The Next Big Thing (The Sunrise Beach #1)

Chapter One

Cora Lockwood was twelve the first time she set a kitchen on fire.

She’d been making what she’d thought was the perfect grilled cheese sandwich.

The butter had sizzled, the bread had crisped, and for one glorious moment she’d believed she had everything under control.

Then, in the time it took to glance at the One Tree Hill re-run playing on the TV, it all went up in flames.

Literally. Goodbye, gooey goodness. Hello, inferno.

Her grandmother hadn’t even batted an eye as the firefighters had packed up their gear. “Some folks are made to cook,” Grandma Lolly had said, wiping flour-dusted hands on her apron. “Others are born to keep the fire department in business.”

Years later, as Cora teetered on a wobbly kitchen chair, frantically waving a dish towel at her screeching smoke detector, the truth was undeniable.

She had been born to have the local fire station on speed dial.

“Don’t panic, don’t panic,” she chanted, but it did nothing to steady her racing pulse.

She yanked out the battery, and for five blissful minutes, silence reigned. Then, right on cue, the familiar thunder of heavy boots echoed up the stairs.

Some things never changed. While her friends were mastering homemade sourdough, she’d become an expert at getting the Thai place down the street to deliver crunchy spring rolls in less than an hour.

Her grandmother always said she’d end up in the kitchen. And technically, she had—just not as the one holding the spatula. Mostly, she played taste-tester for other people’s cooking.

Because Cora couldn’t cook to save her life, but she loved food.

So instead of creating recipes, she built a career predicting what everyone else would be eating next.

She could size up a restaurant just by the menu’s font.

She was the first food trend expert to predict that cricket flour would go mainstream and orange wine would push rosé off its garden-party porch swing.

But ask her to toast bread, and she’d somehow end up hosting a reunion of New York’s Bravest in her fourth-floor apartment. Again.

She swallowed her pride and opened the door, releasing a cloud of smoke into the hallway. Without a word, three firefighters shouldered past her and headed straight for the kitchen. They could probably navigate her apartment blindfolded by now.

“Morning, fellas,” she called after them, her fake cheeriness clashing with the rasp in her smoke-roughened voice. “I’ve whipped up a lovely bruschetta for your enjoyment.”

Jim, the firefighter who had unofficially become her favorite, was the last to step through. He glanced at the charred remains on the stove and lifted his chin. “Cora, this makes three times this year. Maybe you need to pick a new hobby.”

She blew a stray hair out of her face, the taste of ash still lingering on her lips.

“I’m from the South, Jim. We don’t show up to a big event empty-handed, and this morning I’ve got an important meeting.

” As she fanned her arms to clear the remaining smoke, a laugh bubbled up.

In three hours, she’d be pitching the next big food craze to Morsel Magazine’s editorial board, all while angling for the Lead Forecaster title.

But right now, she was perfecting the art of making charcoal toast.

Jim’s mustache twitched, his eyes crinkling with a familiar mix of amusement and concern. “Didn’t Robertson give you that takeout list the last time we were here?”

Cora winced, remembering the rookie’s awkward “intervention” around her cooking. “It’s taped to the fridge,” she admitted. “Right next to the burn unit’s direct line.”

Ordering takeout had become her survival plan, a way to avoid canned tuna and microwave dinners every night.

It was embarrassing, especially for someone who worked at the top food industry magazine in the country.

Her foodie coworkers had lost it when they found out she once needed stitches after peeling an orange, and that she had to crash in a hotel for a week after learning—too late—that even salad has a smoke point.

Suddenly, her last relationship’s abrupt ending made a lot more sense. Nobody wanted a woman who talked about cooking all the time but didn’t actually cook.

Her cheeks flushed. “Sorry you had to come out here again, Jim. One day, I swear I’ll figure it out.”

“Don’t sweat it,” he said with a wink. “You’re our favorite repeat customer.” He leaned in and lowered his voice. “But seriously, has nobody ever taught you to cook? I thought Southerners were born knowing how to make bread or something.”

A familiar pang hit her, sharper than the smoky air. She’d only been ten when the accident turned everything upside down. One minute she had a mother, and the next she had a legal guardian who smelled like biscuits and wore combat boots to PTA meetings.

But Grandma Lolly had never complained. She’d simply opened her home to the scared little girl, tied an apron on her, and gotten to work.

