Cinders (2 page)

If Gina looked carefully, she could still glimpse the bones of what used to be Bella’s. Her mind would fill in the details missing—the old needlepoint picture that said “Stressed Is Desserts Spelled Backwards” with a cupcake below it that always made her smile; her mom’s apron hanging on the back of the door, tattered-edged but clean and waiting there in memory long after her death; the open mason jar on the windowsill with fresh cinnamon sticks spicing the air when the sun hit them.

Now the needlepoint was gone—Maureen didn’t like “clutter”. The apron had been trashed when Gina’s father’s body was barely cold—“That moth-eaten thing carries
germs
,” Maureen had said. And under the fresh smell of whatever items were currently in the oven hovered the scent of sharp pine-tinged cleaning products rather than cinnamon.

But still, Gina remained. Adapting, trying to keep up, holding her tongue no matter how much she wanted to speak. The bakery was her father’s legacy, the resting place of most of her remaining memories of her mother. She couldn’t bring herself to leave. Not yet, anyway.

The bell chimed over the door in the front room. Tamara was supposed to be working the counter today but, like most days, Gina knew she wouldn’t be. She had half a mind to leave her stepsister to get caught but it probably wouldn’t do any good—Maureen excused away any flaws her own daughters had, after all, and Tamara was the younger of the two, pretty much immune to any scrutiny.

Gina slipped off her apron, hung it beside the door not far from where her mother’s used to go, and grabbed a fresh towel to run over her skin. A glimpse in the silver-framed mirror over the porcelain hand washing sink—
cleanliness is next to godliness
, Maureen’s voice parroted in her head—revealed flour streaks over her forehead and a clump of it somehow on her cheek, but otherwise it wasn’t that bad. She ran the hand towel over her face swiftly. It would have to do. She didn’t wear makeup—what was the point?—and no one paid attention to her anyway. She slipped the hairnet off her head and hung it over the pristine edge of the sink, shaking out her mane of sun-streaked curls.

Her clothes were plain, a faded-black boat neck T-shirt and cropped denim pants that were once indigo but now light blue. She’d worn her stepsisters’ hand-me-downs growing up, but their body types were all different and she picked up her own clothes at the Sally Ann. And her clothing wasn’t
proper
, Maureen said with a critical eye, but Gina didn’t see the big deal when she stood behind the damn counter—no one saw what she was wearing anyway.

She slipped through the white-curtained doorway into the main room of the bakery, which was just as blindingly pale and dull as the backroom but for the pops of color from the carefully decorated baked goods in the streak-free glass cases around the room.

Immediately Gina’s gaze went to the cash register—no one was there, Tamara having taken off at some point that afternoon. When they were still in high school, she would use the “homework” excuse, but she had no such reason to leave her post now. She was likely out with her sister and friends. Anyone could’ve walked in and taken off with the antique-style cash register before Gina realized and there would’ve been nothing she could do about it.

She moved behind the counter, padding barefoot across the tile—Maureen would kill her for not putting on shoes, but she likely wouldn’t be by to notice—and paused with a weary smile near the register. “Can I help...you?”

One of the two tall men peering at the display across the store glanced over his shoulder at her. An odd tangle of emotion rushed through her at the sight.

Brennen Prescott.

Son of the senior partner at Midsummer’s single law firm, devilishly good looking. His height topped 6’2”, body was lithe and muscular beneath his well-cut casual clothes. A white pine-stripe button down with the sleeves rolled up complimented his tan skin, and he wore black slacks tailored to him. His dark brown hair hung loose, a few weeks past a needed haircut, but it somehow only made him sexier.

Which annoyed her to no end because he’d made her life hell as a teenager.

Granted, that was years ago, and her opinion of him had softened since. Even as her brain leapt up to remind her how often she was in trouble—and hurt—because he and his friends had done something, the truth was that his misbegotten youth seemed behind him. And if he sensed anything was wrong, he didn’t show it. His lips—where her gaze was almost always drawn far too quickly—pulled into a grin upon seeing her, and he offered a small wave.

She wiggled her fingers in a wave back, her heart skipping happily even as she tried to deny it.

