“Well, as I see it, my oven is your problem.”

It was becoming a struggle to remain civil about being roused out of bed by a flame-haired, loud-mouthed tornado in the middle of the night. “Not according to my paperwork. And believe me, Miss Hopkins, I read my paperwork.”

“Well, if I can’t open my bakery, I can’t earn money. And if I can’t earn money, then I can’t pay my rent. So, unless you want to start off the year badly, I reckon it is your problem.”

The Southern phraseology in her East Coast accent was just absurd. He glared at her. “Exactly what part of New Jersey are you from?”

That stopped her. “Exactly how much do you know about me?”

Exactly too much. And none of it prepared him for this. “I’m going back to bed now.”

“By all means. I won’t need any supervision from you. I’ll just slip in and slip out, moving batches in and out of your oven. You’ll never even know I’m there.”

Oh, he doubted that.

ALLIE PLEITER

Enthusiastic but slightly untidy mother of two, RITA® Award finalist Allie Pleiter writes both fiction and nonfiction. An avid knitter and unreformed chocoholic, she spends her days writing books, drinking coffee and finding new ways to avoid housework. Allie grew up in Connecticut, holds a BS in Speech from Northwestern University, spent fifteen years in the field of professional fundraising. She lives with her husband, children and a Havanese dog named Bella in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois.

Bluegrass Blessings
Allie Pleiter

See, the former things have taken place,

and new things I declare; before they

spring into being I announce them to you.

—Isaiah 42:9

For Jeff

And he knows why

Acknowledgments

Every author needs the right ingredients to cook up the perfect novel. Attorney Donna Craft Cain helped me get the legal details in order, while Dr. Caroline Wolfe made sure the medical facts were in correct. If I could send Cookiegrams of my own, they’d go out to my husband, children, editor Krista Stroever and agent Karen Solem for their ongoing support. I’m well aware that living with an author—professionally or personally—is no piece of cake. Especially this author. And lastly, I’d be nowhere without the astounding guidance of my Lord and the amazing support of the readers who’ve made Middleburg one of their favorite places to visit. You’re great blessings, one and all.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Discussion Questions

Chapter One

“You can’t do this.” Dinah Hopkins glared mercilessly at the oven knobs. “I own you. You work for me and insubordination of any kind will not be permitted. Capiche?”

Her New York mobster impersonation failed to impress, for the pilot light still stared at her with one blue, unblinking eye. For lack of a better solution, she whacked the side of the cold oven with her rolling pin. Whacked. That was a gangster term, right?

“Whacked, as in end of life. As in light this minute or it’s the end of my life, buster.” Dinah fiddled with another knob or two, which had worked last week to get the fickle thing started, and checked the gas connection. “All’s well, you iron beast, you’ve got gas and flame but what I need is heat. So heat. I can’t exactly run a bakery with a microwave. Bakeries have ovens. Nice, obedient, toasty ovens.”

The blue unblinking eye mocked her. Okay, let’s try a little tenderness. “C’mon, baby, you know you want to. It’s a brand new year. You see that dough over there just begging to be sticky buns? You can do that. You’re the one who makes it happen. Let’s get cooking.” Dinah stroked the side of one burner as if she really could tickle an oven under the chin. She straightened up, blew a lock of her bright red hair out of her eyes, and listened to the hideous silence. No ticking sound, no heating metal, no hot oven.

No response. “I’m your master and I said ‘heat!’”

“Don’t you mean mistress?”

Dinah jumped at the unexpected male voice, spinning around ready to wield her rolling pin upon the intruder. The thing was large enough to be a weapon, that’s for sure. She dropped it on her toe once and limped for a week. She pointed it now at the dark stranger standing in her doorway. For a misguided robber dumb enough to enter a business with the lights on at two in the morning, he sure looked calm. And he was barefoot. And what was with the T-shirt and sweatpants? Didn’t criminals wear black cat-suits? “Who are you and how did you get in here?”

The man yawned. “Could you put that thing down?” He reached into one pocket.

“Not a chance, buster.” Dinah waved the rolling pin around to let him know just how serious she was about breaking a rib or two with it. She lunged for his hand just as he…pulled his glasses out of his pocket and held them out.

“Glasses,” he said, fixing the expensive-looking tortoise shell frames onto his face. “Not firearms.” Now he looked even less like a criminal. More like an accountant home sick with the flu.

“You’ve got ten seconds to tell me who you are.” Dinah hoped that even in flip-flops, she could outrun him to the police station if he tried anything. Especially after she threw the rolling pin to bruise his trespassing little shins.

He scratched his stubbly chin. He had thick, dark hair. “Do you realize what time it is?”

“Time for you to get out of my bakery before I call the police. I’m sure they know what time it is.”

“Sandy said you opened the bakery at six, maybe started baking at four. That was bad enough, but it’s two. That’s just not acceptable, no matter what you may have done in the past, so let’s get that out on the table right now.”

Sandy Burnside owned the building next door and hers as well. Oh no. Dinah put down the rolling pin and groaned. Sandy evidently did have a new tenant. A trespassing boor who decided it was okay to order perfect strangers around. “You’re Sandy’s new tenant? How’d you get in here?”

“Can I reach in my pocket again without the risk of pummeling?” The man did so and drew out a key. That still didn’t explain anything. “I thought I heard something strange going on.”

“My coming to work is strange?” Great. Not another one of those “the world is my territory and I must save the day” types. Dinah Hopkins was no damsel in distress and she surely didn’t take to being treated like one in her own kitchen.

He yawned. “Someone assaulting an appliance in clown clothes at two in the morning is not strange?”

Dinah felt a surge of regret for the purple tank top and red striped pajama pants she currently wore. She always came down from her apartment upstairs—she had a direct stairway in the back—to start the ovens and put the first batch of buns in while she was still in her pajamas. “Some stranger sneaking into my bakery at two in the morning is strange enough. Once more, for the record, who are you?”

“Cameron Rollings. Your new neighbor. I moved in above Mr. MacCarthy’s office next door.”

“I can’t say I care for your version of neighborliness, Mr. Rollings. And do you want to tell me why Sandy chose to hand over my bakery keys to a total stranger?”

He raked his fingers through his unruly hair and straightened up. “Because I’m also your new landlord. I bought this building from Sandy last week while you were on vacation.”

“You what?” He winced. She hadn’t really thought she yelled that loud given her state of shock. When Sandy had casually mentioned wanting to sell off some of her real estate holdings some weeks back, Dinah had started saving. She couldn’t put away much, but in another year, she might be able to make a small downpayment on the space that held her bakery and apartment. She’d never expected Sandy to sell so fast. While she was gone. To this guy. I hate him already. Sorry, Lord, but he stole my bakery. That’s not fair.

“I bought this building. I’m staying in Sandy’s other apartment, the one above MacCarthy’s office, while I build a house on some of the other land I bought from her further out of town. So, I’m your neighbor for just a while but your landlord from here on in.” He took a step toward her, adjusting his glasses. Even at this hour and in sweats, he had a well-mannered look about him—something in the precision of his haircut, the elegance of his glasses, the way he carried himself. He looked like the kind of guy who wore a tie to work every day and got his shirts done at the dry cleaner.

Lord, you know how those suit-and-tie types make me break out in hives. Why didn’t I talk to Sandy about this before now? Now I’ll never own the bakery outright. Not fair! Not fair! The plan was for me to buy the bakery and own my own building!

“I had planned to come down and introduce myself properly,” he continued with a hint of a smile. “You know, in the daylight. Like normal people.”

“Yeah, we all see how well that plan turned out, don’t we? How come Sandy sold to an out-of-towner?”

“It was a sudden thing. Anyway, formal introductions and residency requirements aren’t needed to buy property in New York. Is this a Kentucky thing I didn’t know about?” He yawned again. “I don’t suppose you’ve got any coffee on?”

