His First and Last (Ardent Springs #1) (9 page)

With narrowed eyes, Snow studied Lorelei. She looked to be weighing the pros and cons of the situation. If the scale came down on the side of the cons, Lorelei wouldn’t blame her one bit.

“I appreciate your honesty,” Snow said with a nod. “If you’re available during the festival, the spot is yours. But in the meantime, if you have something I can sell, bring it in.”

Lorelei blinked. “To sell?” Could she part with a few of her meager belongings?

“Sure,” the woman answered. “Do you make anything? Jewelry, hats, crafts of any kind?”

She’d been called crafty more than once, but not the way Snow meant. “Afraid not. I used to sew back when I was in high school, but I haven’t threaded a needle in a dozen years.”

“Then maybe it’s time to get back to it,” Snow said as the bell over the door jingled. “Got a customer. Feel free to look around. Maybe you’ll get an idea of something you could make. Fill a void, as it were.” Without waiting for a response, the owner was off to help the newcomer.

Lorelei took the offer to wander around the store, racking her brain to think of anything she could make that Snow could turn into money. She’d dabbled in making a skirt or two in home ec, but she’d never been very good at it. Watching someone else make jewelry didn’t mean she had the skill for it either, but then there was no lack of pretty baubles in this establishment.

The more she pondered, the more Lorelei realized the mistake she’d made chasing a worthless dream for so long. Her twenties were the decade she was supposed to find herself. To get good at something.

Lorelei had gotten good at one thing—slinging plates. And if anything, she’d lost herself instead of the other way around. This might as well have been her first day out of high school, and she had about as many answers as the clueless eighteen-year-old she’d been back then.

Maybe the pizzeria was still an option.

Chapter 7

Spencer pulled his truck up to the garage door, relieved the day was over. Between his run-in with Grady, faulty measurements on the Leeds house, and the missed delivery of semigloss varnish at the workshop, the afternoon had sucked. But it was nothing a cold beer and a happy dog couldn’t cure.

Though some quiet time with Lorelei would be even better.

Imagining an evening with Lorelei tucked against his side put a smile on Spencer’s face as he climbed the stairs to his apartment. He expected Champ to rush through the door, but when he pushed it open there was nothing but silence to greet him. That was strange. If Rosie had let the dog out early, Spencer would have been rushed by seventy-five pounds of black Lab as soon as he stepped out of the truck.

Concerned and confused, Spencer traveled back down the stairs and headed for the house. Halfway across the yard he spotted Lorelei sitting on the porch swing. She met his eye as he reached the top step.

“I think you’ve been thrown over for a pretty girl,” she said, gesturing toward the black Lab leaning against her knee. She was scratching behind his ear, and the dog looked to be in ecstasy. Spencer tamped down the punch of jealousy.

“I don’t blame him,” he said, ambling down the porch. “I’d fall at your feet, too, if rubbed the right way.”

Lorelei gave him a stern look. “Don’t start the flirting already. I’m in a weakened state and don’t know that I can fend you off.”

That sounded positive to him, but her eyes told him she wasn’t kidding. Looked like her day wasn’t much better than his had been.

“Want to talk about it?” he asked.

Lorelei chewed her bottom lip, her eyes focused somewhere near her orange-tipped toes. “I tried to get a job at the diner,” she said, her voice so quiet he had to strain to hear her.

He could see how well that went by the look on her face, but he asked anyway. “No luck?”

A heavy sigh served as her answer.

“Did you try anyplace else?” he asked as he settled onto the swing beside her.

“I considered the other restaurants in town, since waiting tables is my only marketable skill, but doubted I’d have better luck.” Running a hand through her hair, Lorelei sat back. “Then I tried that Snow’s Curiosity Shop, thinking maybe someone who doesn’t know my history would give me a chance.”

Seemed like a good idea. One he should have thought of for her. “No luck there either?”

She gave a noncommittal shrug, her eyes yet to meet his. “I didn’t exactly get a no. She’s willing to let me work the week of the Main Street Festival.”

As Lorelei lost interest in Champ, the dog nudged his owner’s hand, looking for more attention. Spencer obliged with a scratch under his chin.

“That’s something. Maybe you’ll do so well, she’ll keep you on.”

“She also suggested I bring in something she can sell, but we both know I don’t have a crafty bone in my body.”

Spencer turned in his seat to play with a lock of Lorelei’s hair. “Depends on what you mean by crafty.”

If looks could kill, he’d be choking for air. “Forgive me if I’m not in the mood to laugh. This is my life, Spencer. My screwed-up-beyond-saving life. Whoever said you
can’t
go home again knew what he was talking about.”

“Ah, Thomas Wolfe.”

Now he had her attention. “You know who said that?”

“I suppose someone else might have said it before, but it’s the title of a Thomas Wolfe book.” He
was
a reader. She didn’t have to look so surprised.

“What did you ever see in me?” she asked, taking him by surprise.

“Uh . . . What?” Several answers came to mind, but few he figured she’d believe. And most he wasn’t willing to admit since he still saw them in her today. Though tarnished and dimmed in places, the Lorelei he loved was still in there. Whether she believed it or not.

“You’re a genius compared to me.” Lorelei pushed off the swing, sending it into motion so that Spencer was forced to put his boot down to keep the seat from taking off Champ’s head. “Your background is as screwed up as mine, if not worse, and yet you have your life together. You have a job and you’re going to school and people respect you. Maybe that’s the one thing I did right,” she added, storming off toward the front door.

Spencer caught her before her hand reached the screen. “What did you do right?”

“I took myself out of your life,” she answered, rare tears dancing at the edge of her lashes. “If I’ve screwed up my own life this bad, imagine what I would have done to yours.”

“Lorelei, you haven’t screwed up your life.” Out of instinct, he tried to pull her close, but Lorelei bolted away.

