Chapter Two #3
Blair didn’t know what to say, so again she said nothing. It was scrambling her brain to see Luke being so animated, teasing her. She felt like an awkward teenager again and didn’t like the feeling.
‘I know it’s been a while,’ Luke said. ‘We have some history, but I hope we can be cool with each other?’
She looked up at him as they turned onto Acorn Lane.
Could she be cool with him? He hadn’t done anything wrong – in their relationship that is.
Before they’d started dating, though, he’d done plenty wrong.
Luke Caldwell had been Blair’s academic rival for years.
She was pretty sure he was the one who poured bleach in the seedlings she’d grown for the grade ten science fair, and she knew for a fact that he’d fed her grade eleven biology textbook into a woodchipper two days before her exam.
‘I can be cool. In fact, I know I can be cooler than you. I always was.’ Blair let her competitiveness into her voice.
This was actually a great strategy. Blair had seriously disliked Luke Caldwell .
. . until she didn’t anymore. She needed to remember the time she hated him, not the seven months when she’d loved him.
They were in front of Blair’s two-storey house now.
The house was an old Victorian; small but dripping with original features like ornate trim, a bay window and peaked roof.
Blair could see the living room light on.
Luke smiled widely at Blair, like he was enjoying her snark. Which of course he was. There was a time when nothing amused Luke more than getting a rise out of Blair.
‘Excellent. I’m glad to hear that,’ Luke said. ‘And yeah, you were always the cooler one,’ he purred. Was he flirting? He should not be flirting.
‘So, you didn’t answer me – why are you even here?’ Blair asked. ‘And how long are you staying? Do you work in construction now? Or did you design that café for . . . who’s Shirley, anyway? Is Miss Sugar Mountain your sugar mama?’
He huffed a laugh. ‘Um, no. I’m not in construction. And I’ll be here for a bit. I own the place. I’m building it for my mother; she’s a baker. We named it after her grandmother.’
Blair blinked, not believing what she heard. ‘It’s yours? You’re opening a café literally next door to mine?’
His wide smile was the exact one he flashed when he’d won the grade eleven speech contest for his speech about hedgehogs, beating Blair’s well-researched talk on the spice route.
‘No, I’m opening a bakery café next to yours,’ he said.
‘It was the only open storefront in town. And I’m entitled to be here – I grew up in Moonbeam Hollow, too, remember?
’ He smirked. ‘If your pumpkin spice lattes really are the best, then a little competition shouldn’t be a problem for your business. ’
Angry heat rose from Blair’s body. Was this revenge for her dumping him?
But would Luke do that? He’d been devastated when she told him she wanted to break it off not long after they’d graduated high school and her mother died.
She’d asked Luke to leave Moonbeam Hollow, to go away for university like he’d intended to, and he’d angrily spat out that the town didn’t belong to her, and he could come and go whenever he wanted.
She didn’t think he was petty enough to come back twelve years later specifically to ruin her business as revenge, but Luke had been a competitive prick before they’d dated.
Maybe the seven months that he’d been a caring, protective and supportive boyfriend had been an anomaly.
Well, Blair could be competitive, too. He’d won the speech contest, but she’d been valedictorian.
He may come close, but Blair Briarwood always came out on top when it mattered against Luke Caldwell.
She smiled a winsome smile. ‘You being there won’t be a problem for me.
But it will be sad for your mother when I crush you and your little bakery. ’
Luke laughed again. ‘What makes you so confident, Blair?’
She put her hand on her hip. ‘You’ve been gone over a decade, and I’ve been in business six years.
I have a reputation in this town. Loyal customers.
If it’s going to be café against café, Harvest Moon will win by a landslide.
If I were you, Caldwell, I’d leave before embarrassing yourself further. ’
‘Well, I look forward to the challenge, Briarwood.’ He put his hand out to shake.
Blair looked at his hand. She didn’t want to touch him.
Her brain remembered what that hand could do, and the last thing she needed to know was if her skin remembered, too.
But she was going to be an adult about this, so she shook it.
It was soft – it was clear he hadn’t been building a lot of bakeries.
Looking into his eyes, Blair wondered if he was thinking of all the times they’d held hands before.
But no, the only thing she could see in his smirk was competitive Luke.
She took her hand back and walked up her porch stairs. If Luke Caldwell wanted a battle, he would get it. Blair hoped winning against Luke Caldwell would feel as satisfying as it always had.