Chapter 1
June
The kitchen timer screams at me like it's personally offended by my existence.
I lunge across my flour-dusted counter, wooden spoon still in hand, and slap the button harder than necessary. Silence. Finally. Except now I can smell the real disaster unfolding—burnt sugar creeping through my kitchen like an unwanted guest.
"No, no, no." I abandon the buttercream and yank open the oven door. Heat blasts my face as I pull out tray number seven of what was supposed to be the perfect addition to The Sweet Spot's fall menu.
Was being the operative word.
They're dark. Too dark. The edges are practically charcoal, and the tops have that distinctive crater-in-the-middle thing that screams amateur hour.
I set the tray with the others—a sad lineup of my failures—and resist the urge to throw my oven mitt across the room. Very mature, June. Very professional small-business-owner behavior.
"Okay." I brace my hands on the counter, take a breath that tastes like vanilla extract and defeat.
"You've got this. Batch number seven is a disaster?
Fine. Lucky number eight. Eight is infinity on my side.
Endless possibilities. Endless chances to nail this buttercream and get the cupcakes right before you have to admit to Riley that maybe—maybe—you can't pull off a whole new fall signature line by yourself. "
I'm talking to myself. Out loud. In my empty kitchen on a Sunday afternoon.
Afternoon light slants through my windows, making the flour dust sparkle like I'm trapped in some baking disaster snow globe. My vintage yellow apron—the one with strawberries that usually makes me feel cheerful and retro-cute—is streaked with butter and dusted with flour.
My reflection in the stainless steel fridge stops me cold. My wavy blonde bob has escaped its clips, there's flour on my left cheek, and my skin is flushed from the oven heat. I look like a Pinterest fail come to life.
This is what I get for being ambitious. The Sweet Spot's doing well—really well—since I opened a few years ago.
We've got regulars. Tourists who drive from two towns over for my chocolate chip cookies.
Last month Mrs. Henderson said my cinnamon rolls were "nearly as good as her mother's," which is basically a five-star Michelin review in Willowbridge terms.
But doing well isn't enough for my overachieving brain. I had to decide we needed a whole new fall menu. Elevated flavors. Sophisticated combinations. Lavender and honey and autumn spices that would make people forget pumpkin spice even exists.
The problem? I've been testing recipes for two weeks and nothing is working.
I turn back to my mixing bowl, determined. The buttercream is too stiff—I can see that now. It needs something. More cream? Less sugar? A miracle?
My wooden spoon hovers over the bowl as I squint at the consistency, trying to figure out where I went wrong.
That's when I see it.
Movement through my kitchen window. My hand freezes mid-stir, spoon suspended.
Because there, in the yard next door—the yard that's been empty for three months—is a moving truck.
And a man.
Not just any man.
My wooden spoon slips from my fingers and plops into the bowl, sending buttercream across my already-messy apron.
I don't even notice.
My heart does this stupid flutter thing that I absolutely hate.
Because I know what that truck means.
Harper mentioned this. The thought surfaces through my sudden inability to breathe properly. Last week, over coffee at the bakery, she'd said it so casually. "Oh, by the way, Adam's moving back to town. He's bringing Emma home, starting fresh after the divorce."
I'd nodded. Smiled. Changed the subject to whether we should add pumpkin cream cheese muffins to the fall menu. Acted like a completely normal person who wasn't internally combusting at the idea of Harper's brother, Adam Lane—the Adam Lane—moving in next door.
Next door.
Like, thirty feet away from my kitchen window next door.
The wooden spoon finally registers in my brain, and I look down to see buttercream splattered across my apron in a pattern that would be funny if I wasn't currently having a minor crisis.
I should look away. I should absolutely, definitely look away and go back to my failed cupcakes and pretend I didn't see anything.
Instead, I drift closer to the window.
The truck's back doors are open, and I can see furniture—a couch, boxes stacked high, the chaotic evidence of a life being transplanted. And there, carrying what looks like a very heavy armchair like it weighs nothing, is Adam.
He's still unfairly attractive. That hasn't changed since Harper and Nate's wedding three months ago when I made a complete fool of myself by tripping over my bridesmaid dress and nearly face-planting into the cake table.