Dinah glared at his dodging of the question. “I wasn’t planning on company. The bakery coffee machines take half an hour to heat up. My little, fast coffeepot’s upstairs. Where I live. Where I go back to get dressed for the day after the oven turns on. When the oven turns on, that is.” She spun in a chaotic circle, grabbing a fistful of hair in one hand. “But it’s no business of yours how I start my day. Come back at six when we open…. Hey, wait a minute, it is your business. Okay, Mr…. what’s your name again?”

“Rollings. Cameron Rollings.”

Dinah straightened up. “Mr. Rollings, sir, my oven is broken. That’s a landlord thing, isn’t it? You own the place, you’ve gotta fix my oven, right?”

Rollings came over and sat on one of the stainless steel stools that stood next to the work counter. “Under normal circumstances, that’d be true. But your lease with Sandy states that you merely rent the space and all the specialized bakery appliances are your responsibility.”

He was right. She’d completely forgotten about that because nothing had ever broken in the nearly year and a half she’d been running the Taste and See Bakery. That didn’t really change matters, because as it stood, there wasn’t anything she could do to get things baking in time to open today. Why is it the world always goes to pieces my first day back from vacation?

“On the other hand,” he said, “if the oven in your apartment breaks, I guess that is my problem.”

Her oven. She did have another oven! Sure, it was about one-third the size, but it was better than nothing. “My kitchen oven works. I could put some of this in there.”

“So go put some of these…” He pointed to the tray of dough on the counter with one eyebrow raised.

“Sticky buns.”

“Sticky buns in your apartment oven. I suppose I can see if there’s anything to be done down here. For the sake of my future sleeping opportunities.”

Dinah grabbed one of the two trays of dough, then stopped. “You can’t.”

He exhaled. “I know I’m not exactly the Maytag repairman…”

“You’re barefoot. You can’t. Regulations. You’ve got to have shoes on.”

“Fine, I’ll go upstairs and…”

Dinah reached down and pulled the fuchsia flip-flops off her feet and handed them to Rollings. “Here, wear these.”

He stared at them. Sure, they had polka dots on the soles, but it wasn’t like she was asking him to walk down the street in them. Slowly, as if they might inflict pain once applied, he took them from her. “And what are you going to wear?”

“I’m going upstairs to my apartment. I’ve got thirty-four more pairs up there, so chances are I’ll find something.”

Cameron found himself in an empty kitchen in the middle of the night, kneeling in front of an iron stove that looked as if it had lived through World War One, in pink flip-flops.

The new year was not off to a good start.

If anyone had told him even two months ago that he’d find himself in this circumstance, he might have called security and had them thrown out of his office.

Until, of course, his boss had called security and had Cameron thrown out of his own office. Funny thing, those bosses. They don’t take kindly to being told their companies are corrupt. Not at Landemere Properties where Cameron worked—ahem, used to work—before he was told, in terms persuasive enough to make an employment attorney salivate, that his desk should be emptied and his resignation should be on the boss’s desk within the hour.

You know, Lord, when I said that prayer asking what to do about the moral problems I was having with work? I wasn’t really asking to leave my job. Or the state.

Cameron was just pondering his new sorry circumstances when Dinah Hopkins returned. In a lime green T-shirt slightly nicer than what she’d had on earlier, jeans and beaded green flip-flops. Maybe the woman really did own three dozen pairs—the greens matched exactly. She brushed her hands on the legs of her jeans. “Did you get it going?”

Other than stare at the iron monstrosity and twiddle a few knobs, Cameron realized he hadn’t done anything. He was more of a microwave-frozen food kind of guy—he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d turned on the oven in his old apartment. “Nothing doing. The pilot light’s on, though.”

“Well,” she said sitting back on one hip with her arms crossed, “I know that.” She paused for a moment, running a finger absentmindedly through a lock of red hair. That couldn’t be her real color, could it? Tomato-red like that? Then again, with those freckles, maybe it could. It wasn’t like anything else about her was subtle. “Okay, then,” she said abruptly, grabbing the remaining tray of sticky buns. “We’ll have to use yours, too.”

“What?”

“You. Your oven. Between the two ovens, I might be able to get enough buns and muffins baking to see me through the morning.”

“Oh, no.”

“Hey, you’re up and all.”

He reached under his glasses to rub his eyes. “I don’t want to be.” She parked her hands on her hips. He guessed she thought she was giving him a fierce look, but he’d seen far fiercer any given workday—her “ferocity” was mostly just entertaining. Like he’d just been launched into a bluegrass I Love Lucy episode without his consent. “This oven, as I just said, is not my problem to solve. I was merely trying to be helpful, but you look very resourceful—I’m sure you can get by on your own.” He reached down to remove the hideous flip-flops, which didn’t even make it halfway down his feet anyway, and handed them back. “I’m going back to bed, Miss Hopkins.”

She put her hand out to stop the transfer of footwear. “You know my name?”

Cameron yawned again. “It did come up in the real estate transaction. Pertinent detail and all.”

She pushed the flip-flops back toward him. “Well, as I see it, my oven is your problem.”

It was becoming a struggle to remain civil about being roused out of bed by a flame-haired, loud-mouthed tornado in the middle of the night. “Not according to my paperwork. And believe me, Miss Hopkins, I read my paperwork.” He thrust the pink monstrosities back in her direction.

“Well, if I can’t open my bakery, I can’t earn money. And if I can’t earn money, then I can’t pay my rent. So, unlessen you want to start off the year badly, I reckon it is your problem.”

The Southern phraseology in her East Coast accent was just absurd. He glared at her. “Exactly what part of New Jersey are you from?”

That stopped her. “Exactly how much do you know about me?”

Exactly too much. And none of it prepared me for this. “I’m going back to bed now.”

“By all means. I won’t need any supervision from you. I’ll just slip in and slip out, moving batches in and out of your oven. You’ll never even know I’m there.”

Oh, he doubted that. “No.”

“Look, do you understand the concept of a bakery? It generally involves baked goods. That means baking. And you know, Mr. I’ll-just-show-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-and-scare-the-pants-off-my-new-tenant, my day is off to a really bad start.”

Cameron took off his glasses and gave her his most domineering I-am-immovable-on-the-subject look. “And you know, I can’t imagine what that feels like.”

That set her back a bit. As if she’d just realized most of the civilized world didn’t take kindly to rising so painfully early. So early it was actually still late. The pity was just a flash across her features, replaced almost immediately by a sharp scowl. “Well, fine, then. Be like that. Just what kind of heartless beast did Sandy sell to, anyway?”

“Her nephew,” he shot back. He hadn’t intended to let her know that just yet, but his growing exasperation pulled it out of him. Aunt Sandy told him Dinah could be a handful.

Which was sadly funny, because Aunt Sandy usually exaggerated.

Chapter Two

Knock. Pause. Louder knock. Pause. Bang.

“Aw, for crying out loud, Dinah, will you give it up already?”

“Cameron?” Knock.

Cameron thrust his head under the pillow, moaning. Kentucky was proving to be the most miserable retreat on Earth. “Go away!”

Bang. “Cameron Jacob Rollings, don’t you talk to me like that, young man.”

Cameron shot straight up. Nasty, shiny sunlight invaded his bedroom while the sickening smell of cinnamon assaulted his nose. “Aunt Sandy?” He hauled his protesting body up off the bed.

“What’s gotten into you?” Sandy Burnside’s unmistakable drawl came through the door. “Open up right now.”

Cameron checked his watch as he shuffled to the door. It seemed way too bright to be seven-thirty. “Coming, coming.” She swooped into the room the minute Cameron got the door open. “You have a key, Aunt Sandy, you could have just let yourself in instead of breaking down my door.”

She poked a finger into her mass of blond hair as if to replace a stray strand. He always found that gesture odd on her—there was so much hairspray on that head he doubted gale force winds could pull a hair out of place. “I do not invade the privacy of my tenants. No matter how rude they are.” She paused, taking in the strong scent of the room. “I haven’t had a tenant in this apartment since Dinah moved in. Does the bakery send that powerful a smell up here all the time? I’ll have a word with Dinah. Mac in the office downstairs has never complained about it before—of course, it is a nice smell at that. Not that you’ll be here that long once your house is built.”

