Chapter 3
Molly fucking Dearborn had come back to him.
To Harlot’s Bay, anyway. But she’d come back for him. She’d only come because she’d thought he was dead, because the most bizarre series of events imaginable had happened,
but none of that shit mattered.
She’d cared enough to revisit a place she hadn’t been in twenty years. She was in Karl’s arms, cheeks still damp with tears
for him. And she was clutching him like she’d never let him go, which suited him just fine. In fact, it damn well delighted him.
Karl wasn’t sure he’d experienced delight since senior year. Felt great.
But then she pulled away, and he had to let her go. After dashing away the remaining wetness from her rosy cheeks with the
heels of her hands, she breathed deeply several times, until her hitching inhalations turned even and silent. Straightened
the cuffs and smoothed the front of her rumpled men’s-style button-down. Arranged a serene expression on her pretty face.
It was like watching a cracked egg fuse itself back together, until it lay on the worktable dry and pale and untouched again.
Back in high school, she was the most controlled person he’d ever met. In flawless command of every gesture and expression.
Apparently that hadn’t changed.
It was impressive. Always had been. But goddamn inconvenient too. After two endless decades, this was his chance to make things right, and he wasn’t a fucking telepath. He needed to be able to read her reactions.
A throat cleared near him. Loudly. He jerked so hard, his head almost whacked the doorframe, and even Molly twitched a little.
“Um . . .” Bez tilted her head toward the other side of the counter and raised her brows.
Which was when he saw the cluster of nosy-as-shit customers watching him. Some of them with their phones out and aimed his
way. Molly’s way.
“Karl,” she asked quietly, expression inscrutable, “why are people filming us?”
He directed a scowl at the crowd. “Because this town is full of busybodies who need to mind their own damn beeswax.”
“I see.” Her voice remained entirely neutral. “Your mere emergence from the back room appears to have enthralled said busybodies.
In much the same way a Bigfoot sighting might.”
Ignoring that, he raised his voice, so the entire shop could hear him. “Listen up, assholes. If you don’t stop recording,
I’ll get my cleaver. Take your phones. Chop them into pieces so tiny, even a goddamn ant wouldn’t bother eating them. And then I’ll personally shove those pieces down your throats.”
A few people hurriedly tapped their screens and deposited their phones into their pockets and purses. Others—the ones who’d
grown up with him—just grinned and kept recording.
When he glared at his kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Dix waved cheerfully back at him, then squinted to adjust a camera setting
on her cell.
“Ants don’t consume electronics, Dean.” Molly sounded unperturbed. “And as far as the logistics of shoving cell phone shards
down your customers’ throats—”
“Logistics can go fuck themselves.”
“That’s technically impossible.” Molly raised her forefinger. “Anyway, as I was saying, there are three main problems with
your plan. Shards that tiny would be hard to gather and probably quite sharp.” A second finger joined the first. “Your fist
wouldn’t fit down your customers’ throats.”
“I’d make it fucking fit,” he muttered.
“And most importantly,” she continued, lifting a third finger, “force-feeding customers the crushed remains of their own electronics
wouldn’t be good for business.”
Her face might be a serene mask, but those pale blue eyes were sparkling.
She was enjoying this. So was he.
“Pedant,” he accused.
Her steady gaze held his. “Misanthrope.”
“Whatever.” His aggrieved harrumph hid a smile. “Come on, Dearborn.”
Taking her elbow, he hustled her into his work area and closed the door firmly behind them. As soon as it clicked shut, the
muffled roar of excited chatter drowned out the soft jazz playing over the speaker system.
Within five minutes, everyone in Harlot’s Bay would know about the reunion. He didn’t give a shit. Molly was here. They were face-to-face and alone, at long last, and—
And something about having privacy had changed things. Not in a good way.
She stepped back from him and looked around herself.
“Impressive operation, Dean.” Without moving another inch, she withdrew further, her tone turning formal.
“Clearly, I caught you in the middle of doing something important. Sorry to have bothered you. Now that I know you’re fine, I’ll head back to—”
No. She wasn’t going to disappear on him again. Not until he said what he needed to say.
The words weren’t hard to find. He’d been rehearsing them for twenty long years.
“We’d broken up,” he interrupted hurriedly. “Becky and me. Called it quits soon after she left for university. I was a dumb
kid and didn’t tell you. Too embarrassed. So I know what you must’ve thought, and I get why you disappeared on me. But it
wasn’t true. Before I started dropping my stupid hints, Becky’d dumped me. For good.”
