t seen him in more than ten years. Are you going to hypnotize him or something?”
“No, I’m going to have a calm, adult conversation with him.”
“This is business, big sister.” She reaches over to smack a kiss on my cheek. “For purely selfish reasons, I hope you make it happen. I’m sick of baking at my house. I don’t have enough counter space. But Brody got out of here as soon as he could, and I suspect that this building isn’t something he wants to keep.”
“Well, he’s going to,” I reply, sounding way more confident than I feel. “Businesses, especially new businesses, don’t do well when they have to relocate. We’re doing so great, Maisey. And with you next door, well, there’s so much more we could do.”
“I don’t disagree with you,” she says. “This is an ideal location, and we are doing great. I’d like to be a fly on the wall when you talk to Brody. He was hot back in the day.”
I don’t respond, but my stomach does a little flop. He was so hot. And so freaking nice. And then one day, he stopped walking me to school. No explanation. Nothing. He just wasn’t my friend anymore.
I’ve wondered for years what I did wrong. Brody was someone that I truly cared about and enjoyed spending time with. And to say that I had a crush on him is the understatement of the year.
He was hot, kind, and smiled at me unlike anyone else ever has, before or since.
I hope there’s a piece of that boy still in there, and that when I talk to him, I can make him see reason. Because I’m not moving Brooke’s Blooms out of this building.
* * * *
“Stop pacing,” Maisey says the following week. I’m walking back and forth through the flower shop, biting my thumbnail and stressing the hell out.
“Why is she acting like this?” Micah, my teenage afternoon help, asks Maisey. Micah is seventeen, and comes in after school to process deliveries, trim stems, and clean up. He’s tall and lanky with dark hair that falls into his eyes. Sometimes a bit clumsy. And we adore him.