Aunt Sandy’s heels clacked into the kitchen as she poked her head here and there, assessing his meager attempts at unpacking his possessions—which were truly meager, considering he’d sold most of his New York apartment’s furnishings before he moved and this apartment of his aunt’s was only supposed to be temporary. “Honey,” she pointed a red-lacquered fingernail at his oven, “y’all left that on.”

Cameron stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets, leaned up against the refrigerator and glared at his aunt. “Dinah Hopkins.”

“Dinah? What’s Dinah got to do with your oven?”

Cameron reached for the coffeemaker. “Long story. Want a cup?”

Dinah closed her cash register drawer with a satisfied click. It was five minutes to nine and she’d made it through the morning rush—granted, with only two blueberry muffins to spare and a couple of last-minute substitutions for customers, but she’d made it. Thank you, Jesus! The oven repair company would open in five minutes and she could place a service call.

She’d never have made it without the use of Cameron Rollings’s oven. She made a mental note to thank him sincerely—that is, if he ever spoke to her again. When that muffin pan had slipped off the counter and clattered loudly to the floor, he’d growled like a grizzly bear with murder in his eye. The man was from Manhattan; he should be used to all kinds of noise. Still, she had to give him credit; he had finally relented and let her use his oven—the third time she knocked on his door to ask. She’d whip up a batch of her famous macadamia nut cookies in an hour or so, after the sandwich bread finished baking, and take them over as a peace offering. He was her new landlord, after all.

And really, how had that happened? And so quickly? Granted, Sandy was the spontaneous type, but to sell the bakery out from underneath her (okay, so it was really just the space the bakery sat in—she still had her business) while she was gone on vacation? Without so much as a phone call to let her know? Sandy had come in the bakery just after eight, all flushed and apologetic, saying “If I’d known Cameron was gonna scare the pants off you in the middle of the night like that, I’d have left y’all a note or something.”

There was a story behind Sandy’s sudden sale to her nephew. Dinah was sure of that. She just wasn’t sure whether she’d get the story out of Sandy or Cameron first.

He walked in the door about half an hour later—thick dark hair neatly combed, a yawn crossing his clean-shaven face. Cameron had the sleeves pushed up on the rust-colored wool sweater he wore over black jeans and his glasses were gone. With an expensive-looking watch and leather shoes, he looked everything and nothing like the man who had invaded her kitchen last night. He walked toward her with the shuffle of someone who hadn’t gotten enough sleep.

“Good morning,” she said cheerfully, as if she didn’t feel a twinge of regret for imposing on her new neighbor and/or landlord so severely. “You’ve earned free coffee for the entire week.”

“I’ll need it.” He yawned again. “Did you get a repairman to come out?” He didn’t ask the question with a tone of concern—it was more defensive, as if confirming he’d have his kitchen to himself from here on in.

Dinah nodded and handed him a cup of her strongest brew. “He’ll be here at eleven. I just hope it’s an easy fix.” She pointed over to a sideboard where she kept the cream and sugar in wildly colored ceramic jars, but he just took the cup and downed half of it right in front of her. Evidently the man took his coffee black and fast. Very New York.

“You and me both.”

Dinah handed him one of the last two blueberry muffins. “Not to worry. Even if the oven’s a goner, I can work through the evening using my own oven and get enough baked ahead of time to make it through another day. Can’t say I’m looking forward to a week of baking twenty-four-seven if I have to replace it, though. Pastor Anderson might let me take over the church kitchen’s two ovens if it looks like a long haul.”

Cameron scratched his chin and got a thoughtful look on his face. “Anderson. Middleburg Community Church? Aunt Sandy’s church?”

Dinah grinned. “Yep. So I guess that means I’ll be seeing you Sunday mornings?”

“I suppose so,” he said in a way that didn’t let on if he found that good news or bad.

Never one to beat around the bush, Dinah opted for the direct approach. “You a churchgoin’ man, Mr. Rollings?”

He chuckled and took another swig of coffee. “I still can’t get used to that New Jersey-esque drawl.”

“I have folks tell me it’s endearing.” Dinah lifted the towel off a batch of whole wheat dough that was rising on the shelf beside her. “A unique combination.” She noticed he hadn’t yet answered her question. The man’s verbal dexterity told her he spent a lot of time in negotiations.

“Oh, unique is the word. I can tell you I’ve never heard anything like it ever before. How long have you been out here?”

“About a year and a half.”

Rollings practically choked on his coffee. “That short?”

Are you saying I look old enough to have been here a decade? “I have a highly adaptive personality,” she said defensively. “I can be at home in any situation.”

“Or any kitchen.” He reached into his pocket and removed a bottle of red sparkle nail polish, which he placed on her counter. “You left this on my kitchen table. Aunt Sandy had a field day when she found it. She didn’t believe it was yours—she says redheads don’t wear red.”

Nobody told Dinah Hopkins what to do. She raised one leg and pointed to her toes, which were a delightfully sparkly crimson that matched the shade on the bottle. “It depends where.” She snatched back the bottle of polish and tucked it behind the counter.

Cameron finished his coffee and tossed the paper cup into the trash can by the door. “And by the way, yes, I am a churchgoin’ man. Can’t wait for Sunday, as a matter of fact. I gotta see what kind of church can handle you and Aunt Sandy in the same congregation.” With the closest thing to a grin she’d seen out of him yet, he pulled open the door and headed off down the street.

“Well, well, I do declare,” Dinah drawled as she put the Back in a Minute sign on her door and hoisted the tray of dough for a trip to the apartment oven. “What hath the Good Lord brought unto Middleburg?”

Cameron was beyond annoyed.

Served him right for buying a piece of property sight unseen. He, of all people, ought to know better. Then again, who’d have thought to not trust a family member? Aunt Sandy didn’t seem to have a deceptive bone in her body. And in truth, she hadn’t lied. It was good property.

She’d just left out a large chunk of the truth.

“The what?” A man in thick glasses had stared blankly at him when he went to town hall for the legal history of the Route 26 extension. The extension was the short street on which he’d purchased not only the land that would hold his new house, but three other eventual large-lot homes as well. A little bluegrass subdivision. His little corner of the world. A street to call his own.

A street that evidently didn’t go by the perfectly normal name of Route 26. The perfectly legal, perfectly acceptable name of Route 26.

“That stretch out over by the Wentworths’ farm?” the clerk had said. “You mean Lullaby Lane?”

“Pardon me?”

“Lullaby Lane. I can’t remember the last person that ever wanted to know anything about Lullaby Lane.” He looked as if that query called Cameron’s sense of good judgment into question.

Cameron pulled out his paperwork. “All my documents refer to that parcel of land as ‘the Route 26 extension.’”

“Well, it is the Route 26 extension all right, but ain’t nobody here ever called it that. It’s been Lullaby Lane for as long as I’ve been here and I’ve been here a long time. All that property you bought is Lullaby Lane, mister, no matter what your piece of paper says.”

Cameron immediately drove out to the land in question. He stopped his car in front of the rusted old street sign, leaning precariously to the right against a falling-down stone wall. His new empire, his future, was indeed Lullaby Lane.

Lord God, You’re kidding. Lullaby Lane? Aunt Sandy and Uncle George sold me something called Lullaby Lane? I know land is land is land and it’s only a detail, but could You just cut me a break here? It’s salt in the wound, Lord. I used to be the smart guy at the office. Now I feel like the biggest fool in the county.

“She went through with it?” Dinah balked when Cameron returned to the bakery. “Sandy said George had an idea to finally sell Lullaby Lane by getting someone from out of town to invest in it by its legal name—the something-something extension. And it’s you.” She got a look on her face that was half shock, half amusement. “You bought Lullaby Lane. Man, I thought I was having a bad week.”

Cameron stared around the bakery. His bakery, actually. He now owned cupcakes and lullabies. It’d be hard to think of anything farther from real estate empires and high finance. “I bought a parcel of land called the Route 26 extension. The ‘Lullaby’ part was conveniently omitted.”

