A Brewed Awakening

Chapter 1

@WisteriaWeekly: Summer beans are in, y’all. Stop by Bea’s for your side dish starters and gossip updates. #ShopLocal #SnapBeansAndSnaps

@OldManRutherforton: If your potatoes don’t fight back when you mash ’em, they ain’t fresh. Get to Bea’s. #RutherfortonReviews

@WisteriaGeneralStore: Picked up my beans and potatoes. Forgot milk. Again. See y’all tomorrow. #SecondTripClub

@PastorNateNHC: Saw Bea singing hymns to her beans again. Not saying it’s why they taste better, but I’m not saying it’s not. #BlessTheBeans

#SmallTownJoy

@RosemaryatThyme: Don’t forget to pop by Tea Thyme for the benefit! Daphne’s promised free samples of a brand-new scone creation.

Comments:

@JackAustenPhotography: Don’t hold your breath @RosemaryatThyme. I’ve been trying to convince her of some creative baking for months and she’s been

stubborn.

@RosemaryatThyme: Don’t worry. I’ve used the children as emotional leverage. New tastes bring new people.

@JackAustenPhotography: I think brothers should bring emotional leverage too.

@RosemaryatThyme: They usually bring the wrong kind of leverage.

Ladies did not drool over cars.

A freshly baked chocolate croissant with vanilla cream? Yes. A semolina and rosemary loaf with fresh creamery butter? Most

certainly. But an electric-blue Volkswagen convertible Beetle Cabriolet with—Daphne Austen gasped—a British flag front plate?

How could she help the unbridled fascination?

Especially since her dearly departed grandmother used to own something so quintessentially British. In fact, Daphne could

almost hear her granny’s voice nudging her to indulge in the visual appreciation for just a smidge longer.

Sure, Daphne was only one-quarter English, but it was a very loud fraction. Practically opera-singing loud.

She sighed and glanced back through the doorway of her tea shop, breathing in the comforting aroma of freshly steeped Earl

Grey.

Today was no day for dillydallying—also mentally stated in her granny’s voice. Daphne had a job to do. Getting carried away

with some automotive miracle on Main Street didn’t fit into the schedule.

She forced her body back inside the shop, drinking in the pastel and floral loveliness all around. She’d spent the last two

hours making certain every cup, saucer, serviette, and centerpiece in her Austen-inspired tea shop displayed a sense of elegance

her upcoming guests deserved and adored. Hues of lavender and pink waved over café-style tables displaying girlish refinement.

Dark wooden beams framed the rosebud-print wallpaper, and the shelves—lined with her glorious collection of vintage teapots—offered

exactly the right amount of old-fashioned whimsy.

Tea Thyme hosted one of its largest events of the year—the late-summer benefit for the Wisteria Children’s Home. It had been Daphne’s idea and, for three years, had grown into one of the town’s most celebrated opportunities.

And this was the first year she’d hosted it without Granny.

The idea nestled deep in Daphne’s chest, tightening with the familiar sting of grief. But not only grief. A little bit of

pride and . . . gratitude. That she’d made it almost an entire year on her own with this little shop.

Granny’s pride and joy.

She sighed.

Speaking of pride and joy?

Daphne’s gaze flew back to the Cabriolet.

Whose car could that be? Nobody in the whole of Wisteria loved England like she did! Was it some sort of practical joke set

up by her friends—she narrowed her eyes—or her brother?

Main Street offered no answers. A few people strolled along the sidewalks lined with a quirky collection of rectangular buildings,

but nothing seemed out of place.

Except the car. It beckoned to her like antiques in Bryson’s Treasures down the street.

Her breaths pulsed in conflict with her plans. In half an hour fifty people (or more) would descend upon Tea Thyme and spiral

business from the red to the black for this month. A necessary boost for her fledgling little anomaly-of-a-shop among the

small businesses in Wisteria, North Carolina.

She really didn’t have time for distractions, but her gaze shifted back to the car. Despite her best efforts at biting her

smile into submission, it slipped wide beneath her teeth.

But she did have thirty minutes.

“Hey, Daph, do you want me to set the scones out on the counter or the serving tab—”

Daphne turned to find her friend and employee, Rosemary Knight, paused in the kitchen doorway, wearing a somewhat confused expression as Daphne was poised with one foot out the front door and one in. Very ladylike.

“Oh no you don’t!” Rosemary raised a finger from beneath the tray of scones, one dark brown eyebrow lifting to add extra warning.

“There’s no way you’re leaving me to work this fundraiser alone.”

“I . . . I wasn’t planning to leave!” Daphne pushed up a bright smile, scrambling for an excuse that didn’t sound completely ridiculous. “I was just admiring . . .

the weather. It looks like a beautiful day for the event, don’t you think?”