There was that time when he was fifteen and she was thirteen, and his little crew of hellions egged and toilet papered the store. Which she had to clean. And when he and his friend grabbed some cookies without paying. Which she had to work off. And when the group of them had tossed water balloons at her when she was on her way into the store after school. Which forced her home to change so she was late for her shift. Each time, she’d received a sound beating from Maureen, and that was enough to make her resent him.

But time had mellowed him and by his late teens, he was sweet and friendly, casting off the “bad” element he’d hung out with. A week after the cookie incident, he’d dropped by and paid for the stolen items. It wouldn’t undo the beating he didn’t know she’d received, so she didn’t tell Maureen but pocketed the money herself. It had been enough to soften her view of him.

Now Brennen dropped by just often enough that she knew him but not quite enough to be considered a regular, so she never knew when he’d stop in, making it a pleasant surprise.

“Looking for anything in particular?” she offered.
Is it bad that I hope he says yes and looks at me?
Probably, but she was so exhausted from working all the time, silly fantasies like that were all she had.

“The secretary at Mike’s office was going on about your butter tarts,” Brennen said.

Mike, she assumed, was his friend—a man his height but a bit older, late-twenties perhaps, with short auburn hair and a dark suit, his whole look reminding her of secret service guys from movies, serious and lethal. He gave her the briefest of glances but his face was stony. He wandered in front of the display, looking it up and down. His movements were careful and deliberate, not the easy openness of Brennen.

“We have several types of butter tarts in the display to your right,” she called to Mike. “The white chocolate raspberry drizzle is my personal favorite.”

Mike nodded but otherwise didn’t acknowledge her.

Well, she’d be pleasant because she had to be with customers, but the guy left her unsettled.

Brennen left his friend and strolled up to the counter, giving her a wicked smile that sent her pulse fluttering. “What’s the baker’s special today?”

“Caramel brownies.” Gina lifted the glass top on the pedestal dish near the cash register where samples of said brownies waited, cut into bite-sized pieces and each with a toothpick in the top.

Brennen stopped there and eyed them, near enough that Gina breathed in the scent of his spicy aftershave. It had a hint of cinnamon, and the irrational sense of
home
washed over her. He selected a brownie, lifted it on the toothpick, and popped it in his mouth.

His eyes closed and he let out a satisfied sigh. “I think you’re magic, Gina.”

When he looked at her again, she knew she was positively beaming. “Family recipe.”

“Then you come from a magical family.”

Her smile wilted a little, the hollow ache of sorrow pulling at her heart, and she braced for him to tease her.

Brennen noticed and winced. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. He reached out, fingers brushing hers gently, and a sudden thrilling jolt rushed through her at the contact.

Of course she could smile and dance along the edge of flirting, but nothing more. He had to stay at a distance. She slipped her hand away and stepped back, flashing a hollow grin. “Do you want me to wrap up some brownies?”

For a moment Brennen watched her, scrutinizing her, and heat crawled up her cheeks. She’d first seen those dark blue eyes the day of her father’s funeral a decade ago, young Brennen standing with his family at the grave. Most condolences were offered to her stepmother—few gave Gina even a passing look—except that one cute older boy who looked sadly at her. She’d recognized him immediately when she first glimpsed him in the bakery as she worked the back room as a teen, even though they’d never spoken about that initial grim encounter.

And oddly she’d felt ever since like part of him knew her, saw something a little deeper than most people did, especially when he looked at her as he was now, his gaze heavy and unyielding.

Gina looked away, tapping her blunt nails on the glass counter.

“A dozen would be nice, yes, and what’s baking?” Brennen breathed in deeply. “Smells good.”

The rolled biscuits—they didn’t take long in the oven and anything past golden brown would be ruined. And ruined product meant
unsold
product, which Maureen would be violently displeased about. “I’ll be right back.”

She rushed into the back room, grabbing the towel from the counter on the way by, and popped open the oven. Heat blasted her face and rolled upward, the biscuits looking absolutely perfect. She pulled the tray out and dropped it on the island in the center of the room, turned the oven off, and transferred the biscuits to a wire rack with her fingers. Her stomach rumbled at the scent of them—with a bit of butter and jam, they’d be perfect.

