Chapter 30
To really understand Lyntacky, you needed to understand how competitive the locals were.
For example, there were the two baseball teams, the Lemon Levelers and the Lavender Leaders, and families had played for their team for many years.
You could swap, but only through marriage or if you had a long-term partner.
There were other events that brought out the competitive spirit, and today it was on full display at the bake-off.
It was now four days after her father had come to town, and Nina had to say she was happy—ridiculously happy. There were no more doubts or panic attacks; she was in love, and while she knew she and Finch had plenty of issues to traverse, they’d be doing them together.
“I’m not entirely sure I’ll get out of town alive if I vote for the wrong person today,” she said as she climbed up onto the special raised platform that someone had erected in the Swing Through Café. She placed notepads and pens before each of the seats.
“Stop your moaning. You get to eat all those delicious baked goods while I stand and watch,” Finch said.
They’d arrived an hour early to help with setting up, and he was stacking chairs and tables along with Ryder and Libby so they could fit all the locals in. A few chairs would be left out for those who didn’t like to stand for too long.
Looking at the man who had stolen her heart, Nina felt it again. A small flicker of awareness that came when he was close. This was love.
Federal agents had flown into town and taken her father, his sister, and nephew away, and Nina hadn’t really exhaled until that news had reached her. She didn’t want to be in the same town as Dale Falcon ever again, and Finch had agreed.
The one thing that niggled in the back of her head was that he wouldn’t give up the search for what he’d come to Lyntacky to find. Would he send others to Lyntacky to do his dirty work?
Staring at the white-framed painting on the wall opposite, something tugged at her memory.
“Holy fuck!” Nina shrieked.
“What?” Finch dropped the chairs he was holding, the sound making a loud bang in the café.
“I think I know where it is! I forgot—”
“Forgot what?” Finch demanded, moving to stand below her.
“What they were looking for. I forgot what was under my bed.”
“What is under your bed, Nina?”
“We need to go there now,” she said, jumping down beside him. “Ryder, we’ll be back soon!”
“It’s hard to get good help,” Ryder said, waving her away. “Luckily Ally’s arriving soon, and she’s far more efficient than you two. Go and find what’s under your bed, Nina. But you have to show me.”
“Will do.” Grabbing Finch’s hand, she tugged him to the door.
They were soon heading for her place.
“I can move back in here soon,” she said. “Do you want to come with me, Finch?”
He shot her a look, his mouth in a wide smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”
“When you know, you know. Plus, I like your body.”
“Can’t ask for more than that,” he said, pulling into her driveway. “Plus, Mabel loves me more than you.”
“There is that.”
She got out and ran for the front door. Now that it no longer needed to be locked, she immediately threw it open and sprinted down the hallway to her bedroom.
Dropping to her knees, she felt around underneath.
It wasn’t a big gap, but big enough. Soon she was pulling out a brown-paper-wrapped rectangular picture.
Finch lifted her back to her feet, and she placed the picture on the bed. Nina tore the paper open and found two pictures. The large one was a landscape of Lyntacky she’d forgotten her mother had, but it was the smaller one she picked up.
“I almost don’t want to look,” Nina said, staring at it.
“Okay, I will, then.” Finch took it out of her hands and turned it over to lay it face down on the bed. He then eased open the back of the frame and found a black notebook.
“What is it?”
“Shall I open it and find out?”
She nodded and watched him do just that.
“It’s details for two bank accounts, but my guess is, they could be offshore. The totals are pretty big, even considering Falcon wrote them in here years ago.”
Nina took the book and studied the numbers. There were a lot of zeros.
“I think dear Daddy sent his money offshore so no one could catch up with him,” Finch said. “But we’ll hand these to Sheriff Dans. He’ll know what to do with them. Plus, he can let Falcon know we found what he was looking for.”
“If I had read this story, I wouldn’t have believed it,” Nina said, handing him the book back. She didn’t want to touch it anymore. All the pain and suffering to get that money disgusted her.
“Right, now that’s solved. Let’s go.” He held out his hand, and she took it, calmer again now she was tethered to Finch again.
He turned her into his arms and kissed her softly, and then simply held her for long minutes.
“It’s over now, Nina. You’re safe here with me.”
“We’ll always keep each other safe, Finch.”
“Agreed.”
They went straight to the police station, handed over what they’d found to Sheriff Dans, and then headed back to the Swing Through Café.
“Our life is about to get boring again,” Finch said.
“I can handle boring.”
“Me, too, if it’s with you. I’m going to buy the Burns land, so you have to be good with that,” Finch said.
“Why do I have to be good with that?”
“Because you’ll be living there with me, which means you may have to rent out your house.”
She thought about that. “Mabel would like more land.”
“She would.”
“And Jonathan is going to manage Circle Left for me, so he and Caleb are moving in when Hank and Nancy move out,” Nina said.
“When did that happen?”
“It was as I was walking to girls’ night at the Rollaway. He was buying waffles and said he’d like to be the manager. I agreed.”
“He’d be good for Circle Left,” Finch said.
“Agreed. So yes, I’ll move onto the Burns land with you, but I want a say in decoration.”
“Done.”
She looked at him as they headed back to the Swing Through Café. “I’m not sure it’s healthy to be this happy, Finch.”
