Epilogue
My tan wool coat swings around me, as I smile at the people gathering on the street in front of me.
They closed down Main Street for this. For me and my little bakery.
It felt extremely cliche to open a bakery the week of Valentine’s Day, but I didn’t want to delay it any longer.
Everything has been leading up to this moment.
Scanning the crowd, my eyes fall upon my favorite people.
I can’t hear what Penny and Rhett are talking about, but she is laughing at whatever he said—even if she still calls him Red.
Renee and Desi are planted beside them, waving and giving me the thumbs up.
The attention is intoxicating in the best possible way.
I can feel the love surrounding me today, and I’m deeply grateful for the life I’ve built here.
It’s been a long five months. Five months of learning what it means to rebuild…
both a building and a relationship. Rhett spent many nights with me in this bakery, helping me set up, grabbing my shoulders to remind me to take deep breaths when I was decidedly in over my head.
And of course, always up for it when I suggested we take a break for waffles and coffee across the street.
I also had finally given Penny her space back, but we had a standing weekly dinner date where I filled her in on life at the farmhouse, and she filled me in on her ever-evolving career and dating life.
It had taken about two seconds after coming back into Rhett’s life for him to realize I meant it.
I loved all of him, I wanted all of him.
Even though I told him I loved everything in his life exactly as it was, he continued to fix up the house.
I made him promise to never get rid of all of the quirks I’d fallen in love with last summer and he agreed.
It was perfectly imperfect, just how I preferred.
It wasn’t all sunshine and roses though; nothing ever is.
There were hard days. Many hard days between that Monday in October and this crisp February morning.
We butted heads on many things and had days where we needed some space.
But every single night we came back together, choosing each other, again and again.
That was what mattered. Our love was bigger than any of the pain.
Mabel also forgave me for leaving, and I promised to never stop making her treats. I got so good at baking her different kinds of biscuits, I decided to dedicate an entire case in the bakery to dog treats.
It all seems picturesque, right? Me, the big city girl falling for the man with the truck and white farmhouse. I left my corporate job for small business ownership. But none of those details really mattered, I realized as I looked at the crowd, my eyes locking with Rhett’s.
It wouldn’t have mattered where we were, who we were, or what jobs we held. It wouldn’t have mattered what zip code we lived in or the legacy of my family.
Because I was always meant to be this version of Audrey. It just took some time to find her.
And Rhett Anderson…he was always meant to be the love of my life.
It just took a bit of unraveling.
“Are you ready?” The mayor saddled up next to me, a smile on her face as Penny wove her way through the crowd to hand me a pair of giant pink scissors—she insisted I needed them— and I nodded at the mayor. A large ribbon divides us and the crowd of my new hometown.
“Thank you to everyone who came out on this chilly winter morning. I am so grateful for the way this community has rallied around me and supported me all these months while I make something I think will be truly special.” I smiled wide, as I cut the ribbon on a new adventure.
“Welcome to Mabel’s Bakeshop!”
Want more of these characters? Penny's story is coming soon!
The sequel — Lucky Penny comes out October 8, 2025!
Penny only came home to Wilmington to help her little sister navigate some unexpected news.
Then enters her sister's new roommate: Jesse Rivers. Penny’s tattooed, irritatingly gorgeous ex…
the one she's pretended didn't exists for the last ten years. Now they’re stuck under the same roof all Christmas break long, with only a wall to separate them.
He's one risk she's not willing to take again…
even if he keeps walking around half naked.
Preorder it here!