Muffin But Trouble: An Opposites Attract Small Town Romance (Donner Bakery Book 4)

Chapter 1

Green Valley was not the kind of place I was used to. That became especially clear to me when I discovered my sister Carla had left her front door key under her doormat.

I mean, why go to the trouble of hiding the key if you’re going to put it in the most obvious place? Why not just leave the front door open and provide sacks for burglars to carry off your valuables?

Okay, so I’ll admit I couldn’t see any potential burglars. The quiet rural street wasn’t exactly teeming with criminal activity. Or any activity. There were practically tumbleweeds. Still, my sister may as well have changed her computer password to PASSWORD while she was at it. Sheesh!

I’d just unlocked Carla’s front door and pulled my suitcase into her hallway when my phone rang. It was a video call from my sister, and when I accepted it, Carla appeared on the screen. Judging from the beige wall behind her, she was in a hotel room.

“Hi, brat,” she said with a smile. “Are you there yet?”

“The shuttle dropped me off two minutes ago, and I just stepped through your front door. Do you have a spy camera set up in here?” I pretended to peer into the corners of the hallway.

“Just a lucky guess. But listen, Mags, are you completely sure you’re going to be okay staying there on your own?” Carla leaned closer to the camera, her brow furrowed and her expression intent, as though we hadn’t had this exact conversation before I left New York.

My sister liked to overanalyze things, which usually made her my opposite. But this time, I was secretly more worried than she was about staying at her place in rural Tennessee while she and Noah were away.

“Stop worrying, nerd,” I told her, trying to force a smile. “I’ll be fine.”

No point in telling her that I was so far from fine, I’d lost sight of it completely.

The truth was, I hated being alone. I was used to living in a noisy sea of people. And I liked New York people, with all their blunt, impatient assertiveness. I liked watching bands play in grungy dive bars, hunting for bargains in tiny boutiques, and seeing graffiti artists creating rough masterpieces as I walked home from work. And I was going to miss my favorite taco truck with its delicious quesabirria and hilariously rude server. From what I’d seen so far, Green Valley was basically an expanse of barely populated nothingness.

“Okay.” Carla’s frown eased. “I’m still surprised that you wanted to do this, but the countryside is beautiful, isn’t it? And don’t you love the fresh country air?”

“Hmm.” I tilted my head, pretending to think about it. “Is it the animals crapping everywhere that makes it smell so fresh?”

My sister laughed. “Give it a few days, and you’ll start to love it. Our bedroom’s on the right. Yours is on the left.”

I peered into their bedroom first. Sunshine was streaming in, and a fluffy black-and-white cat was lying on its back in the middle of their bed, fast asleep on the white cover.

Wheeling my suitcase further down the hallway, I found the guest bedroom. It was twice the size of my tiny, shared-bathroom studio apartment in Brooklyn, and instead of buildings, the window looked out onto green fields and trees.

“What do you think?” asked Carla. “Nice, right?”

“A view of open space with no people for miles. What’s not to like?” I made my voice light, as though I was joking, but if I let myself dwell on the solitude, I was going to freak out.

“I left you a note on the kitchen counter with all the information about feeding the cat and chickens.” Some doubt crept into her tone. “You can feed the chickens, right? And Freud, my cat?”

“That’s why I’m here. Cat and chickens. Wait, the chickens are the ones with the feathers, right?”

“Very funny, brat.”

“Chill out, already.” I rolled my eyes. “It’s only a few weeks. There’s a better-than-even chance your animals will survive.”

“I wish we could have been there when you arrived,” my sister said. “I would have loved to see you.”

“When do you start your medical trial?”

“Tomorrow. But I’m trying not to get my hopes up. It might come to nothing, lots of things have.”

Despite her caution, I could sense her excitement. She’d been sick for a long time and the new drug she was going to get to test sounded promising. When she discovered she could be included in the trial, she and Noah had dropped everything and taken a last-minute flight. And it had been perfect timing for me.

“Wait,” Carla said. “Here’s Noah.”

My sister’s fiancé appeared next to her. Noah was dark haired and handsome, and though I didn’t know him that well yet, I liked him a lot. Mostly because he was so obviously in love with her.

“Hey, Mags.” Noah flashed me his white teeth. “I spoke to Jennifer. She’s expecting you at the bakery at six o’clock tomorrow morning. Is that too soon?”

“No, it’s perfect. Thanks for setting me up with a job at such short notice.”

“Jennifer’s happy for you to work there for as long as you’re in town.” Noah’s Southern drawl made it sound like he was speaking at half speed. If time was money, everything he said would cost about twice as much as it should.