“Me neither, but we’ll work through it together.”
She liked the sound of that.
They both had healing to do and things in their past to work through, but they would do it together, and to Nina that was enough.
“We’re having kids too,” Finch whispered in her ear.
“Yes please,” she whispered back, the smile reaching every inch of her face.
People were filling up the café as they entered.
“Go get ’em, tiger, and remember, be impartial and pick something because you like the taste of it, not because someone is glaring at you. Okay?” Finch said. “And if anyone threatens you, I’ll sort them out.”
“I hope the losers speak to me again,” she said, kissing him again.
Climbing up to take her seat beside the other judges, she looked at the plates lined up before them and then at the crowd. Some were wearing matching shirts that said the name of a baker.
“No pressure,” Ryder said from beside her. “You find anything?” he added out the side of his mouth.
“Yes, a book with bank accounts and lots of numbers. We gave it to your uncle.”
“Good. Glad that’s done with, then,” he said.
“Sorry I’m late!” Dee said, climbing up to join them in a pair of tight white jeans and a pink shirt with a sparkly heart on the front that surprisingly wasn’t showing her chest but was so tight, it had to have been a bitch to get on.
“Right, then,” Tripp said, joining them. “Let’s begin. Judges, start eating and mark on your paper which cake you think is best. We will then tally the votes and decide the winner.”
“I’m not sure I’m ready for this,” Callum Taylor said, two down from Nina. He was eyeing the crowd nervously.
“Suck it up. You made Lyntacky home when you fell in love with Mom,” Ryder said, taking the first piece of cake.
They ate and tried to ignore the tension growing in the room.
The café looked festive, with its tree and lights, plus wreaths of ribbon-wrapped greenery around the walls. Carols played softly in the background. Looking for Finch, Nina found him beside his sisters. He smiled, and she felt it through her entire body.
“Stop that, you’re making me sick,” Ryder said.
“I feel sick,” Nina whispered back. “There is a lot of pressure to get this right or be run out of town.”
“Get your boyfriend up here to help you, then. Honestly, Nina, you have no stamina,” he said.
Nina waved Finch closer.
He didn’t hesitate. When he reached her, he dropped into a crouch beside her chair. “What’s up?”
“Ryder said I can get you to help me because I have no stamina and feel sick from all the sweetness and pressure.”
“I’ll punch him for that after, but right now, let me at it,” Finch said.
“I heard that, loser,” Ryder said, writing something on his notepad.
Another chair was found and placed beside hers, and then Finch ate. Not small bites like Nina—large ones. He chewed slowly with closed eyes.
“No need to overdo it. We’re not going for a Michelin star or anything here,” Nina whispered.
“It’s important to get it right.” He looked at her notepad and then made notes beside it.
“Anytime soon!” Someone heckled from the crowd.
“You shut yours, Larry Limpet, or I’ll disqualify you,” Dee called back.
The man shut his mouth.
“My music is not bland!”
Everyone looked at Lynx after he’d roared those words at Zoe’s friend Lil. She in turn had her hands on her hips and was jabbing a finger into his chest.
“What’s that about?” Nina whispered to Finch when the two broke apart and stormed off in opposite directions.
“She likes the band’s older music and accused Lynx of selling out. As you can imagine, that went down well,” Finch said. “They’ll both get over it. Now back to the food.”
After they’d all eaten some of each of the entries, Robyn Duke and Tripp, two of the more respected and unbribable members of Lyntacky, took the notepads away.
“Be ready to make a run for it if they turn mean,” Nina whispered to Finch.
He snorted, taking her hand and resting it on his thigh. It was a gesture he did often, and Nina knew she’d always love it.
She’d never been part of a couple—not like this. It filled all the empty places inside her she’d never even known she had. Sure, she wasn’t impressed with his dislike of too much junk food and love of horror movies but seeing as he loved Mabel as much as she did, Nina could forgive him anything.
“Right, then,” Tripp said climbing back up beside them. “The winners of the first annual Lyntacky Bake-Off—”
“Of course it’s now an annual thing,” Ryder said sighing.
“Third place goes to Larry Limpet.”
There was a stunned silence before everyone started clapping.
“If only he’d tried harder when he had a bakery, we may have actually bought food from there,” Finch whispered in her ear.
“Second place goes to Lea Becker,” Tripp said.
This brought instant applause and cheers of support. Everyone loved Lea and Klaus.
“And now the winner of the first annual bake-off is,” Tripp said looking at his notes, “Fox Gleeson for his peanut butter fudge brownies.”
Like Larry, this announcement caused a stunned silence and then applause.
“Fox cooks?” Finch asked Ryder.
“Who knew?” He shrugged. “But that brownie was something special, and I’m asking him for the recipe.”
Maybe it was everything that’d happened during the past few days—weeks, actually—but Nina lost it. She started laughing so hard, she was snorting in seconds. Finch just watched her with a look of mild amusement on his face until she was done.
“S-sorry,” she whispered after gulping in a huge breath.
“Don’t apologize. It gave me a chance to rethink letting you move with me into our new place. Because snort-laughing is not a good look on anyone.”
She laughed again and fell sideways into his open arms. A place Nina knew was now home for her.