Dinah hopped up on the counter and swung her legs over to slide off on the other side. “It’s just a silly name. You look like the kind of guy who can handle a challenge like that. Oh, the oven’s dead. Thanks for asking.”

He stared at her. She was just this side of crazy.

“I reckon you’ll be fine.” She had a completely fake, completely unconvincing look on her face.

He glared until she dissolved into a cascade of giggles.

“Okay, okay, everyone knows it by Lullaby Lane. It’s too sissy a name for all those horsemen and so nobody lives there.”

He widened his stance. “Street names get changed all the time.”

She shook her head, one unruly curl spilling out across her forehead. “Not in this town. Middleburg’s as anti-change as it gets. You have no idea what you’re dealing with here.”

“You have no idea who you’re dealing with here.” He pointed to his chest. “I’ll find a way.”

She pulled some napkins out of a box and started stuffing them into a holder on a table. “Well, suit yourself, but that will take some serious leverage, and y’all only been here—what—two days?”

Cameron walked up and planted his hands on the table. “Well, then it’s a good thing I’ll have resourceful help.” He looked her in the eye. “You can’t afford a new oven, can you?”

“Well,” she replied slowly, “I admit it’s a bit of a cash flow challenge, but the money I was saving up to buy my building has surprisingly freed up.” She gave him a pointed look.

So she had designs on owning the building. No wonder she’d bristled when he’d told her who he was. “Have you got enough to replace the oven?”

She stopped stuffing napkins, slowly moving her gaze up to meet his. “Almost.”

He felt the first grin in days creep across his face. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll loan you the money for the oven if you help me get my name change.”

“It’s just a name. You’re getting all crazy over nothing.”

“A sissy name according to you. As for the crazy, it sounds like I’ll fit right in.”

“I knew you would, honey,” Aunt Sandy’s voice came from behind him. He hadn’t even heard the bakery door open. “I’m so glad to have you out here instead of squeezed into a stuffy suit back there in New York.”

Cameron couldn’t think of a moment when the word “impossible” didn’t describe his Aunt Sandy. The one his mother called “loony Aunt Sandy.” The “black sheep” sister of his mother’s well-groomed Massachusetts family—although looking at the woman, “blond sheep” would have been a better metaphor. “Aunt Sandy, I’m thinking I should haul you in for fraud. And I know enough attorneys that I might just do it. Lullaby Lane?”

Sandy actually managed a look of remorse. “I did not lie. It is the Route 26 extension. That is its legal name. And I knew that my nephew Cameron was just the type of real estate mogul to take on a challenge like Lullaby Lane.”

“A challenge is something you know about in advance and accept. As in willingly take on. This is more like an ambush. Dangerously close to a con job, if you ask me.”

“Well, then,” Aunt Sandy said with an indulgent grin, “I suppose I should thank the Good Lord I’m not askin’.”

She pointed a pink fingernail at Cameron. “You just think about one thing, son. There’s a reason you said yes. Maybe you know it somewhere inside, maybe only God knows it yet, but there’s a reason a detail-focused, suit-wearin’ planning type like you said yes to buying a hunk o’ land sight unseen. You think about that, hon.”

She sauntered out of the bakery as if that were an acceptable explanation. It was annoyingly true that what Sandy had done was legal, but it was not especially ethical in Cameron’s book. And not at all the kind of stuff he’d expect out of a woman who claimed to have as much faith as Aunt Sandy did.

Cameron thought perhaps he should just point his BMW east—toward civilization—and start driving. Somewhere between here and the Atlantic Ocean, somebody needed a commercial real estate broker. God just wasn’t cruel enough to make him stay here.

Chapter Three

Dinah glanced up from her cookie dough while Cameron negotiated—again—with the oven man. At first she was glad to have Cameron offer to take care of dealing with the repair man—dashing between the bakery and her apartment oven all day was keeping her running—but the minute a dollar sign got involved the man couldn’t seem to turn off the big city tycoon persona.

“You can’t give me another fifty for the old one? You could get more than that for the scrap metal alone.”

The repairman, a nice guy from a company that had been more than amiable to her in the past, looked up at Dinah as if to say where’d you find this guy? He pointed to a page on his clipboard. “I got a chart here says what I can give you. This is what I can give you. That’s it.”

Cameron looked up from the knob he was twisting. “No leeway?”

The poor man pushed his cap back on his head and exhaled. “Mister, if I had leeway I’d have given it to you the first time you asked. Asking three times ain’t gonna make things any different, okay?”

“Okay.” Cameron sounded as if he’d lost some kind of battle instead of gotten her one hundred dollars more than she expected for Old Ironsides. As a matter of fact, she hadn’t even thought to ask them about buying the old one—she’d completely forgotten it could be sold as scrap. And that made a whole load of sense—the thing weighed a ton and she was pretty sure they sold scrap by the pound. Still, she thought Cameron was coming on a bit strong.

“Did you have to go for the jugular?” she asked the minute the repairman left to get his dolly out of his truck. “It’s an oven, not a peace treaty.”

“It’s not the best deal until the other guy says ‘no.’”

Dinah cut out another cookie. “He said ‘no’ twenty minutes ago.”

“Reluctance is not refusal.” Cameron pulled a towel off her counter and wiped the grease from his hands.

“Is that what you do for a living? Beat other people down until you get what you want? The real estate brokers on television are all smiling guys eager to help families find the home of their dreams. You, you look like you’re going to snarl any second.”

“My job is to get the best deal between buyer and seller. That’s good for everyone.”

“Okay, you’re not the bad guy,” she said, holding up her hand. “You’re the good guy. But you have to admit,” she looked straight at him, “you’re mighty tightly strung for a good guy.”

“You got your oven, didn’t you?”

“Well, yeah, but I didn’t need it to be the high-level negotiation you made it. I mean, I’m grateful, but you can take it down a notch here, okay?”

Cameron fiddled with the knob he’d removed from the oven. Even though he had a game face that could scare those with weaker constitutions, Dinah could tell in his body language that he was giving in. Reminding himself to turn off—or at least tone down—the New York biz demeanor.

“Okay,” he said after a pause.

She had to give him credit; he was still doing pretty good for a guy who’d uprooted himself and dived head-first into a whole new culture. She’d come here of her own free will (which somehow she knew he hadn’t—or thought he hadn’t), and it had still taken her a while to find her footing. The guy hadn’t even been here half a week. As she loaded a second cookie sheet to take upstairs, Dinah said a quick prayer for rest and peace to visit Cameron Rollings—and maybe a little for herself, too.

The conversation lulled while the repairman and his buddy went through the huge task of getting the ancient oven out the bakery’s back door. The thing was a behemoth—it astounded Dinah how big a space it left in the kitchen when they hauled it out. Installation of the new one would begin at nine o’clock tomorrow morning and after that, life might tilt back toward normal. Dinah hoped. Although part of her thought “normal” wasn’t really on the radar anymore with Cameron Rollings next door.

“These are for you. Oven rent.” Dinah appeared at his door thirty minutes later with a batch of macadamia nut white chocolate chip cookies. A stack of large, blueprint-like papers lay strewn out on his kitchen table. The display made it easy to picture him in the corner office of some Manhattan high-rise.

“Thanks,” Cameron said, taking the cookies and putting them next to the papers. He had an elegant look about him that made him seem so foreign here, even in jeans. There was something in the set of his shoulders, the way he carried himself. A sleekness that came from always having the upper hand.

An upper hand she was pretty sure he felt he no longer had. That was pure intuition, but Dinah was a mighty intuitive gal and prided herself on her ability to read people. All that carefully crafted city confidence was coming unraveled in a few corners. She saw it in the way he’d overly defended his negotiation. In how he always tapped his left foot. There was a story there, all right. Even Sandy had alluded as much, although Dinah certainly had no idea what it was.

“I’m warning you,” Dinah pointed to the cookies, “don’t put those within easy reach. If you haven’t eaten lunch, you’re in trouble.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said.