There. He’d told her. Fucking finally.
“I see.” Her eyes met his again, and she leaned a hip against his stainless-steel work table, arms loosely crossed over her
chest. Still guarded, but willing to linger.
“That’s what happened, right? Why you cut me off?”
She nodded. “You’re not the world’s subtlest man, Karl. Those weren’t exactly hints you dropped. In that last email, I believe you inquired as to whether I found”—her forefingers and middle fingers formed
air quotes—“‘big motherfuckers’ hot or not, before soliciting my opinion on dating”—her fingers scrunched again—“‘assholes
with red beards and high school diplomas whose homemade eclairs would make your taste buds detonate in sheer goddamn joy.’”
Yeah. Sounded familiar.
She added, lips faintly curved, “Which, it must be noted, is not physiologically possible.”
All these years later, the woman still liked yanking his chain. And all these years later, she still hadn’t answered the crucial question. “Would you have said yes to a date with me? If you’d known Becky and I were through?”
She nodded again.
The shitty verdict was in: Eighteen-year-old Karl had been incredibly stupid. But there was no going back, so he’d have to do better now. Better enough to make her stay. In his bakery, short-term.
Assuming she was single? In Harlot’s Bay, long-term.
He heaved a gusty sigh. “Showing my interest before explaining the breakup? Dumb move on my part. I get that. Even back then,
I got it.”
A timer went off, and he silenced it. Didn’t even glance toward the oven. Every fucking pie in there could burn, as long as
he kept her here.
“Wish you’d have trusted me, though. At least enough to ask.” He thrust a finger in her direction. “Not a cheater then. Not a cheater now. Not a cheater ever.”
That point deserved some damn emphasis.
Her mouth pursed. “The issue of cheating was . . . um . . . sensitive for me, and since you didn’t say anything, I figured you and Becky were still together. I had no way to know that wasn’t
true. But for what it’s worth, I’m sorry I didn’t ask for an explanation before just cutting you off.”
Dearborn looked genuinely guilty—which gave him an idea. The greatest fucking idea ever. He could use that guilt. Use his wronged-party status to keep her in Harlot’s Bay and earn her trust.
Timing wasn’t right, though. He needed to work up to telling her about his burst of genius. Make her more comfortable with him and more likely to say yes.
“Uh.” Buy time, asshole. “How’ve things been, Dearborn?”
“Good,” she said with a polite smile. “I live in LA still. I’m doing some home renovations at the moment, so it was a good
time to visit Harlot’s Bay.”
Generic question, generic answer. Should’ve known.
Fine. He’d do better. “Couple years ago, heard a customer’s audiobook out in the parking lot. Sounded like you.”
Her brows rose. “You recognized my voice? Almost two decades after I left?”
“Evidently. If it was you.” It was definitely her. He’d bet his goddamn bakery on it.
“I narrate audiobooks for a living, so . . .” She shook her head. “Wow. You’ve listened to my work. I’d never have guessed
that.”
Countless fucking hours of it. Not that she needed to know.
Her head tipped. “Which book was it, out of curiosity?”
“Guppy-dude with weird-ass dick-fins.”
Desire, Unfiltered. Athena’s favorite Sadie Brazen story, for some godforsaken reason.
She nodded. “Ah. One of my Molly Cressley books.”
Wait. Did that mean—
“I have a couple of pseudonyms. Different ones for different genres.” She turned to lean her ass against the worktable, settling
herself more comfortably. “Molly Cressley for erotic romance, Molly Biddenwell for literary fiction.”
Molly Biddenwell? Never heard of her.
Well, there went another month’s profits. Audiobooks on CD—he didn’t trust purely digital files when it came to something so important—weren’t cheap, and he now had more to buy.
But more importantly—“Thought Molly Cressley might be your married name.”
“No.” Her shoulders had visibly stiffened. “I was married. But I didn’t take his name. Cressley’s just my nom de narrator.”
No verb tense had ever made him so damn happy before. “Was married?”
“Rob and I got divorced two years ago,” she said flatly.
She didn’t elaborate. He didn’t ask. Not the right time.
“I’m sorry,” he told her, and part of him meant it. The other part was dancing a fucking jig. “Know how painful that can be.
Emily, my youngest sister, got divorced last year. Still not back to herself. Bastard broke her trust.”
Karl wanted to break something too. Like the asshole’s nose. Probably good Emily’s ex lived in Baltimore.
