Chapter Three
Ava
Every day at ten, I closed the bakery for two hours. It gave me time to get all the cake orders decorated and take my lunch before the big rush. When I first opened, I didn’t take an official lunch at all, fearing all the customers I’d miss during the lunchtime rush. Working twelve hour days without a break, six days a week wore me down quickly, though, and before long I had to start taking my own health into consideration if I wanted to keep my dream business running.
I served a few things other than baked goods—soups, sandwiches, and the like—but baked goods were the beating heart of The Rolling Scone. It took me a few months of running myself ragged to realize this, but once I did it made both my break time and limited menu easy decisions. I stayed open until six because a shocking number of people came in right after work.
I loved spending my lunch hour strolling the quaint downtown of Cedar Springs. Every day, I made myself a wrap—a perfect, portable lunch—and took to the tree-lined sidewalks that surrounded the courthouse at the center of town. The first building I passed was Page “we” being the girls and I. With quite possibly the worst timing in the history of high school breakups—barring only Valentine’s Day or a birthday—Ben dumped Jules on prom night. At prom. With no explanation whatsoever aside from the standard “it’s not you, it’s me.” Even the thought of it as I approached his parked Benz filled me with rage on Jules’s behalf. She was so heartbroken. She thought they were going to be together forever, and hadn’t the faintest idea that he wasn’t happy.
Normally, I wasn’t a petty or vindictive person. Forgive and forget and all that. But Ben didn’t see what a wreck Jules was after that. And I did realize that high school breakups happened and people moved on, forgot all the drama. They usually stayed in high school where they belonged. But this wasn’t your average break up. It completely changed Jules, and we all noticed. She wouldn’t even talk to us about it.
She really spun out in college, and part of me always wondered if it was her way of rebounding from the prom night disaster. It was the only other pact we ever agreed on—that we would forevermore shun Benjamin McKinley for breaking our girl’s heart.
The thumping of a mallet connecting with a stake pulled me from my anger spiral so abruptly that I had to take a moment to comprehend what I saw.
Ben. Putting up a sign in the yard.
That read “For Sale.”
Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod. Deep breaths. Don’t freak out. I wasn’t big into signs from the universe, not like Jules was, but this seemed like an obvious one. The week of my thirtieth birthday and the Van Kamp place went up for sale.
That couldn’t just be a coincidence.
Maybe the pact was meant to be, after all.
“Lancaster,” Ben greeted me, pausing from his sign project. He wore his standard pretentious real estate mogul attire—a linen button-up in a breeze pale blue and dress pants so white he must never sit down. If it were anyone else, I might have admired the rolled-sleeve look and the way his shirt made his cerulean eyes pop. But it was Ben.
And we hated Ben.
“McKinley,” I replied tightly. Generally, we didn’t speak. Occasionally he’d drop into The Rolling Scone for coffee and a pastry and that was about the most conversation I’d had with him since high school, just the way I preferred it.
When I didn’t keep walking he raised a brow in silent question. At least he understood the rules of not talking.
“How much?” I asked, nodding toward the “For Sale” sign.
“You’re interested?”
“Obviously.”
“Three hundred thousand.”
I sucked in a breath. That was probably about right, depending on the state of things inside. The Van Kamp home was massive . I didn’t know the exact stats, but based on the sprawling exterior and the fact that it was easily twice the size of any other house in town, I knew it would be pricey.
“Tours?”
“None yet.” Ben eyed me suspiciously.
“I have a few minutes right now,” I told him. “Could I take a quick look around?”
He glanced anxiously back at the house, his squared jaw tightening. “Not today, no.”
“Fine.” I squared off against him, crossing my arms right back. “I would like to schedule a tour.”
“We aren’t booking tours yet.”
My teeth ground against each other. That was the last straw. “You aren’t booking tours yet, or you won’t book my tour yet?”
Ben’s lips rolled inward, but he didn’t blow up at me like I’d expected. Instead, he turned back to the sign, stuffing some stupid papers into a stupid envelope on the post. “If you don’t mind, I’ve got work to do.”
Head held high in spite of his childish refusal to let me look at the house of my dreams, I stormed across the lawn toward him. I allowed myself one, lingering glare, straight into his ice blue eyes, that I hoped conveyed the depth of my loathing. Then I grabbed one of those stupid papers and headed back into town.
Ben might not want to help me, but I’d be willing to bet there were droves of realtors who’d be more than happy to bag the sale of that house.
I still had about twenty minutes before I needed to reopen the bakery after lunch, so I did a quick search on my phone for local realtors. Five minutes later, the horror of my situation sunk in. It appeared that Benjamin McKinley had something of a monopoly on the Cedar Springs real estate market, which definitely put a wrench into my going-behind-his-back plans. But I wasn’t the sort to back down at the first sign of adversity. Or even the second or third, if I was honest.
Undaunted, I strolled into McKinley Realty on my way back to The Rolling Scone. If Ben wanted to play this dirty, then we’d play it dirty. Honestly, I needed to find a realtor to represent us anyways because even if I somehow got the girls on board with the B&B idea, they’d jump ship the moment they learned that our old nemesis Ben was the agent.
A lovely woman with long, chestnut hair wearing olive green skinny pants and a simple black v-neck greeted me the moment I stepped in the office. She was definitely younger than me, but not by much. Though she looked familiar, I couldn’t quite place her.
“Hi,” she smiled. “I’m Iris, what can I do for you?”
“Hi, Iris,” I smiled back. “I’m looking for a realtor to help me buy a house. Could you connect me with one?”
“Oh, of course. Come take a seat and we’ll get you all taken care of.”
Iris was a woman of her word. I was in and out of there in ten minutes flat, with the promise of a call later today from one of their agents and her number to follow up if I needed anything else.
Satisfied that I’d skirted the difficulty of dealing with Ben, I tied on my bubblegum pink apron and flipped the sign to “Open.”
Take that, Ben.