Promise Me (Asher Family #1)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

SADIE

“These buns look amazing.”

“Thank you! I’ve been working hard to perfect them.”

My best friend, Brooke, reaches for the silver tray I’m just pulling from the oven as if she hasn’t eaten in weeks. I don’t blame her. The kitchen smells like a sugary blueberry wonderland.

I yank my purple oven mitt off and swat her with it. “Don’t even think about it.”

“But I just told you they look so good.”

She all but stomps her foot as her pleading blue eyes lock on mine.

I won’t budge. Not today.

“You know good and well that Ms. Banks is coming in to get these first thing this morning.”

I glance at the clock; it’s five till five, meaning we are about to open for the day.

I’ll be the first to admit that owning a bakery has setbacks. The biggest one is the hours, but luckily for me, I’m a morning person. Seeing as how this bakery, B’s Bakery, used to be owned by Beth, also known as my mother, I was raised to get up and start working within minutes of my alarm sounding next to my ear. Obviously, at first, the snooze button was my best friend, but as I got older, it seemed easier to get up from the get-go.

“Oh, that’s right. She never misses a blueberry sugar-crusted muffin order.”

My Apple Watch vibrates, notifying me that it’s time to unlock the doors. I hate to sound like that girl, but I can't imagine how hectic my life would be if I weren’t constantly setting timers or alarms to keep on track.

In the last two hours, we’ve baked and decorated enough donuts, cupcakes, bagels, cookies, muffins, you name it, to get us through the first rush. Brooke will keep the ovens running while I man the cash register. At eight, my second employee, Daisy, will come in to take over. She’ll take Brooke's spot, and Brooke will take mine, and I’ll be done for most of the day. It’s a perk of owning my own business, I guess. I won’t return until this afternoon when I need to prepare dough for tomorrow morning.

Bartley, Marty, and Phil are all waiting on the bench directly outside the front window. These three are always ready on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings.

“Gentlemen,” I greet them with a smile as I open and hold the door open for them to walk through. “It’s going to be a lovely June day.”

“Great for gardening.”

“And mowing the yard.”

“But especially for a morning treat.”

One by one, they hug me.

Hugs are a very common action among the residents of Lovers, our small town. I’ve lived here my entire life and wouldn’t trade it for anything. Sure, it’s small, and more than half of the people I went to school with had been counting down the days until they walked across the stage, tossed their caps into the air, and jumped into their cars at full speed, never looking back. But not me. I always knew I’d be a lifer.

Granted, I always thought I’d be doing something else with my life or married with at least one baby at this point, but here I am, working in the bakery my mother opened before I was born. It’s the only bakery in our town, so business is good. It’s especially good when Lover’s Lodge, the place our town is known for, is packed with back-to-back weddings over the spring and summer months.

The town is still recovering from Memorial Day visitors, but that doesn’t stop me from ensuring the locals continue their morning routine.

The three gentlemen in front of me included.

“What can I get you?” I ask, a grin touching my lips as I move behind the counter to take their orders.

Marty, with his ballcap low, smirks at me. “You ask us that question every time we come here.”

“And every time we answer,” Phil takes over.

“Just the usual, Miss Sadie,” I finish for them in a teasing tone.

Bartley chuckles and shuffles his way to their table in the front corner. I once asked why they always chose that table, and they replied that they could view the bakery and Lovers Main Street from that exact spot. Keeping an eye on our little town and eating a good breakfast at the same time is important to them.

When I moved the tables around last spring, that table was the only one that didn’t find a new home.

I plate three muffins and pour three cups of black coffee. Then I walk their food and drinks to their table, where they are already into the gossip of the day .

It blows my mind how these three have the tea on anything in town by five in the morning, but here they are, heads dipped low as they speak in hushed tones.

You know, so that all the other early-rising customers don’t hear them.

“She’s selling it. I thought she’d never cave and do it, but she is.”

I grin, quickly returning to the kitchen to mind my business.

Gossip in a small town can spread like wildfire, so I try to avoid it as much as possible.