“The folks in the bakery are real nice,” he added. “Like a family. We won’t have to worry about you, seeing as they’ll look out for you. Anything you need, just ask Jennifer or Joy.”

I nodded. Though I’d never worked in a bakery before, I wasn’t nervous. For the last few years I’d been the star salesperson at a fashion boutique, so being behind the counter in a bakery should be...well, a piece of cake. Pun intended.

The only thing I didn’t want was for my new co-workers to ask too many questions. My sole experience with small towns was from watching Virgin River and Hart of Dixie, and in those shows, everyone knew each other’s business. I didn’t even want to tell my eldest sister what I was really doing in Green Valley, and we were close. I wasn’t about to share my problems with a bunch of strangers and have them judge me for my mistakes.

“Well, we’d better get to the medical center,” said Noah. “You enjoy yourself, okay?”

“Have fun, brat!” Carla waved and hung up.

I shrugged off my jacket, dumping it and my phone onto the bed. Leaving my suitcase, I walked past a room that was clearly a home office, and found the kitchen at the end of the hallway. Thank goodness there was a coffee machine on the kitchen counter. An essential, seeing how far it was to the closest café.

Poking my head into the living room next, I figured the colorful cushions on the leather couches had to have been chosen by Carla, and the pop-art paintings were probably Noah’s. The house was roomy, comfortable, and just as tidy as I’d expected.

But the silence was already pressing in on me. I couldn’t hear cars, or shouting, or sirens.

In Brooklyn, I’d never been alone. Between my friends, boyfriend, job, and loud neighbors, there’d been no such thing as spare time. Or silence.

Wandering back to Carla’s bedroom, I found the cat still asleep on the bed. As far as I knew, the cat and the chickens were the only other living things for miles around.

Maybe if I woke the cat up, I wouldn’t feel so alone.

“It’s you and me now, cat.” I petted his back, but the cat didn’t stir, except maybe to press his eyes more tightly closed.

It was just me and my thoughts.

And my thoughts sucked.

“I won’t be here for long,” I said to the cat. “I’ll be leaving as soon as I can get a scary drug dealer off my back.”

The cat didn’t seem to care either way.

And I can only imagine how Carla and Noah would have reacted if I’d told them the truth about why I’d volunteered to look after their farmhouse.

“By the way, what do you do for fun around here?” I asked the cat.

Silence.

“Yeah. That’s what I figured.”

Wandering back to the kitchen, I found a stack of paper on the counter. It was covered in my sister’s obsessively neat handwriting. Carla had said she’d left me a note, only her so-called note was longer than the entire Harry Potter series.

Still, I felt a little less glum when I saw Carla had also left me some car keys. “At least I won’t have to rely on Ubers now, if there even are any this far in the middle of nowheresville.” I said it out loud, because apparently the Tennessee version of me liked to talk to herself, as well as to animals.

My only answer was the sound of my stomach rumbling. I was starving. And hopefully everything would seem less terrible once I’d eaten.

There were some apples in a bowl on the counter, but my last meal had been hours ago, and I needed something more substantial. Opening the fridge, I found only vegetables and condiments.

The cupboards and pantry proved equally bare. Oh sure, there were plenty of herbs and spices. Dried beans, lentils, rice, and seeds. Different flours and baking supplies. But there were no Hot Pockets or Pop-Tarts. No snack foods, or candy, or even breakfast cereals.

“I’ll have to get takeout delivered,” I said. Though I was woefully short of funds, I had enough money for a decent meal, at least.

Fetching my phone from the bedroom, I searched for all the pizza places that delivered to my current location.

Nothing came up. Weird. Was it a glitch?

I retyped my search, this time looking for any type of food delivery.

Still nothing.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I muttered. “This must be some kind of joke, right?”

Could there really be no takeout delivery? Sure, Carla and Noah’s farmhouse was half an hour from the nearest store, but could nobody drive out here to bring me something to eat?

“First the silence, then the starvation.” I sighed. “Guess I’d better drive into town to pick up supplies.”

But first, I took an apple from the bowl on the counter and bit into it. I had to admit it was delicious, crisp and fresh. But nowhere near as good as a bacon-egg-and-cheese from my local bodega.

My phone rang, making me jump. I turned to where I’d left it on the counter.

The name on the screen read Scary Drug Dealer.

My stomach churned. Feeling suddenly sick, I spat remnants of apple from my mouth into the sink.

