Have you ever had sex on that flour-covered workbench? How about on the marble counter where you roll out the pastry dough?
“Is Evelyn buried around here?”
He set the tray on the worktable and pulled off the oven mitts. “She’s buried at the cemetery by the lake. She had it all arranged before she died.”
I wasn’t surprised. I didn’t remember much about Aunt Evelyn, but the woman I was getting to know through the people in Blackwell Hollow seemed wise and practical, thoughtful and forward-thinking.
“I think I’ll take some flowers,” I said.
He furrowed his brow, and for a second, I saw him as he must have looked as a little boy with floppy hair and dimples. “Do you want company? I have a cake in the oven, but I could close up and go with you after it comes out.”
“That’s okay.” A steady stream of customers had been in and out of the store all morning, and I knew from Beck that Malcolm had the day off. “I’m happy to do a little exploring on my own.”
He nodded like he understood. “If you head straight down Main the way we came and keep going past Foxglove, you’llrun right into the lake. There’s a walking path on the left. The cemetery is about half a mile down.”
“Thanks,” I said. “And thanks for showing me around the shop this morning.”
He smiled. “It’s yours now, which I guess makes you… my boss?”
There was something rakish in his smile, and heat rushed between my thighs.
I obviously needed help.
“Let’s not get crazy,” I said. “I can barely boil an egg, let alone make a batch of those lemon-lavender cookies.”
He held up a finger. “Speaking of…”
He pushed through the door leading to the front of the shop and returned a minute later with one of the shop’s small ivory bakery boxes,The Golden Crumbspelled out in rose gold on the top.
I realized what he was doing when he picked up a spatula and headed for the tray of freshly baked cookies. “Oh, you don’t have to?— ”
“We only make these in the spring,” he said, sliding four cookies into the ivory box. “And they were Evelyn’s favorite. They’ll make your visit nicer.”
He closed the box and handed it to me.
“Thanks,” I said. “For everything.”
“You’re welcome, Avery.” I liked the way my name sounded in his mouth. “I’m glad you’re here.”
I hesitated. “Me too.”
I hadn’t been too sure about the whole thing when I’d left the city, and finding Harold Pembroke’s body in the gazebo should not have changed my mind.
But somehow, standing in the kitchen with Beck, a box of warm cookies in my hands, I couldn’t help feeling like some kind of weird magic had brought me to Blackwell Hollow.
And like maybe, there was a reason I was here after all.
10
AVERY
The sun washigh overhead when I left the shop, a warm breeze drifting up Main from the lake shimmering at the end of the road. There were more people out and about than there had been early that morning, and while there were a handful of cars parked outside the local stores, almost everyone was on foot, waving and chatting with each other as they passed.
Across the park-like town square, State Street ran parallel to Main and a short-haired woman wrote on a standing chalkboard in front of the Morning Basket market.
It was the kind of small-town scene I’d only seen in Hallmark movies. It wasn’t that people weren’t friendly in the city, but there everyone was too busy, too focused even to smile as they passed, let alone to stop and chat.
I hesitated outside Petals on Main, the flower shop on the corner, then stepped inside.