Rosemary’s golden, marble-hued eyes narrowed to slits. Without breaking eye contact, she set the scones on the nearest table

and crossed the room, her brows knitting tighter with every step. “What’s going on?”

Daphne’s shoulders collapsed and she looked back out the door. “Do you see that?”

Rosemary followed Daphne’s gaze, scanning the quaint and quiet Main Street, before turning back to Daphne. “The fine day?”

“No, the Cabriolet.”

Rosemary blinked, ending another visual sweep of Main Street with a slow shake of her head, causing her tight curls to bounce

a little. “Is that a new restaurant in town?”

“No!” Daphne took Rosemary by the shoulders and steered her in the direction of the car. How could she not know what a Cabriolet

was? “It’s . . . that car. A Cabriolet.”

Rosemary turned in the direction, finally landing her focus on the coveted prize. And then it was Rosemary’s turn to release

a sigh the size of Texas. “Oh, the car.”

“Yes, the car,” Daphne said, practically bouncing on her toes. Everyone close to her knew of her fascination. Daphne lovingly blamed it

on her mother. God rest her soul.

And Granny.

God rest her soul too.

“It’s perfect, Rose. Exactly as Granny described. And it looks like the one Mom pointed out when I was a little girl. Same

color.” Daphne teetered back toward the threshold, gesturing with her index fingers toward the doorway as her shoulders rose

in a silent plea. “It would be a shame for me not to get a selfie with it while I can.”

With another glance from the car to Daphne, Rosemary’s demeanor broke and she released a soft chuckle. “You’re ridiculous.”

Then she shrugged, rolled her eyes with enough exaggeration to ensure Daphne didn’t miss it, and turned back toward the kitchen.

“But you’d better get that selfie before your car disappears in a cloud of English mist.”

As if Daphne needed more encouragement.

But it proved the perfect catalyst against her weakness.

With a slight shift in the direction of her pink stilettos, she stepped away from her shop and into the midmorning sunlight,

moving forward in a vintage-English-induced trance. She’d daydreamed about this particular car since she was a thirteen-year-old

girl sitting at her mother’s sickbed listening to a nostalgic conversation between her mom and Granny about Granny’s romantic

history.

“Your grandfather bought me one a long time ago. Couldn’t bring it to America with me, but oh . . .” She pressed her palm to her chest. “You’d have loved it, Daphne dear. It was cute and stylish, like you.”

Cute and stylish. Even at thirteen Daphne had taken those words as gospel. Her grandmother, who breathed elegance like the

fictional Lady Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham, had already sealed her fate as a hopeless Anglophile.

Maybe the Cabriolet-craze had been the combination of her granny’s sentiment and the memory of her mama along with Daphne’s

near obsession with England, but a deep and abiding fascination with the tiny car had stuck with Daphne ever since.

Electric blue came as a bonus.

She neared the street, expecting the car to disappear as Rosemary had predicted, but its glossy exterior only glinted in the sunshine like a beacon. Thank goodness her brother wasn’t around to witness this moment. He’d ruin it by laughing . . . at her.

But he wasn’t a Cabriolet kind of guy, so there was that.

Sidestepping a passing bicycle, she smoothed her palm over the sleek hood, her pink nails the perfect shade to complement

the car’s hue. A giggle bubbled out as she examined every inch of the adorable automobile. It was real! Perfect, all the way

down to the leather interior.

How many times had she fantasized about driving through the English countryside in a little beauty like this? Exploring her

grandmother’s hometown and meeting family members over tea and scones. Her entire body sighed against the car.

“May I help you?”

Heat vaulted up Daphne’s neck into her face, and her eyes went wide at the sound of the deep, masculine voice, right before . . .

She pulled her cheek from the car’s beautiful window.

She stifled a whimper, drew in a deep breath, and turned right into the stare of . . . another daydream.

Holy moly!

His thick dark hair stood in fashionable disarray, one rogue strand falling across his Romanesque brow. His jawline looked

sharp enough to cut glass beneath the dark hue of a five o’clock shadow. But it was his eyes that caught her attention—an

alarming shade of gold. No, caramel.

Her breath caught. Or maybe the perfect color of tea with just a splash of milk.

Lord, have mercy! She blinked.

But, why not? If God hand-delivered a Cabriolet out of nowhere, why not a perfectly delicious-looking stranger too?

She inwardly grimaced. Okay, God probably didn’t refer to men as delicious, but surely He understood the sentiment of this very single, unabashed romantic.

Besides, He of all people knew her unsavory history with a dastardly dad and a Wickham-like best friend. So it would be just