The drug dealer’s name was Spike. I’d come here to get away from him. And he’d totally ruined Buffy the Vampire Slayer for me, seeing as I used to have a huge crush on the Spike character in the TV series, and now I couldn’t even hear the name without my nipples retracting all the way into my body.

There was no way I was going to answer Spike’s call. I let it ring out and go to voicemail while I wiped apple juice off my hands with one of Carla’s dishcloths.

As soon as the ringing stopped, I called Eric. My boyfriend’s phone rang for a while before he answered.

“Babe.” His voice was croaky. “You know what time it is here? It’s way early, and we played last night.”

Eric and his band were on tour in Japan, and I hadn’t stopped to check the time difference. Not that I could bring myself to care. Too bad if I’d woken him.

“Spike just called me again.” I tried not to sound angry, seeing as yelling wasn’t the way to get Eric to do anything. “When will you pay the money you owe him?”

Eric groaned. “I’ll get a bonus once the tour ends.”

“Three weeks?” I huffed out my breath. “No, I can’t wait that long. I’ll have to go to the police.”

“You can’t!” Eric’s voice rose with alarm. “Promise me, babe. If you do, I’ll be the one in trouble.”

“But Spike’s relentless. He’s so scary, I had to leave town! I gave up my apartment, and moved my stuff into storage, and?—”

“Can’t you just pay him? Lend me the money until I get back?”

I clenched my jaw, barely keeping hold of my temper. Eric’s ability to forget any fact he didn’t like had to be his least likeable trait, though right now, there was stiff competition for top spot on my list.

“Remember how you already talked me into that?” I hissed the words through my teeth. “Well, like I’ve already told you, I gave him all my savings. I have nothing left, and you still owe him another ten grand!”

“Don’t get snippy, babe. I’m under pressure here too, you know. Once the tour’s over, I’ll deal with it. But I gotta go now, okay?”

“Wait!” I gripped the phone harder, silently reminding myself that yelling would only make him hang up faster. “At least call Spike and tell him to stop harassing me. Please, Eric!”

“Sure, babe. Love you.” The call disconnected.

I wanted to scream. Considering how Eric had been acting lately, how could I believe he’d keep his promise? Most likely, he’d go back to sleep and forget about it. He hadn’t even cared that I’d uprooted my entire life and fled New York.

Snatching up the car keys Carla had left for me, I strode outside. Once on the front porch, I blinked in the bright sunshine for a moment, then squinted up into the enormous blue sky. It was almost as quiet outside as it was inside. All I could hear was Carla’s chickens, clucking in their run.

All this silence wasn’t natural. It wasn’t right.

And my stomach was growling. On top of everything else, I was getting hangry. I urgently needed to eat something substantial before I turned into a monster.

Car keys in hand, I strode down the porch steps. There was a pickup truck parked by the house, but no other cars. So the keys I was holding had to be for the truck. And it had vivid gold-and-red flames painted down its sides and across its hood.

Flames!

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” I muttered. “I have nothing to drive but a flame-painted pickup truck? What is this, an episode of Pimp My Ride?”

Sucking in a deep breath, I lifted my face to the sky and yelled as loud as I could.

“FUCK FUCKITY FUCK FUCK FUCK!”

An ancient rust-colored pickup rattled around the bend in the road. Whoever was driving it must have heard me bellow, because he slowed right down.

Straightening my back, I glared at the windshield. It was streaked with dirt, so I could only make out a blurry impression of a man’s face. But even if the driver happened to be a gorgeous billionaire who wanted to take me to a fancy restaurant and treat me to the best bacon-egg-and-cheese of my entire life, I’d still order him to drive right by.

I was DONE with men. Romance was a con! Men were the source of all evil!

The truck made a loud grinding noise as it changed gear. And as the rusty old pickup got closer, I got a better look at the driver. He had a wild shock of long black hair and a full beard that stuck out in all directions. So much hair, he seemed more animal than man.

To make things worse, his elbow was resting on his open window, and he was wearing the worst of all fashion crimes, a plaid flannel shirt in shades of vomit green.

I wrinkled my nose, and he gaped back at me with his lips parted. Judging from his shocked expression, he’d never before seen a woman yelling at the sky while wearing a black leather miniskirt, an asymmetric one-sleeved crop top, and thigh-length lace-up boots.

His truck engine coughed as it slowed even more.

Wait, was he planning to stop?

Oh, no. No way. I might be the only woman in a ten-mile radius, but I wouldn’t even be interested in talking to a bacon-offering billionaire right now, let alone a country bumpkin with a beard like a toilet brush.

“Keep driving!” I yelled at the pickup. “This isn’t Deliverance. There are no banjos here!”