“One more month and I’ll have the money.”
Seeing as I had three hundred and forty-one dollars to my name, and I was three months behind on rent that was a whopper of a lie.
Another month would only mean I’d be four months behind with no hope of paying, but I couldn’t lose my bakery.
“Sadie—”
I adjusted my phone cradled between my shoulder and my ear and I begged, “Please, Mr. Johnson. One more month and I promise I’ll be caught up on my rent.”
“Have you spoken to your parents?”
At the mere mention of my parents, my heart sank. I could not and would not burden them with my problems. Since they’d left Idaho for warmer weather, they were finally free of the day-to-day bullshit my younger brother, Josh, brought into their lives. And Josh’s brand of bullshit wasn’t your average, every day, run-of-the-mill bullshit. When my baby brother puts his mind to something, he doesn’t dip his toe in, he goes all in, then rolls around in it until he’s covered in the stench of whatever bad news he’s gotten himself involved in.
Unfortunately for me, I still lived in Coeur d’Alene, thus I was still involved in the day-to-day shit that my brother was swimming in. Not only was I around to witness it, but he also made it a habit of showing up on my doorstep asking for help.
This help was normally in the form of money. Lots and lots of money.
“No!”
“Sadie, darlin’, you know your parents would want to know.”
Mr. Johnson was right, and he knew he was because he knew my parents. He also knew my brother. Furthermore, he knew why I was having money trouble because I had to come clean with him, the bank, and all my vendors about what Nate Dickhead Mallard had taken from me.
“Mr. Johnson, in the five years I’ve had my bakery not once have I asked my parents to help me and I’m not starting now. They’re in Florida enjoying their life and you know precisely why I’m not going to bother them with this. I promise I’m figuring it out. I just need another month.”
“That boy,” Mr. Johnson mumbled. “Hate to say it, but he’s a bad egg. Born that way. Nothing your parents could’ve done differently.”
Man-oh-man, that was the truth. But I’d go one step further—Josh was a rotten egg, and if you weren’t careful his stench would seep in and cling to you for eternity.
“Okay, Sadie,” he relented. “One more month. But that’s all I can give you.”
One month.
I had one month to come up with the money to save my bakery.
Thirty days.
I closed my eyes against the onslaught of emotions. Emotions that did not fill me with elation Mr. Johnson was giving me more time before he evicted me. Dread hit hard and fast. And when I opened my eyes and looked around my beloved bakery, fear and sadness also crept in. I’d worked tirelessly to make Treats a success. I’d been smart with my money and had started small, only buying what was absolutely necessary and only scaled up when I was turning a profit. And only took out a loan to get better equipment when I knew I could make the payment. I’d done everything right.
Except I hadn’t.
It had been me who’d foolishly been taken in by Nate Mallard. It had been me who’d been swept off my feet by a liar and thief. And finally, it had been me who’d trusted Nate.
Now I was going to lose everything.
Absolutely everything.
“Thank you, Mr. Johnson.”
“Sadie.” I didn’t miss the pain in Mr. Johnson’s tone. He didn’t like this any more than I did. But he, too, was running a business and had a mortgage to pay. Family friend or no friend, he wasn’t running a charity.
“I appreciate your generosity,” I rushed out.
I heard the front door push open and looked up just in time to watch the back of a man walk out. Not just any man, Reese Turmel’s fine backside in a pair of his signature barley-colored cargo pants. He must’ve owned fifty pairs of the same color. The only variation to his daily uniform was the shirt he wore. Today’s was burgundy. Going or coming, I’d know the stretch of that fabric anywhere. It was debatable—and I’d spent a lot of time doing just that—which was the better view. The front won out only by the tiniest fraction and only because Reese was insanely hot. Magazine cover hot. Or as my friend Letty Welsh would say, book cover hot. But the back of him was sexy as hell. I put money on it he worked out at least three times a day to keep his ass as firm as it was and his back muscles as wide as they were.
Well, I’d put money on it if I had any.
“I wish you’d reconsider calling Frank and Mary,” he pushed.
That was never in a million years going to happen. I would lose everything before I burdened my parents with my troubles.
“I have a few things in the works. If they don’t come to fruition I’ll consider it,” I lied.
The part about having a few things ‘in the works’ was the truth, if you deemed me selling all my personal belongings in an effort to pay my rent ‘in the works.’
“Fair enough. Have a good day, Sadie, and be well.”
“You, too, Mr. Johnson.”
I lowered my phone from my ear and disconnected the call. And in a moment of weakness, I scrolled down until I found my thieving ex’s name and hit go.
As I expected, the call went straight to voice mail. Unsurprisingly, the box was full and I was unable to leave a message. Not that it mattered, I’d already left thirty. Hence why the box was full.
I dropped my phone on the cream quartz tabletop that, like everything else in the bakery, had been painstakingly chosen to fit my vision. Elegant but inviting. Pastel pinks, dark grays, and glossy black. Pretty but not overly girly. From the black and white chevron tiles that made a diamond pattern on the floor, to the stark white bakery display, to the storm-cloud gray walls, to the shiny black exposed metal beams on the ceiling, to the tables and light gray chairs, I’d spent hours and hours carefully choosing every color, every piece of furniture. And that was just the front of the house. My kitchen was the same. The mixers, the ovens, the metal spatulas, the cake pans, all the way down to the fillings and frostings.