“Willpower is no match for the smell of my macadamia nut white chocolate chip cookies. Don’t get cocky or I might come back up here to find you hiding an empty plate behind your back.”

He didn’t even laugh at the joke. “Baked goods don’t scare me.” He sat back down at the table, all business.

Dinah headed toward the door, but stopped before leaving. “So, why’d you leave New York, anyway?”

That made him look up. She knew it would. “To get away from people asking personal questions.”

If he thought she’d be put off by a few snarky replies, he had a think or two coming. “No, really. What made you come all the way out here?”

Cameron pulled off his glasses and wiped his hands down his face. “Let’s just say ‘employment issues.’”

Dinah leaned against the open door. “You got canned?”

“Are you always this diplomatic?”

“I’ll take that as a yes. I heard some famous guy say all truly innovative people get fired at least once in their careers.”

“That’s not true.”

“How do you know?”

“Let’s just say it was my lack of innovation that…heralded my job change.”

“Meaning?”

He leaned on one elbow. “It was because I wouldn’t get creative that I lost my job. And I didn’t lose it, by the way,” he corrected himself. “I merely agreed with the management that it would be best for all concerned if I left immediately.”

“Honey, in this neck of the woods, that’s called getting fired. Best own up to it now, so you can move on.” She walked back into the apartment despite the dark look he gave her. “What kind of ‘creative,’ anyway? You mean cheating?”

“It has a nicer term in real estate. Alternative accounting. Although that’s not the name I’d put to it. I wouldn’t look the other way when some guy started skimming off the sales when apartment buildings were made into condos. Unfortunately that process has a lot of convenient little places to hide some cheating—if no one is looking. But I was, and when they started really putting the pressure on me, I had no choice but to go to the local authorities. I just couldn’t sit by and watch them steal from people.” He sighed and got up from the table. “But, as you can see, it didn’t exactly go well for me.”

Cameron had told himself over and over that he wouldn’t go into his situation for his first couple of weeks in Kentucky. He had a set of polite but evasive answers for all questions about his sudden move. All of which left his skull in the presence of this relentless redhead. Why on earth was he getting into this with her? Already?

She blinked at him. “You’re a whistle-blower?”

There had to be a more noble term for it than that. If only he could remember it. “Let’s just say I’m a guy paying a very high price for doing the right thing at the wrong time.”

She scratched her chin and he noticed it left a smear of flour on her cheek. Brown eyes were a very normal color—so why did they stand out on a redhead like that? And that red hair—did that come from God or a salon? He looked at her, standing in his kitchen with a bright pink potholder tucked into her back jean pocket, and thought there wasn’t a single subtle thing about this woman. She narrowed her eyes and he wondered if he’d been staring too long. “Are you in the witness protection program or something?” she asked.

“Using my real name? Buying real estate? Here? With loudmouth Aunt Sandy?” There wasn’t a more ridiculous notion in the world. Although, based on the last couple of days, perhaps a phone call to the FBI might be in order. Disappearing into thin air looked like an attractive option at the moment.

“Well, yeah, that’d hardly do the trick, would it?” she laughed. He expected her to have a high, musical laugh, but instead the low notes of her silky chuckle tickled him somewhere under his ribs. “But really, is that what happened? You called the cops on some guys so your own company fired you? Can they do that, legally? I mean, that’s gangster stuff.”

Cameron laughed. “My old boss would tell you that’s simply a highly competitive marketplace. Everybody’s scratching everyone else’s back. Especially in a place like New York.”

She shifted her weight. “Are you sorry you did it?” she asked in a tone so sincere it caught him off guard. “With all it cost you, would you do it again?”

Funny how no one had asked him that before now. Which was odd, because it really was the question of the hour, wasn’t it? Was it all worth the cost? Would he have been able to sleep at night if he’d kept his mouth shut?

“You know,” he said quite honestly, “I thought I’d know that for sure by now.” Again, the prepared “noble guy” answer he’d crafted for the world just wouldn’t come. “I keep waiting for that great big atta boy of peace to come down from God and, well, I’m still waiting.”

A warm tone softened in her eyes. It looked far too much like pity and that sprouted a hard spot in the pit of his stomach. He really didn’t know what he wanted from all this, but he knew for certain he didn’t want pity. And for some reason, especially not from her. He shuffled his papers, suddenly wanting this conversation over.

“This isn’t one of those black-and-white morality tales, Miss Hopkins. There’s no hero, there’s no wicked witch. I made the best choice I could at the time and I’ll just deal with what comes.”

Her face told him his tone had been sharper than he would have liked, but she seemed able to irk him with a single look. Not even his boss…ahem, his old boss—could get to him so quickly.

“Hey, you don’t have to prove anything to me.” She yanked the potholder from her pocket and huffed back toward the door. He slumped in his seat, half glad to be rid of her, half contrite for being such a beast.

“For what it’s worth,” he heard her call out from the hall as she pulled the door shut, “it sounds like you got a lousy deal.”

When the door clicked shut behind her, he tossed his pencil down and thought, here or there?

Dinah stared at the envelope now opened on her bakery’s kitchen counter. Last time I checked, Lord, You were still in control. But can You see how I feel like the world’s ganging up on me? Did she have to send this card? Now?

A perfectly good morning—including the installation of Taste and See’s new oven—had been ruined by a single piece of mail. All her euphoria over having an oven that actually obeyed the temperature she set on the dial—Dinah’s math skills never really were up to speed when it came to compensating for Old Ironsides being 27 degrees too hot—was lost in the contents of one pale blue envelope.

Mom.

Dinah stared at the final two words of the card: “Come home.” Suddenly she was eight years old and being told to come in from the thrilling Jersey seashore waves to wash up for dinner. To Dinah, “come home” never had any of those “welcome back” warm, fuzzy connotations. “Come home” was a command putting an end to anything fun or anything she called her own.

A command, in this particular instance, to “stop all this Kentucky nonsense and come back to your family where you belong.” Dinah poured herself another cup of coffee and winced at the concept. She couldn’t think of any place she felt like she belonged less than that manicured Jersey suburb. “All this Kentucky nonsense” felt more like “home” or “where she belonged” than anything on the East Coast. Back home she was a square peg being continually squashed into a round hole. Here, those things her mother delicately called her “eccentricities” were welcomed, if not outright celebrated. Her craving to do something so pedestrian as baking, something so manual chafed at the academic and scientific values of her parents. Dinah knew God had brought her to Middleburg as sure as she knew anything in this world.

Middleburg is my home, Lord. How will I ever get her to understand that? Why can’t she let me be who You made me to be? Why can’t she let me be, period?

Dinah tucked the offending card into her back pocket as she heard the bakery’s front door chime. She walked out of the kitchen to find Emily Montague coming into the bakery. The woman was grinning from ear to ear and it reminded Dinah of all the reasons she did what she did. She’d been looking forward to this appointment all week—how on earth could she have forgotten it was this morning? Thanks, Lord, for sending me the reminder I needed, Dinah prayed silently as she reached for the file of sketches she had ready for her friend.

“I’m here,” Emily called out. “This is going to be so much fun.”

Dinah motioned to the little corner table that sat by the bakery’s front windows while she reached for a second mug and some hot water. “Tea for you, coffee for me.”

Emily ran the West of Paris bath shop down the street and was in the middle of planning her February wedding to a local horse farmer named Gil Sorrent. Dinah was happy to see her friend so madly in love and even happier to bake her the wedding cake of her dreams. Even if it meant a little extra work around an already-busy time.

“You’re sure you can do this? I just heard you’ll be doing all the cookies for that new fund-raiser.”

Dinah sat upright in her chair and hoisted her coffee mug. “That’s right. You’re looking at the Middleburg Community Fund’s official Cookiegram baker. Complete with a fancy new oven thanks to the untimely but welcome death of Old Ironsides back there.”

“Right,” said Emily, “Sandy Burnside told me your oven died.”