For years, Cora had hovered in the kitchen of her grandmother’s waterfront café, hoping to soak up some of Lolly’s culinary magic by osmosis.

And while she did learn how to shuck an oyster straight out of the local waters and that watermelon tasted better with salt, Lolly’s famous kitchen wizardry had never quite rubbed off.

That magic was all Lolly. Her cooking had charmed the toughest crowds.

She’d even had a few marriage proposals thanks to her chicken and dumplings.

Cora, on the other hand, had once given a guy food poisoning with a ham sandwich.

Apparently, the Lockwood cooking gene had taken one look at her and said, Bless her heart, I’ll sit this one out.

It had only been six months since Lolly died, but the grief still clung to Cora like the smoke on her skin.

“I’ll stick to cereal from now on.” She laughed, but her voice came out a little shaky.

“Jokes aside, kiddo, grease fires are no laughing matter. Got your extinguishers ready for next time?”

Cora pointed around the kitchen. “The one on the counter lives under the sink.” She gestured toward the cabinet of mismatched dishes. “There’s another one up there.”

Jim nodded, satisfied she was at least semi-prepared for the next kitchen disaster.

But Cora wasn’t done. “There’s also an industrial-strength one in the pantry and a travel-sized beauty under the sofa.”

He covered his laugh with a cough as she shrugged.

“I nicknamed the one in the pantry Big Bertha. She’s my favorite.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Big Bertha?”

“Hey, show some respect,” she warned, managing a grin. “She’s saved me more than once.”

Jim’s hand landed on her shoulder, paternal and reassuring, as he ushered out his crew. “You know where to find us if you need us.”

Cora stumbled into the hallway behind them, almost colliding with her elderly neighbor.

Mrs. Davenport’s eyes sparkled with barely concealed excitement. “You okay, dear?”

Cora stifled a groan. Mrs. Davenport was a retired librarian and a hardcore romance-novel junkie, and—judging by her breathless tone—she was far too pleased that her favorite eye candy had shown up again.

Her gaze bounced between Cora and the firefighters heading down the hall. “Had to call them,” she said, patting her cotton-ball cloud of hair with a wrinkled hand. “I heard that smoke alarm and knew you needed rescuing.”

At eighty-five, with a first-responder fetish, living next to Cora must have felt like hitting the geriatric jackpot.

Back in her apartment, Cora placed her usual post-disaster pizza order to be delivered to the fire station. Extra everything this time. Those guys deserved it for hauling up four flights in full gear just because she couldn’t toast bread.

She resisted the urge to pull out her color-coded crisis spreadsheet.

The one she always turned to when a disaster, like a visit from the fire department before breakfast, threatened to upend her normal routine.

Just last week, she’d added a line item about how to prevent a rice cooker from exploding and spraying basmati all over the kitchen floor.

Instead, she glanced at her phone and yelped.

If she didn’t get moving, she’d be pitching food trends in her pajamas.

After a lightning-fast wardrobe change, she dashed out the door.

If she could face the FDNY before her morning coffee, convincing her boss she deserved that promotion would be a breeze, even if she had to do it with store-bought pastries and the smell of burnt toast in her hair.

Cora burst into Morsel Magazine’s lobby, lugging a box of muffins from the bakery. “Morning, Vanessa. I brought carbs.”

The receptionist looked up from her desk, her manicured fingers shooing Cora toward the conference room. “You’d better grab one quick. They’re already waiting for you. And you’ll want to hurry. Something big is going down.”

Cora’s stomach fluttered with nerves. What was so urgent?

Her meeting wasn’t scheduled for two more hours.

As she power-walked down the hall, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in a glass wall.

Her hair looked like a bird’s nest, and her face had the kind of wild-eyed panic that screamed, Yes, I did just crawl out of a coal mine.

Just what she wanted for the most important meeting of her career.

Slipping into the conference room, she was met with the harsh glare of fluorescent lights reflecting off the glossy mahogany table.

Several of Morsel’s head honchos sat at the far end, their expressions colder than week-old oatmeal.

She dropped the bakery box on the credenza and slid into a leather chair, pulling her laptop out of her bag so she could present the data from her spreadsheets if they needed more information.

She leaned over to Roger, the eager marketing intern sitting next to her. “I brought muffins.”

His eyes widened in alarm.

“Relax, they’re from the bakery,” she added, trying not to sound offended.