All me.
All mine.
And for what? To have it all stolen from me.
My no-good, stealing ex and my piece-of-shit brother who’d bled me dry.
Never again would I trust another person. Not with my money, not with my business, not with my heart. Nothing. No one was ever going to get anything from me ever again.
“Sadie?” Jamie, my only full-time employee, called from behind the counter. “Phone.”
I wanted to sit and wallow, but that wasn’t what I did. I plastered a fake-assed smile on my face and went back to work.
I finished my call with a very excited bride-to-be, who’d happily rambled on about marrying the man of her dreams. Being as such, he’d of course given her an unlimited budget to plan the wedding of the century—because that was what the man of her dreams would do.
Gag.
I had much lower expectations—the man of my dreams simply wouldn’t clean out my bank accounts. Speaking of such, it had taken a great deal of effort not to burst the woman’s bubble as she waxed poetic about her perfect husband-to-be.
Gag.
If I hadn’t needed the wedding cake, the bridal shower cupcakes, and the rehearsal dinner desserts order so freaking badly I would’ve told the naïve woman to run. No man was perfect. They pretended to be until you let your guard down, then when they knew they had you hooked—bam, they showed their true colors.
“Holy crap,” Jaimie whispered.
I stopped arranging the cupcakes in the display case and looked over at Jaime counting the money from the tip jar. Technically it wasn’t the tip jar, it was whoever was working the counter’s tip jar, and today those tips would belong to Jamie.
“He’s generous, but this is…” she trailed off and held up a hundred-dollar bill.
I didn’t need her to clarify who “he” was.
Reese.
He always tossed a five into the tip jar, which was well above the standard twenty percent. Hell, it was over a hundred percent when he was buying a four-dollar coffee and a little less than when he added a muffin.
Then I remembered his fine ass waltzing out of the bakery earlier. My eyes sliced to the table I’d been sitting at talking to Mr. Johnson. Not close to the counter but not far.
Reese heard.
My eyes went back to Jaime and they narrowed on the bill. Before I could say anything, she was holding it in my direction.
“Here. This is too much.”
It was good she thought so, or I would’ve had to take a hundred dollars out of the till to give Reese back his money.
No way in hell was I accepting charity from Reese—or anyone.
This was my problem. I’d stupidly gotten myself into this mess and I’d get my damn self out.
I plucked the money out of Jaime’s hand, gave her a tight smile, and walked around the display case showcasing today’s specials. This week I’d gone with a pastel theme. Beautifully frosted cakes and cupcakes, lavender, baby pink, creamy yellow, mint with contrasting fancy sprinkles all in bold metallics. The other side of the case was almost empty after the morning rush but it had been stocked with cinnamon, blueberry, lemon-poppyseed, chocolate chip, and banana nut muffins. As well as freshly made donuts and croissants.
I hadn’t meant to notice, but seeing as I was the owner, I tended to pay attention to what my regulars ordered. I thought it was something a little extra I gave my patrons; I knew most of them by name and greeted them as such. I also knew their coffee orders so that when they came up to order I could ask “your regular?” My customers liked the little extras I gave them, and I liked the smiles they gave in return and the repeat business. So, I knew Reese always got a lemon-poppyseed muffin when he came into Treats, further I knew in the morning when he came in, he ordered a caramel macchiato with three sugars. If it was the afternoon, he ordered a large caramel iced coffee with extra whip and three caramel chocolate chunk cookies. It wasn’t the drink preference I hadn’t meant to notice; it was his obsession with caramel and massive sweet tooth that didn’t jibe with his wide shoulders, muscled biceps, and flat stomach. Of course, I’d never seen what was under his clothes, but I didn’t miss the way his shirts fit and there was no beer belly in sight, meaning I wasn’t too far off about his workout schedule.
Those were my thoughts as I marched my happy ass out of my bakery, down the sidewalk two doors, and entered Smutties bookstore. And there he was, all six feet and some change of masculine beauty walking out of the back room. Naturally, Reese stopped where he was and made me continue walking to him. The man was not stupid, nor was I hiding how pissed I was. So, he didn’t miss my anger directed at him, yet his smug ass made me go to him.
Figures.
I wasted no time making my way across my friend’s kickass bookstore. When I got to him, I held out the hundred-dollar bill. My haste was mostly for self-preservation. Whenever I was in Reese’s presence I tended to forget. And what I forgot were the important lessons my ex had taught me.
Men sucked.
No matter how pretty the packaging was, what was underneath was never, ever worth it. And the prettier that packaging, the more the man thought he could do and say whatever he wanted because his looks would buy forgiveness. And since Reese was far better-looking than any man I’d ever seen—so far better-looking he was in a universe all of his own—I knew with certainty he’d be no different than the rest.
In a nutshell, it was false advertising.
Good-looking equaled asshole. If I ever decided to date again, and that was a huge if, I was finding myself a less-than-average-looking man. Which meant that Reese and his flirting was out of the question.