“I choose to believe God was simply better equipping me for the surge of business ahead. And no amount of cookies could put me off baking my friend’s spectacular wedding cake.” Dinah opened the file. “I took a look at the handkerchiefs you showed me and made a few sketches.” Emily loved all things vintage and had given Dinah an assortment of delicate antique handkerchiefs with embroidered pastel borders as motifs to incorporate into the cake decoration. Emily was nothing if not a woman who knew what she wanted and Dinah liked her for that.

“You’re sure you’ll have time?” Emily was also a first-class control freak, although love had softened her edges.

“Honey, for you I’ll make time. You’re my top February priority. Cookies are easy. Wedding cakes—those are the stuff of bakers’ dreams.” All the more reason not to crawl back to New Jersey, Dinah thought as she poured Emily’s tea. You’ve got a bustling bakery business to run.

They chatted through an hour of delightful options—fillings, shapes, colors, patterns—before choosing a design. Dinah was particularly tickled that Emily’s favorite design was her first choice as well: a lovely, delicate trio of ovals—vintage enough to suit Emily’s style, but not so fussy that her fiancé, Gil, would groan. They were a textbook case of opposites attract, those two. Emily was all soft, delicate pastels, whereas Gil was a large, dark, storm cloud of a man—at least before Emily came along. She couldn’t be happier for the pair and baking for their wedding just made the joy that much more complete.

Wedding cakes were—and always had been—all the reasons why Dinah baked, wrapped up in one single confection. Why is it that no one in her family could understand baking’s appeal for her? Why did they consider it some lower form of domestic servitude rather than the gift of beauty and pleasure that it was?

“So you want to tell me what’s up?” Emily said as she closed the lace-covered notebook she used to hold her wedding notes. “Sandy told me she sold the building—your new landlord making you miserable?”

“Well, yes and no. Sorry, have I been that distracted?”

Emily smiled. “Just a bit. Come on, Dinah, what’s up?”

It was no use hiding things from Emily. She was intuitive that way and they’d been good friends practically from Dinah’s first day in Middleburg. “I got another card from my mom today.”

Emily let out a little moan of understanding. “That’s the third one, isn’t it? She really is trying to patch things up between you.”

Dinah pulled the card out from her pocket and slid it across to Emily. “Not that she was ever subtle before, but she’s actually told me to come home in this one.”

Emily quickly scanned the card and then looked up at Dinah. “Okay, but you don’t have to go home. I can’t remember you ever doing as you were told. You disregard Howard on a monthly basis for the fun of it.”

Dinah served on the Middleburg Library board, vice chair to Mayor Howard Epson, a man who believed himself to be the most important person in Middleburg. A man who loved issuing commands that Dinah loved ignoring. Still, the two had managed a begrudging admiration for each other which somehow got the job done. No one else had ever lasted as long as vice chair of the library board under Howard, and Howard was showing no signs of ever resigning any of his many board chairmanships or from his long run as Middleburg’s mayor. “Ruffling Howard’s feathers is fun. Ruffling Mom’s is playing with fire.”

“She’ll come around.” Emily handed back the letter. “Once she understands how happy you are out here, she’ll ease up. Parents want their children to be happy most of all.”

Dinah sighed. “Yeah, but I can’t help thinking something’s up. Something bugs me about all her cards. Something I can’t quite read between the lines yet. She’s not telling me everything.”

“Maybe she’s just afraid to admit how lonely she is without you. Maybe it’s easier for her to believe it’s for your own good to go back to New Jersey when she’d really just like it for her own good.”

Dinah drained her coffee and stuffed the card back into her pocket. “You’re probably right. She’s been busier than a beehive since Dad died, but she’s never remarried. She says she loves her independence, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t lonely. Dad’s been gone almost fifteen years now.” She threw Emily a look. “Maybe she’s just itching for grandchildren and has some dreamy neurosurgical student all lined up for me.”

“Now that,” Emily replied, finishing the last of her tea, “sounds like a mother to me. You could do a lot worse than a dreamy neurosurgeon. But you won’t know unless you talk to her.”

Talk. Emily should know better than to make such a suggestion. There was no talking with Mom. Only listening to her version of how Dinah’s life ought to be. A catalog of suggestions and disappointments in how Dinah chose to spend—Mom barely refrained from using the word “waste”—her fine young life.

“I think you are too smitten with farmer handsome to think clearly at the moment.” Dinah stood up and planted her hands on her hips, diverting the conversation. “You do know the pair of you are probably the only people on the planet who could force me into pastels.” She was a bridesmaid in the wedding, which sported the kind of pale green dresses Dinah would only tolerate for a dear friend. “The universe may shift on its axis to see me in pale mint and an actual ruffle. It could cause a crack in the space–time continuum or something.”

Emily melted into the dreamy-eyed smirk of the soon-to-be-married. “I’ll take that chance. Can you do lunch?”

Chapter Four

There had been days where Cameron craved this kind of solitude. Thirsted for a single uninterrupted hour. Now no phones rang. No one poked a head into his office with a “could you look this over?” interruption. They hadn’t yet installed his cable or Internet connections, and the television only got something like four channels. He was stuck here at his dining room table, within the boring, empty confines of his apartment, facing a to-do list that rivaled only the slowest of weeks in Manhattan. So far he’d gone all five days of the new year without putting on a tie. This should feel like a grand vacation. Instead, the whole morning felt like an odd, unwanted sick day. Only he wasn’t sick. He wasn’t even tired.

What he really felt was an irrational irritation that no one barged through his door every hour to throw in a batch of muffins or poke at a cake pan. It had driven him bonkers while she’d done it, but now he missed the interruptions. As annoying as Dinah Hopkins was, she was the only Middleburg resident he knew other than Aunt Sandy and Uncle George—and he was in no hurry to talk to them at the moment.

It all begged the overwhelming question: What am I doing here?

Cameron almost breathed a sigh of relief when insistent knocking came at his door. He jumped up eagerly to answer it, but his face fell almost immediately.

“Wipe that scowl off your face, son, and go shave.” His aunt Sandy’s tone registered annoyance. Evidently he hadn’t hid his disappointment very well. He’d never admit to anyone that he was hoping Dinah Hopkins was on the other side of that door, especially not to his big-haired blond relative.

Registering what she’d said, Cameron’s hand flew to his chin—he’d forgotten to shave? That would have never happened in New York, even on his worst of days. “Um…why?”

“Because I’m not that bad a choice of company, and you’re coming out to lunch. I’m introducing you around.”

Starved as he was for human contact, that did not sound good. “‘Around’?”

“You’re goin’ to Deacon’s Grill for lunch.” Aunt Sandy pushed past him to drape her leather coat across the back of his couch. “That’s as good as meetin’ everybody in Middleburg. Especially today, when the pies are all fresh. You’ll have a dozen new friends by sundown.”

“Won’t that be swell?” he snapped sarcastically as he headed to the bathroom to find his cordless razor. There was no reason to be as irritated as he was, but he just couldn’t seem to stop it.

Sandy followed him, pushing the bathroom door back open when he tried to shut it. She reached out and grabbed him by the ear like a schoolboy, having to stretch up to cover the foot between them even in her ridiculously high heels. For an absurd second he actually thought she was going to cuff him—and he probably deserved it. Instead, she pulled his forehead down to her height and kissed it. “I know you’re hurtin’, sugar. So I’ll let that slide.” She tugged his head a little, like a mama dog with a puppy by the scruff. It was a weird but completely disarming gesture. “I’m so proud of you for what you’ve done and all you’ve had to put up with. Y’all stood up for what was right just like your mama taught you. Don’t think God wasn’t watching every second.”

How could the woman do that? Make you love her and hate her at the same time? Aunt Sandy was probably right—he needed to get out. He’d come here to launch his own business, to be the kind of resident broker Dinah had mentioned. The happy, straight-dealing kind. The sooner he re-planted himself in this strange little town, the better off he’d be. Find some new friends who didn’t make his brain hurt. At least get a decent meal—the forty-eight-hour onslaught of baking smells gave him a nonstop appetite. If nothing else, this town seemed to have a full supply of great cooking—even if you couldn’t get a single thing delivered.