“And I’ll take half a dozen of those.”

Gina glanced up to see Brennen hanging in the doorway, grinning at her.

“If they’re not spoken for, that is.”

“They’re not.”

He raised his brows suggestively. “Good to know.”

The bell over the door chimed again. “Excuse me but
what
are you doing?” a voice rang out.

Gina’s stomach bottomed out.

Maureen is back
.

****

Brennen noticed the change in Gina immediately, the pretty baker’s shoulder’s seizing and a tremble working through her fingers. She backed from the counter swiftly, gesturing for Brennen to leave. He did so, stepping back through the curtain and swinging around to see her stepmother standing just inside the door.

Her ice-blue eyes were on him, steady and accusing, even as a frosty smile curved her lips. “Mr. Prescott. So nice to see you.”

Behind her stood one of her daughters, the elder one. Silver-blonde hair like her mother, dressed in pale pink with a ring of pearls around her neck. Tatum Chandler. One of Brennen’s friends had dated her in high school. Beyond that, he knew little about her, except that she had a pouty resting face and gave him a dismissive roll of her eyes.

“Gina was just getting my order,” he said as Gina stepped out of the back room and swiftly walked to the cash register, her head down and hands still shaking. He knew her stepmother was unpleasant but Gina seemed downright terrified of her. He told himself it couldn’t be that bad if Gina was still living and working with the woman—she was nearly twenty-one and more than capable of living on her own—but there was no denying more went on between them than immediately apparent.

“Is she, now?” Maureen Chandler-Cassidy’s sharp gaze moved to Gina, who withdrew a white box from under the counter and began packing up the brownies.

Michael watched the exchange from across the room, silent and still. He worked private security and was used to not attracting attention while he observed a situation. Brennen would have to get his thoughts on things after they left.

Maureen stepped deeper into the room, her four-inch dove gray heels clicking decisively with each step like a ticking bomb counting down before an explosion. Her focus remained on Gina. “Where’s Tamara?”

“I don’t know.” Gina packed up the brownies and set the box by the counter, then excused herself to gather the rolled biscuits.

Maureen gave her older daughter a look. Tatum sighed and dragged her feet up to the counter, her well-manicured finger hammering down on the buttons as she rang up the order.

Brennen gave Mike a look but he gave the slightest shake of his head. So he didn’t want to go through ordering but wanted to get the hell out as quickly as possible.

Can’t blame him there.

Maureen passed the counter and went into the back room, the white curtain swinging closed behind her. The tension in the room didn’t leave with her, instead coiling tight.

Though Brennen listened, he heard nothing for several minutes, and then the curtain parted again to reveal Maureen with the box of rolled biscuits in hand. She set them with the brownies. “If there’s anything else, Tatum can help you.”

So much for seeing Gina today.

He pulled out his wallet to pay while Tatum rang him up, Maureen exiting out the front door behind him. Mike waited silently to the side as Brennen gathered up his boxes and the two of them stepped out into the hot sun on Main Street.

“That was interesting,” Mike said dryly.

“That’s one word for it.” Brennen’s hands tightened on the box as he tried to smooth his annoyance down—he hated that sad, frightened look Gina got, a strange desire to protect her always rising up when he saw it.

Mike went for his car parked around the corner. “I’m taking a new job next week and there’s a meeting about it today, so I’m off.”

Some kind of protective detail—Brennen vaguely recalled mention of it when they met for lunch earlier. “Good luck.”

“And to you.” He cast a wry look at Brennen—a
knowing
look, like he knew full well his insistence on heading to the bakery had nothing to do with the food.

Luck. If he was ever going to get to know Gina better, he’d clearly need it.

Chapter Two

As evening darkened the sky and Midsummer’s downtown core, the bakery remained bright and blindingly white under the fluorescent lights.

The closed sign hung over the front door, as it did at nearly all shops in town except for the bar and grill a few buildings down—things closed down early in Midsummer, and most shop workers were already home having dinner.