And it definitely hasn't changed since I was fifteen and Harper had me round after school and Adam was there, home from college for spring break, and I forgot how to form sentences for a solid week.
Or eighteen, when he came home for Christmas and complimented my hair and I had to excuse myself to hyperventilate in the bathroom.
You'd think a decade of periodic Adam Lane encounters would have built up some kind of immunity.
You'd be wrong.
His dark hair is slightly mussed—moving day chaos—and that gray t-shirt is doing absolutely criminal things across his shoulders as he sets the armchair down.
Even from here I can see the flex of his forearms, and my brain helpfully replays the moment at the wedding when those same arms steadied me after my near-disaster with the cake. The cake I spent hours on.
"Graceful as always, June," he'd said, and there'd been something in his voice—amusement, maybe, but warmer. His hands stayed on my waist a beat longer than necessary, and when I looked up, he'd been staring at my mouth.
Then Maya appeared with more champagne and a knowing smirk, and the moment shattered.
But not before Harper gave me that look. The one that said she'd noticed. The one that made me spend the rest of the reception carefully avoiding Adam while also being hyperaware of exactly where he was at all times.
And now Adam—Harper's very off-limits, recently-divorced, father-of-one brother—is moving in next door, and I'm going to have to see him regularly, and I'm supposed to act like a normal person who doesn't remember exactly how his hands felt on my waist.
This is fine, I tell myself, even as my reflection in the fridge shows a woman covered in flour with her mouth slightly open.
Totally fine. The wedding was months ago.
He probably doesn't even remember it. You're a mature twenty-nine-year-old adult who can handle living next to her best friend's brother without making it weird.
But then I see her.
Emma bounds out from behind the truck, and my heart does something entirely different—something softer and achier.
She's small, six if I remember correctly, with dark hair pulled into two pigtails.
She's wearing a purple t-shirt with sparkles and clutching that same stuffed bunny she had at the wedding.
"This is Mr. Fluffkins," she'd said very seriously. "He's my best friend."
"He looks very important," I'd replied, equally serious, and she'd beamed at me like I'd said exactly the right thing.
Emma says something to Adam now, and even though I can't hear it, I watch him stop immediately.
He sets down the box he's holding and crouches to her level, his full attention on his daughter.
She points at something—the house, maybe, or the yard—and he nods, says something back that makes her tiny shoulders relax.
The patience in his movements, the way he's so careful with her, does something dangerous to my chest.
They're starting over. Both of them. In the house next door.
The buttercream bowl sits forgotten behind me, and I know I should turn around, get back to work, stop staring like a creep.
But I don't move.
I should really stop staring.
Any second now.
Just... one more minute.
Adam straightens from talking to Emma, and the afternoon sun catches his profile.
There's a scar through his left eyebrow—the one Harper says he got during a particularly intense firefighter training exercise.
It should make him look rougher, more dangerous, but instead it just adds to this whole brooding-hero-with-a-soft-center thing he has going on.
Not that I've thought about it. Much.
He lifts another box from the truck—this one clearly heavy from the way his muscles flex—and carries it toward the house like it weighs nothing.
His movements are efficient, controlled.
Everything I'm not, basically. Where I'm all chaotic energy and spontaneous decisions and flour explosions, Adam is...
steady. Grounded. The kind of person who probably doesn't burn seven batches of cupcakes in one afternoon.
I watch the way his t-shirt pulls across his shoulders as he sets the box down, and my mouth goes dry.
Get it together, June.
Emma trails behind him, Mr. Fluffkins dangling from one hand. She keeps glancing around—at the neighbor's yard, at the street, at the unfamiliar houses—and there's something uncertain in her posture. Something that makes her look smaller than she is.
My chest aches watching her. I remember that feeling. Being young and everything changing and not being sure where you fit anymore.
Adam notices immediately. Of course he does. He sets down whatever he's carrying and crouches again, and even from here I can see the gentle patience in the way he tips his head to listen. His hand rests on her shoulder, steady and reassuring, and she leans into him just slightly.
The gesture is so small, so instinctive, but it makes my throat tight.
He's such a good dad.