By the time he finished shaving and changed into a nicer shirt, Aunt Sandy had sorted through the papers on his desk and rearranged the chairs around his dining room table. “There now, that’s my handsome Cam. Put on your charm, hon, we’re going to start the campaign today.”

Cameron gulped. “What campaign?”

Sandy started fishing in her enormous handbag for something. “Why, to build your new business as a broker.” She stopped and looked at him. “That’s the idea here, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but…”

She resumed her search, half her forearm hidden in the voluminous silver leather bag. “Well, sugar, nothin’ in this town gets done quick or easy without Howard Epson on board. So today, we’re puttin’ a bug in Howard’s ear about how wonderful you are and how he can help you. Ain’t they ever taught you how to charm people back there in New York? What do they call it—‘people skills’?”

It’s a whole new brand of power lunch, Cameron thought to himself. “We do it just a bit differently. It’s more predatory than charming.”

Finally Aunt Sandy found whatever was eluding her at the bottom of her handbag. “Got it.” She pulled out what looked like a crystal from a chandelier hanging on a little gold chain. She smiled and spun it in front of him. “Your housewarming present.”

He raised an eyebrow. “A giant earring?”

She made a sound that could probably be described as a “Pshaw!” and headed toward his kitchen. “No, silly, it’s a prism. You hang it in your window and it makes rainbows in the sunshine.”

Cameron went to shoot her a disparaging look, but she was long gone. “Not exactly my decorating style,” he called after her, but she was already sticking a pushpin into the window frame to hang the atrocity.

“Nonsense. Rainbows come after the rain. They’re a symbol of God’s promise. It’s just what you need.”

I’m going to die. The world’s first overdose of charming. Cameron sighed. “You shouldn’t have.” He imbued the words with all the sarcasm he could manage.

“Don’t say that. You’re family.” He ducked just in time to avoid the impending tweak she was about to give his cheek. “And I don’t know what they’re feeding you back in New York, but you could use some meat on those bones. C’mon, Cam, honey, we want to hit the lunch rush.”

Lunch rush?

Lunch rush. The place was jam-packed. Cameron guessed this was the closest thing Middleburg saw to a crowd—which was only pleasantly bustling by Manhattan standards, to be sure. Aunt Sandy seemed to know everyone in the room and went from table to table introducing Cameron until he had so many names in his head that he wished he’d brought a pen and paper. Still, he recognized Howard holding court at the end of the counter and took the initiative to go say hello himself.

“Cameron, m’boy, good to see you again. I’m delighted Middleburg’s caught the attention of a fine young entrepreneur such as yourself.” Howard said it loudly and over his shoulder, so that the remark was addressed more to the room than to Cameron. Everything Aunt Sandy had said was starting to make sense.

“It’s exciting to be in a town with so much potential,” Cameron said, shaking Howard’s hand. “Good character, good government,” he leaned in and grinned, “good food, too.”

“Sharp as a tack, Sandy,” Howard called to Cameron’s aunt as she came up behind him. “He’ll go far.”

Cameron slipped into a booth just to the left of Howard’s crowd and eyed the menu. He must be as hungry as Sandy said; everything looked good. He ordered and tried to take mental notes as his aunt ticked down through the people in the room and how they’d eventually be connected to him through church, banking, real estate, even the library board, which she suggested Cameron get himself appointed to at the first opportunity.

“The library board?” Cameron balked, thinking it sounded unexciting. “You know, I’m not really the PTA type, Aunt Sandy.”

“Well, I doubt you’d care for the Ladies’ Mission Auxiliary. Library board’s the best place to start. And Howard’s chairman of the library board.” She leaned in and lowered her voice, “Actually, Howard’s chairman of everything. Just some of the other chairmen haven’t figured it out yet.” She emphasized her point by waving a breadstick, then caught sight of someone over Cameron’s shoulder. “Here’s another member of our library board now.”

Cameron turned, expecting to find an unexciting librarian.

Instead, he found a certain intriguing baker. “Explaining town politics to our new citizen, Sandy?”

A shorter woman with honey-colored hair asked, “Is this your nephew?”

“It most certainly is. Emily Montague, meet Cameron Rollings.”

Emily extended a hand. “Rumor has it you negotiate a mean oven deal.”

He smirked. “My reputation precedes me.”

“Nope,” she replied, “Dinah just loves a good story. And she’s probably just really glad to have a working oven again.”

“I am,” Dinah said. “Much as Old Ironsides lived a long and useful life, I’m glad to have an oven with a better sense of accuracy. There’ll be no stopping me now.”

“There’d better be no stopping you, Dinah,” Howard cut in. “You’re making all those cookies for the fund-raiser. We don’t want to run out of Cookiegrams in our first year.”

“Cookiegrams?” Cameron asked. It sounded too cute to be true.

“Cookie telegrams,” Dinah explained. “To raise money for the Community Fund. It was Howard’s idea.”

Howard nodded.

“And you know, we need a few more bodies on the committee,” Aunt Sandy said. Dinah, do you think we could find a job for Cameron?”

“We still need someone to get all the supplies donated,” offered Emily. “That sounds like a negotiation to me.”

Negotiating cookie supplies? Hardly the social introduction Cameron had in mind. “I don’t know anyone in town yet.”

“Nonsense,” Howard called out. “You know me. And Emily, and Dinah and Sandy. That’s all the start anyone needs.”

Emily raised an eyebrow as she took a bite of her sandwich. “You didn’t mention how handsome your new landlord was.”

“Granted, he’s cute in a suity, urban sort of way, but you know I’m not a fan of the suity urban type. If I’d have wanted to surround myself with upwardly mobile hunks, I’d have stayed back in Jersey.”

“But the hunk’s come to you. Divine intervention?”

Dinah put down her iced tea. “Let’s list the reasons why that would be a bad idea, shall we?” She held up one finger. “He’s my landlord now. I don’t plan to change my ‘never mix business with pleasure’ mentality. Two,” she held up a second finger, “you can take the man out of the suit, but you definitely can’t take the suit out of that man. Look at him.” She nodded in Cameron’s direction, grabbing Emily’s arm when she actually started looking over her shoulder. “No, I don’t mean really look at him. Figure of speech here?” She blew a curl out of her eye in exasperation—she didn’t want to be having this conversation at all, much less with Emily’s current love-struck outlook on life. “He’s gonna last one year in this place, tops. The guy practically considers himself in exile out here.”

Emily popped a potato chip into her mouth. “He goes to church, Dinah. And he negotiates a mean oven. And he loaned you the money to get it—you can’t say that wasn’t a nice thing to do.”

“Again, mixing business with pleasure. Which brings me to reason number three: The guy’s a tycoon in training. A predator in a three-piece suit. You should have seen him trying to get the last fifty dollars knocked off the purchase price. You’d have thought lives were at stake. No, I think I’ve seen enough to know he’s not my kind of guy. The last thing I’m looking for is a guy who’s got to go through life with the upper hand.”

Emily smiled and selected another potato chip. “A girl could do worse.”

Dinah mentally calculated the two months left until Emily was married off and her romantic energies could be trained elsewhere. Then again, it might get even worse once she was knee-deep in marital bliss.

Hadn’t she fled New Jersey to get away from just this kind of thing?

Chapter Five

Cameron had never seen anything like this.

Well, actually he had, just under far more believable circumstances. He’d almost had to pinch himself to remind him that he was at the Middleburg town council meeting.

It wasn’t the concept of a town council Cameron found strange. It was how seriously these people took their jobs. He’d seen less attention paid to civic ordinances in the city council chambers of New York. It was the oddest thing—no suits, no ties, no reporters and Emily Montague actually walked in carrying her papers in a basket (which nearly made Aunt Sandy’s lime green iridescent tote look normal)—but deeply serious. Everyone had read all the materials sent to them in advance of the meeting—such conscientiousness might have made a few of his New York colleagues faint from surprise. No staffers spoon-feeding facts in this Town Hall.