I pass through the swinging door and pause to look at the photo on my left.

It’s of my mother and the three men out front on the day she opened all those years ago. I wasn’t even a thought in her mind back then. The bakery was her baby during those years, and her love for this place never faded, not even when she took her last breath.

I hear a boom of laughter from the front of the store and smile.

Mom would love to know that those three still show up and share a decades-long friendship.

“Hey, have you read the latest book by Lena Hendrix yet?”

I step farther into the kitchen and find Brooke by the sink. Her blonde hair is pulled into a tight bun like ballet dancers, except this girl couldn’t dance if her life depended on it.

I was there for our first spring fling all the way to senior prom. I witnessed the disaster of Brooke dancing.

I love the girl, but she was born without rhythm. Baking, though, she’s one of the best.

“Yesss,” I reply dramatically, grabbing a towel to help her dry dishes. “Why am I sucker for the grumpy sunshine trope?”

Brooke sighs, looking to the ceiling as she smiles .

“It’s the slow burn for me. I love the build-up to the first kiss.”

“Me too, and she writes it so beautifully. If the firemen in our town were half as sexy as the men in her books, there would be a lot fewer single women walking around this place.”

“Here, here,” she cheers with the measuring cup she’s washing.

The bell out front rings.

When I return to the front, the smile I reserve for customers drops from my lips.

Hudson Asher is standing at the counter, his gaze roaming the menu on the back wall as if he hasn’t come here four mornings a week for the last three years.

For someone who doesn’t care for me and is extremely aware that I don’t care for him right back, it amazes me that he hasn’t found another coffee shop to pester by now. Or, you know, make coffee at home at least.

Nope. He continues to choose my place. I know the food is good here, but I have no doubt his choice to walk in here is solely to annoy me each day.

It works too.

But he doesn’t need to know that.

“Let me guess, black coffee with a cinnamon twist?”

He taps his chin like he’s thinking it over.

I struggle to hold back the growl I feel coming.

This man, I swear.

The only reason I tolerate him is because he’s my older brother’s best friend.

“Seriously, Hudson, you know you won’t change your mind. You haven’t in more than a year. Just say yes, and let’s move on with the day.”

He ignores me.

“Hudson. What do you want? ”

His sapphire gaze shifts to me and darkens.

“One day, I will walk in here, and you’ll greet me with good morning, Hudson. It’s so good to see you again . What can I get you on this lovely day? ”

I blink. “Doubtful.”

He shakes his head and clicks his tongue.

“Black coffee and a cinnamon twist, please.”

“Shocker.” I fake a gasp.

He glares some more, but I do not care.

Hudson is my least favorite person on this planet. The list of reasons is long, but to sum up how it started, my freshman year of high school—the most crucial year of a girl's life, no less—he gave me the nickname of Sadie Snots. I’m not talking snotty as in she’s a brat —no, as in the slimy, gooey, always has boogers kind of snot. What the hell, right? Everyone, and I mean everyone, in our school caught on to it. I didn’t have my first kiss until my junior prom. I blame Hudson for that with every breath I take.

I roll my eyes as I put his order together and slide it across the counter with zero emotion. He gives me a twenty, I give him his change, he pops a couple of bucks into the tip jar, and then he walks out.

Brooke pokes her head out of the kitchen.

“God, he’s gorgeous. I don’t need a romance-novel fireman. I’ll take Hudson Asher any day of the week.”

“Gross.” I gag. “You can do so much better.”

“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “He’s always kind to me when I go into his bar.”

“Yeah, you’re a paying customer. Of course, he’s nice.”

“Or”—she holds up a finger—"you’ve held a grudge against him for so long that you can’t see his kindness.”

I purse my lips. “Are you intentionally trying to make me throw up or just teasing me? ”

She laughs and disappears back into the kitchen.

I spin back around just in time to help Mrs. Cutler from across the street.

Hudson and kindness do not belong in the same sentence just the same as Hudson and I do not belong in the same room for longer than sixty seconds.

Ever.