“Here.”
Reese didn’t take his eyes off me when he asked, “Why are you giving me money?”
Games.
The guy loved to play games. The last time we got into a verbal scuffle I ended up dumping his beloved caramel iced coffee over his head. It wasn’t one of my proudest moments and it led to me having to clean up a sticky mess, but Reese was the only person I knew who could drive me to violence. My ex had cleaned out my bank accounts, and as much as I wanted him to pay me back then find himself in jail, I didn’t have the desire to throat punch him like I did with Reese.
And why did Reese get under my skin? Why did I feel like my heart shriveled to the size of a peanut every time I saw him? I knew the why, it was just that I was denying it. I’d sworn off men, I’d told myself I’d never, ever get involved in another relationship again. Yet every single time I saw Reese my chest got tight and anger swelled because I couldn’t have him.
The universe had screwed me over, giving me Nate instead of Reese.
So what did I do? I flirted and teased and tortured myself. I got as close to him as I could then I pulled back. And this was how it had gone for months.
In another life, Reese would be mine. I’d pull out all the stops and work hard to get him to fall for me. But I didn’t have another life—I had this one and it was shitty.
“I’m not. I’m giving you back your money.”
My temper flared when he feigned ignorance and held up his hands.
“Why would you think that’s my money?”
“Because I’m not stupid. No one in their right mind would put a hundred dollars in the tip jar, Reese.”
His smile only pissed me off more.
And when he switched to his smooth, flirtatious tone, that yearning I had to strangle him rushed to the surface.
I needed to leave—pronto. I waved the bill. “Take it.”
“That’s not mine,” he lied.
It was the easy lie rolling off his tongue that did it. White lies turned into fabrications which led to outright deception. My anger morphed into hurt and shame. Why did everyone think they could lie to me? Did I come across as an easy mark? Or did people mistake my kindness for me being a naïve twit who’d believe anything?
“Sadie, honey—”
“Please don’t,” I cut him off. “Whatever game you’re playing I want no part of it. I wish you didn’t know but you do and since you heard you know how bad it is. I don’t have time for bullshit. So, please, Reese, take your money back.”
“Yeah, Sadie. You’re right, I heard. So don’t be stubborn and take the tip.”
Ouch.
Jeez, that was embarrassing, but at least he told the truth. But it was the truth of my situation that burned like acid in my stomach. I was on the verge of losing my dream. The last thing I needed was some jerk thinking I needed or wanted his pity.
“I don’t need your charity.”
I dropped the money, uncaring if he picked it up or not, turned, and made my way to the front door. I did this ignoring my friend Letty’s concerned stare. I also did it thinking that if Reese told Letty what he’d overheard I was definitely punching him in the throat, right after I kicked him in the shin.
I was barely out the door when Reese came rushing after me.
“Sadie!”
His very loud, very gruff call had me turning my head to look at him over my shoulder.
“Leave me alone.”
I turned back to watch where I was going and caught sight of my brother standing in front of Treats.
Seriously?
What was this, shit on Sadie day?
Josh’s gaze went from me to over my shoulder. I didn’t need to look again to know what my brother saw. A pissed-off jerk who didn’t know when to mind his own business. So I understood why my brother’s eyes widened, but what I didn’t understand was the fear I saw. Sure, Reese was bigger than Josh, and he was ticked off, but I still didn’t get why my brother looked scared.
The closer we got to Josh, the more that fear multiplied until Josh took two steps away from me.
So much for my brother protecting me.
Another thing to add to the list of reasons why my brother was a loser.
And if my day hadn’t already been total shit, my brother in a black leather vest with a patch that announced he was a prospect would’ve plummeted my mood straight down to the deepest pits of hell. There were a few MC clubs in the area, but there was only one creepy motorcycle gang I knew my brother would gravitate toward—the criminal, outlaws. Those were his people. Not the clubs who did charity runs, not the clubs who got together to ride and share their love for motorcycles, but only on the weekends because they were respectable men who held down jobs. Nope, those clubs weren’t Josh’s style. So, I didn’t need to see the Horsemen patch on the back to know which group of men my lowlife brother had chosen to prospect for.
Fuck my life.
Just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did.
“Why are you wear…” I stopped myself midsentence deciding I didn’t want to know why my brother was wearing a tattered leather vest. “Never mind. Not my business. Why are you here?”
“I need to talk to you,” Josh told me but his eyes were still on the man behind me.
And when I stopped, Reese stopped. His chest hit my back, his hand went to my hip, and if there’d been any space between us—which there wasn’t—Reese yanking me back would’ve alleviated it.
“Fuck me,” Reese sneered. “Didn’t make the connection.”
Connection?
I felt a nasty ball of humiliation form in my throat, and try as I might, I couldn’t swallow it down to object. Not that there was much to protest; Josh was my brother, we were indeed connected by blood. But I was not him. I didn’t participate in illegal activities. I didn’t drink or smoke or gamble or do whatever it was that my brother did with his money that left him always broke.
But, wait, I was now broke, too.
Flat broke.
And just like my loser brother, it was no one’s fault but my own.