They were talking about, of all things, the widening of a local road from one lane to two. A route that ran within a few blocks of “Cameronville” as he now called it in his head. Even though it sounded a bit too much like the infamous Pottersville from It’s a Wonderful Life, it still was easier to swallow than Lullaby Lane.

Sure, the name change seemed a minor detail, but it set the tone for any future projects he’d have in this town. In this region. One day he’d need zoning variances, or streets widened, or sewers expanded, or permission for unattached three-car garages. Change. This name thing would set the pace for all his future expansions, lay a precedent for all the future changes he’d bring. It was vital. He had to win.

That meant stacking the deck in his favor. Last night, he’d conducted an Internet search of half a dozen Web sites and produced a long list of musical terms. No sense making this first change harder by bucking Middleburg’s truly odd fascination with musical street names. But as one could expect from a town nearing the age of Middleburg, most of the good ones were taken.

So far, he’d come up with Fox Trot Lane, Tango Court, Cadenza Place, Prelude Circle and Sonata Avenue. Sure, most of them sounded more like they belonged on the billboards advertising ritzy suburban subdivisions he’d seen on tri-state turnpikes, but Cameron was too close to begging to be choosy. At this rate, anything that wasn’t gooey-sweet and wasn’t Lullaby Lane was on the table.

“Sidewalks?” Aunt Sandy asked peering above her sparkly reading glasses. “It costs that much to put in sidewalks? Aren’t we spending enough puttin’ in that second lane that we have to spring for sidewalks now?”

“Well,” said “Mac” MacCarthy, “it’s safer with the additional traffic. Kids walk to school along this route.” He had his office in the space below Cameron’s apartment and they’d had an intriguing conversation the other day about how Middleburg could be appropriately developed.

“All the more reason not to widen the road,” said a rather crusty old man peering so closely at his papers that his nose practically touched the table. “Who needs more cars?”

“People drive cars,” Gil Sorrent said wearily. Emily had introduced Cameron to Gil earlier this week, and Cameron had liked him instantly. “People who buy things and pay taxes and want to send their kids to good schools with adequate resources.”

People who’ll buy houses in Cameronville someday, Cameron rooted silently for Gil and Mac to succeed. They were trying—very hard—but from the looks of things, this road expansion plan had been on the table for months.

Great, Cameron thought to himself. I could be staring at Lullaby Lane until Labor Day. He was beginning to think his goal of locking in the name change by St. Patrick’s Day was a bit optimistic. It was, after all, the first week of January. Give me a break. I wanted a faster start than this.

“Lots of our streets already have sidewalks, Monty,” Emily addressed the crusty old man in a persuasive tone. “This isn’t anything new.”

“Well, it is expensive,” the man said. “Expensive-er with those sidewalks. Seems to me, we wouldn’t have to be putting in sidewalks if we wasn’t putting in those lanes.”

Cameron decided Cameronville would come with free sidewalks. And giant but tasteful signs that proclaimed “This isn’t anything new.” Well, except for the name. And the new houses. When did this get so complicated?

“Progress does cost money,” Gil said tensely.

“May I remind you, Gil and Emily,” Howard stated, “that one of you will have to step down off the council once you’ve married.”

A woman Cameron recognized from the town library immediately flipped open a massive notebook and began thumbing through pages. “Spouses may not both serve on the council simultaneously,” she read. “But we’ve never had council members marry while in office before.” She looked up warmly at Emily. “It’s rather sweet, if you ask me.”

“You’re all invited,” Emily said with that dreamy tone of voice Cameron’s cousin had used when discussing her impending wedding.

“You should come for the cake if nothing else,” Dinah whispered over Cameron’s shoulder. He’d been so intent on scouting out the town council that he hadn’t even noticed her slip into the seat behind him. “It’ll knock your socks off.”

Cameron grinned and shook his head. He hadn’t heard someone use that phrase since he was six.

Dinah leaned both elbows over the seat back beside him. “Hadn’t even thought about the town council seat thing,” she said quietly. “Man, that’ll be a fight. Hope they don’t ask my opinion. I like ’em both, but Emily’s my pal. She’s all about keeping things the way they are and Gil’s all about progress. But really, they’re Middleburg’s biggest dilemma wrapped up in one adorable romance. Preservation versus progress. Look out, mister, you might have to choose sides.”

“So, instead of asking ‘Are you with the bride or the groom?’ the ushers will ask ‘Are you on the side of progress or preservation?’”

Dinah grinned. She had a wide, infectious smile to match those big brown eyes. “You’re funny. But if I were you, I wouldn’t mention that polling method to Mayor Epson.”

I might as well be developing real estate on Mars, Cameron thought to himself. This place is a whole other planet from New York.

“Newcomer’s curiosity for town politics?” Dinah asked him as they filed out of the town hall after the meeting.

Cameron stared at her. It was a look she was coming to recognize—a searching, analytical sort of stare that told her Middleburg and its citizens baffled him. The kind of look she’d give dough that wouldn’t rise despite a perfect adherence to the recipe and ideal conditions. It was a full ten seconds before she realized he wasn’t really staring at her; he was staring at her feet.

Oh, great, here we go again. As if a creative choice in footwear was the oddest thing this guy’d ever seen. Granted, it was cold, damp and January. The morning’s rain had only barely avoided being slush and she had to pick her way around a frigid puddle or two, but it wasn’t as if she’d sprouted a third arm or turned purple or anything. Certainly flip-flops in winter—however unconventional—didn’t come near warranting the expression he bore.

“Aren’t you cold?” he asked as he shifted his thick notebook to his other arm. He’d been taking notes all evening, but she hadn’t been so brash as to lean over his shoulder far enough to read them. “I mean, aren’t your feet cold?”

Now that was a rather laughable question, wasn’t it? Dinah was an intelligent woman, perfectly capable of reaching into a bureau drawer and extracting a pair of socks should she find her feet cold. They were not in the farthest reaches of Africa—several very good clothing stores were within four blocks of her house. The answer to that question should be obvious. “I do own socks, you know. Several pairs. I even know what they’re for. If my feet were cold, I’d put them on.”

“How can your feet not be cold?” He looked around them, as if the elements of the Kentucky winter would somehow back up his argument.

“How can you be so concerned with the state of my feet?” She pointed to the cashmere paisley monstrosity around his neck. It looked ridiculously stuffy with the casual navy pea coat he was wearing. “I could tell you I think your scarf makes about as much sense as my shoes, but some of us have better manners than that. Y’all must not put much stake in tolerance up there in New York.” She threw the “y’all” in there just because the wince it produced in him was so much fun. The problem with this guy was that he was just so easy to tease. He seemed to come pre-loaded with irresistible things to make fun of—and he got so out of joint when she did.

Lord, remind me to go easy on him. I was once a newcomer, too, and look at the home You’ve given me here. It’s not fair to pick on people when they’re down, I know that. “Okay, the scarf’s a bit fancy for this part of the world, but it’s not so bad. And you still haven’t told me why you went to the meeting.”

“Reconnaissance.”

Dinah stopped as they turned the corner onto Ballad Road and looked at him. “You been here all of—what? One week?—and already you’re at war?”

“No.” He looked annoyed, as if his combat-like behavior was perfectly normal. “I just like to know all I can about who I have to do business with. And not just town council, but half those people in there are on the zoning committee, right?”

Dinah ticked down the list of town council members in her head. “True.”

“Those are the people I have to convince if I want to rename Lullaby Lane, or change an ordinance, or do something so benign as put in sidewalks, evidently. I need to know the players.”

It made sense. It was just the way he said it—all ferocious and mogul-like. Reconnaissance? Players? He acted as if there were some grand and omniscient moral principle at stake instead of one dumb old street name. One silly street name, granted, but Dinah would never put Lullaby Lane’s name on a list of things worth so much time and energy. “So what do you do with your free time, Cameron? I mean when you’re not studying for that test or scoping out the enemy?”

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.