“You look at me and you see what you want to see, Spencer. You always did.” She shook her head. “Open your eyes, because the woman standing before you is a mess. I have nothing to show for my life but the clothes in my broken suitcases. I’m thirty years old and I’m no better off than a child.”

He wasn’t about to encourage her pity party. “You’re the one who needs to open your eyes. You have a grandmother who loves you and would do anything for you. You have two good legs and a strong back, and there’s nothing wrong with that brain of yours except this delusion that life owes you something.” Spencer took off his hat to run a hand through his hair, then slammed it back on. “You get what you give, Lorelei. You work hard and you earn the life you want.”

“You think I didn’t work hard in LA?” she asked. “I worked my butt off. I took classes and worked endless night shifts so I could run around auditioning all day, only to be told that I wasn’t pretty enough or tall enough or short enough or stacked enough. Do you know what that’s like? Do you?” she drilled. “No, you don’t. So forgive me for wanting a break. For wanting something good to finally come my way.”

“Getting a job waiting tables would be a break?” Spencer asked. “Really?”

Lorelei threw her hands up. “I don’t know. It would have been something.”

“It would have been more of what you hate doing.” She needed to see that this was an opportunity to start over. “Take this chance to find something else. What did you love doing in the past that you’d want to do again? Something besides acting.”

“I don’t know what I could do in this dinky town.”

“Forget the town. That’s an excuse.” Spencer wrapped his hands around the tops of her arms and gave Lorelei a gentle shake. “What did you love to do that you’d want to do again?”

Blue eyes darted around the porch as she struggled to find an answer. Then, out of nowhere, she said, “Baking.”

Spencer stilled. “Baking?”

“Yes,” she said, shaking him off. “The only thing I loved doing was helping Granny in the kitchen. There’s a method to baking. You know, if you do A, B, and C exactly as the recipe calls for, you’ll get it right.” Lorelei’s voice grew stronger as she continued. “And baking isn’t like cooking, where you can throw in a pinch of this or take out a cup of that and the dish still turns out fine. Baking takes precision. There’s no ambiguity to it.”

“And the cookies and breads don’t care if you’re pretty enough or tall enough,” Spencer said, leaning against the porch post. “They turn out the same so long as you follow the recipe.”

A grin teased at the corners of Lorelei’s mouth. “Yes. I guess that’s a plus.”

“Then there you go,” he said, throwing an arm across her shoulders as he opened the screen door. “Lorelei the Baker is born.”

Could she really do this? Lorelei stared through Beluga’s windshield once again, gnashing her teeth over what to do next. In her brief perusal of Snow’s shop, she hadn’t seen anything edible. Not even candies near the register. So there was no reason to believe Snow even wanted to sell food. After all, breads and cookies had expiration dates. Jewelry and waffle irons did not. But that also meant Lorelei could provide an item that wasn’t already in supply among the inventory.

Snow wanted something to fill a void, and that’s what Lorelei could give her.

Before her confidence could wane, Lorelei marched through Snow’s front door, pausing beneath the jingling bells to let her eyes once again adjust from glaring sun to dim interior. According to the sign in the window, the shop opened at ten. Lorelei planned her visit for 10:02, hoping she’d have a chance to talk to Snow without interruptions from
shoppers. The one stipulation the store owner would have to agree to was that no one would know where the baked goods came from.

If the locals knew Lorelei supplied the treats, they were less likely to buy. So the source had to remain a mystery. Thankfully, Granny had agreed to keep her mouth shut, though getting her to swear not to tell Pearl had been no easy task.

“Hey there, Lorelei,” said the woman she was there to see, appearing from the back of the store. “I thought I heard the bells go off.”

“That was me,” Lorelei said, her entire body filling with heat as she fought the urge to run.
I will not chicken out,
she thought. Moisture covered her palms, and she rubbed them on the front of her white denim skirt. “I’ve thought about what you said yesterday, about bringing in something you can sell.”

“Really?” Snow’s brows shot up as she leaned a hand on the glass counter. “Do you have something for me to look at?”

“Not exactly. It’s more of a proposition right now.”

Snow smiled as she crossed her arms. “I haven’t been propositioned in a while. You have my attention.”

Lorelei straightened her shoulders as she performed the speech she’d been rehearsing since the night before. “While walking around your store yesterday, I noticed that you don’t sell any food items, and that might be by design, but you did suggest I fill a void and that’s what I’m offering to do. Three days a week I could supply you with fresh, homemade sweets, including a variety of cookies, brownies, cupcakes, and breads. And I can come back at closing time and take whatever hasn’t sold so you don’t have to deal with it.”

Her potential distributor tapped a manicured fingernail on the counter. “You’re right. I did say fill a void, and that’s something I don’t have.” Glancing around the shop, she added, “I’ve never thought about selling anything edible, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work. I’d have to try some samples before saying yes, though.”

“That can be arranged,” Lorelei replied, her mind already running through which cookies to make. But she knew if this was going to work, she had to be up front with Snow about the need for anonymity. “There would be one requirement.”

“What’s that?”

“No one can know where the desserts come from,” she said in a rush.

If anything was going to blow this deal, that was it. But Lorelei believed with all her being that if anyone knew she would profit from the baked goods, not a crumb would be sold. She needed to make money from this, especially since she didn’t have a plan B. Heck, this
was
plan B.

“An odd request,” Snow said with eyes narrowed, “but I’ve heard enough around town to understand why you wouldn’t want folks to know it’s you.”

That was good
and
bad. “You’re still willing to give me a chance? Even knowing my reputation?” Lorelei asked.

“Anyone who can tell an entire town to go to hell and then have the nerve to come back to it deserves a chance in my book.”

Good to know the rumors were at least accurate.