Total pages in book: 25
Estimated words: 23676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 118(@200wpm)___ 95(@250wpm)___ 79(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 23676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 118(@200wpm)___ 95(@250wpm)___ 79(@300wpm)
This is wild, fertile land, where the men are ready to whisk their women to bed.
No hook-ups or one-night stands.
Here in the Evergreen Mountains, the men are fiercely loyal.
Here, love lasts a lifetime.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
ONE
lavender
“How much longer on that cake, Lavender? We needed it a half hour ago.” The exasperated voice of my boss, Hannah, calls out to me as I’m rushing about, trying to get all the cake decoration supplies ready.
“It’s in the oven. I can’t make it bake any faster.”
Hannah nibbles on her bottom lip. She’s experienced enough to know this to be true, but it still annoys her.
This is a cake for a friend, and it had to be perfect. I may have gotten nervous and screwed up the batter a few times when measuring it out. Usually a little extra flour here or there or too much or too little vanilla wouldn’t stop me. For Tabitha’s wedding cake, however, I wanted perfection.
She’s only going to get married once, after all.
Hopefully, anyway. This Fox guy seems pretty swell, and aside from some weirdness about his folks, there aren’t any massive red flags.
I pull the cake out, needing it to cool a bit before I bust out the decorations. We didn’t have a whole lot of orders today, outside of Tabitha’s wedding, so my job boils down to a lot of waiting for stuff to be at the right temperature.
Hannah poking her head in, trying to rush what can’t be rushed, is annoying but understandable. This is her bakery. She’s been working hard at making it work. She’s such a sweetheart, but I can see how sometimes business in such a small town, like Evergreen Valley, is a bit stressful.
Especially when Hannah hires weird girls who show up out of nowhere, dressed far too nice compared to the rest of the town.
“We need an ETA on the wedding cake,” Hannah calls out to the back. I look through the shelves to see who she’s talking to.
And my heart skips a beat.
Most of the guys around here, young and old, are a bit roughneck. Lots of flannel, big trucks, boots, and dirt. All of them are somewhat musclular, either huge, bulging, hard-working muscles or just some of that good, old-fashioned big-guy strength. They’re all handsome in their own way, but one guy stands out.
He’s dressed like the rest of them, which strikes me as odd, given that supposedly he’s going to a wedding once he gets this cake. But I guess up here this is as formal as you need to be. That’s not what gets me, though. No. It’s because his handsomeness far surprasses any others I’ve seen. He’s especially rugged, his shoulders broad, and his face looking seasoned from all the time he’s spent outdoors. His eyes keep track of everything around the room, his awareness never waning. For some, he would come across as being paranoid or anxious, but for him, it’s second nature to be on edge.
If anything makes him seem awkward, it’s being in a bakery, in the heart of civilization. He looks like he’d be most comfortable deep in a forest, tracking a mammoth, with a pointy stick in hand.
And I mean that in the best way possible.
Then, he sees me looking at him through the shelves. I look away, bashful as ever.
“Lavender, how much longer for the cake?”
“It’s just about cooled; I’m getting to it,” I say, in a hurry.
I get to work. I want it to be perfect, but knowing the wedding ceremony is quickly approaching, I can’t delay any longer. I can’t let perfection be the enemy of good-enough any longer, but I’m still going to push myself to make it the best it can be.
Thankfully, I don’t make any major mistakes. None at all, actually, if you don’t count mistakes that can be covered up with an extra buttercream flower.
I build it up, delicate construction. Hannah comes in to make sure I stack the layers just right. And when it’s all done, we’ve finally got the cake ready.
“All right, it looks good to go.” She slaps me on the back. “But make sure you take some of the baking supplies with you. Just in case you need to make any sudden repairs.”
There’s this weird intersection of bakery and construction when it comes to these sorts of cakes that I’ll never fully understand, but I accept nonetheless.
“I’m counting on you to make my bakery look good, Lavender.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say with a nod.
Together, we carry the cake out to the truck, where our customer is waiting to pick it up. I bashfully try to avert my eyes from him as we secure the baked goods.
Then comes a hole in my plan to try to avoid having him notice my attraction.
“Lavender, Hawk here is going to be the one to drive you up to the wedding.”