“It’s fine.” Molly exhaled slowly, and her knuckles jutted as she gripped the edge of the stainless-steel table. “You’re right,
though. It’s hard to trust anyone anymore. Even . . .”
Her soft mouth clamped into a tight line. He waited for her to continue, with the patience of a damn saint, but she didn’t
say more.
Good enough. He knew she was unmarried. Now to work with the opening she’d given him. “Weren’t all that trusting twenty years
ago either, Dearborn.”
She winced. Renewed guilt creased her forehead, even as she skewered him with an unimpressed glare. “I already apologized
for that, Dean, and you admitted that you should have—”
Abruptly, she paused and sniffed. Her forehead crinkled even more as she scanned the work space. “Something’s burning.”
“Motherfucker.”
Grabbing a dry, folded dishcloth, he swung the oven door open and set the pies on a nearby sheet tray, one by one. Some of
the crumb topping on the Dutch caramel apple had gone too far, the color turning from a deep gold to scorched sienna. In his
preoccupation with her, he hadn’t even noticed the telltale smell.
So much for making a good impression. Muttering to himself, he flicked away the overly browned bits with his knife, then frowned
down at the pies and made his decision: salvageable. With a satisfied grunt, he lifted the heavy sheet tray and slid it into
a free slot on his tiered rolling rack to cool.
“Thanks,” he said, turning back to Molly. Only she wasn’t there anymore.
While he’d been dealing with pie shit, she’d evidently wandered across the workroom. Right now, she was poking her head into
his cramped, messy office, a few strands of her coppery brown hair falling forward, off her shoulders. Still center-parted
and stick-straight. Still shiny. And after all this time, the woman hadn’t lost her love for men’s-style button-down shirts
and—what had Emily called that loose, cuffed fit again? Oh, yeah. Boyfriend jeans.
She wore sneakers instead of boots now. Otherwise, her style hadn’t changed much over the years, and it didn’t need to. Looked
great on her then. Looked great on her now.
With her bent over like that, he couldn’t tear his stare from the lush curves of her ass. That ass was even rounder than it
used to be. All of her was rounder, and all of it was sexy as hell. The swell of her belly. The rise of her breasts. Her long, strong, thick
thighs.
Helplessly, he stepped closer.
When she straightened and turned her head, the overwhelming familiarity of her profile struck him hard, the same way it had when he’d first spotted her through the cracked workroom door.
If it weren’t for those fine lines across her forehead and at the corners of her pale blue eyes, she could’ve been a memory made flesh.
Could’ve been one of thousands of fantasies he’d had over two goddamn decades.
Her curious gaze scanned his sinks. His refrigerators. His ovens.
Then she swiveled on her heel and faced him again.
He stilled, arrested once more by the sight of Molly Dearborn—Molly fucking Dearborn—in his bakery, only half a room away from him, after all that time. He didn’t move. Didn’t exhale. Didn’t even blink, in
case she might disappear.
“Karl,” she said slowly. “Please explain something to me.”
“Yeah?” Sounded like he’d run a microplane grater over his vocal cords, but that was the best he could do right now.
“After almost twenty years with no contact, how did you recognize my voice?”
Before he found an answer that wouldn’t incriminate him, another timer went off. Pineapple upside-down cakes. If those went
too long, the caramel mixture at the bottom of the pans would turn dark and bitter.
No choice about it. He’d have to walk away from this conversation. So sad.
“Oh, no, you don’t,” Molly said, dogging his heels all the way to the oven. “Your name isn’t Mark-Paul Gosselaar. The bell
isn’t going to save you, Dean.”
“Watch out,” he warned her, then braced for a gust of heat from the oven as he opened its door. “These pans are hot.”
After he’d deposited the cakes on another sheet tray and shoved that tray into the cooling rack, he checked out the cherry pies. Not quite ready yet. Lattice was still too pale. With his towel-covered fist, he bumped the oven door closed once more.
When he turned around, she was right. Fucking. There. A hand’s breadth in front of him, max.
Crossing his arms across his chest, he glowered at her. “Move it or lose it, Dearborn.”
“Answer my question,” she said without budging an inch, “and I’ll get out of your way.”
“I repeat: Move that sweet ass of yours, Dearborn.”
Her brows shot skyward, and he barely bit back a frustrated groan. Yeah. If she hadn’t realized before then why he’d recognized
her voice in an instant, even when she was narrating a weird-ass story about that billionaire guppy-asshole—
“Go ahead, Dean.” She slowly smiled. Leaned even closer, until her cool breath wafted across his chin as she spoke. “Make
me.”