by Stella Quinn
Because he was Seth Morrow. That’s why.
I allowed myself a moment of weakness and a broken sob, then I sniffed, gathered myself back together like a true Southern woman, and decided one lost job opportunity was not going to defeat me.
I was going to put on my big girl panties and find something. Anything. Whatever I needed to do to put the pieces of myself back together, I would do.
I drove out of the parking lot of Exit Stage Left feeling emotionally cleansed.
But still way embarrassed.
I took some time to drive around my old hometown before going home. There were few places prettier than Asheville. I never thought LA was pretty at all. I wasn’t the kind of person to be swayed by glitz and glamour when a lot of it only served to cover up bitter personalities and infighting. I’d learned some hard lessons there, especially when I’d gotten tangled up with Seth Morrow, but I thought I’d come out stronger because of it.
Even though I was back home now with not much to show for it, I’d still lived a full life out in California. Plus, I’d escaped the kind of embarrassment that could ruin careers. I simply hadn’t been a big enough fixture in the acting scene to become more than a blip on someone’s radar.
Although I hated that I’d come home a failure, I did enjoy the fact I could walk outside with no one the wiser and do my own thing without people following me everywhere.
When I first got to California, I yearned for the paparazzi to follow me around like they did the bigger celebrities. But as I stayed longer and watched a little closer, I could see the strained expression on the celebrity faces as they just tried to get a smoothie or try to do something normal.
To be that exposed all the time felt like it would become a chore. Don’t get me wrong. I missed it terribly, but it was the acting that I missed. Not everything else.
Acting was a job I loved. I didn’t like the shallow veneer of everything else.
Perhaps I wasn’t completely cut out to be a big name anyhow.
I groaned as I thought about my conversation with Ruthie. I really needed that job. Plus, I really wanted it, too. It would be the closest I could get to real acting without resorting to community theater. Nothing was wrong with community theater, of course, but I thought I would be able to test my mettle out more as an actress if it was around people who had no idea I was acting. I also wasn’t crazy about Shakespeare or all those older classic plays some of the playhouses put on. The last time I said thee or thou was when the teacher forced me to read aloud in high school English class.
I swung into a little bakery I passed on the way back home. I hadn’t seen this place before, but the sign was bright, pink, and topped with a swirl of plastic icing.
The first thing to hit me was the smell, and I marveled at it. It felt like everything smelled good in this town. We had BBQ that even the Texans couldn’t turn their nose up at, desserts that would make the Food Network proud, hidden diners that the locals would fiercely protect to keep secret, and even Michelin-starred restaurants scattered around the town.
But this place smelled like I was cavorting in a bathtub full of the softest vanilla buttercream. Stepping into the place, the look of it was even more wondrous. It was like Willy Wonka himself had gone in and thrown up on the place. Brilliant multicolored walls made me blink in surprise. Black and white tiled floors gave it a strange retro feel, but the ceiling was decorated with what appeared to be chocolate fountains.
I frowned at that and stepped carefully around them just in case they were real. I’d just done my hair.
The woman behind the counter wore a hot pink button-down shirt with the name Beatrice stitched in black across the right side of her chest. Her bottle job crimson colored hair was hot rolled into a Rockabilly style and her face was perfectly made up with spot-on cat’s eye eyeliner and deep red lips.
“What can I get ya, doll?” she drawled.
I blinked at her and couldn’t help the smile that curled around my lips. This place was amazing.
“First-timer? We get that look a lot.” She pointed up at the ceiling. “Not real. The owner of this place is an artist. On top of being a killer baker.” She pointed up at the marquee menu. “Special today is our German chocolate cupcake and our lemon scones.” The woman wrinkled her nose. “Personally, I’m not a fan of any scone. Why eat something that tastes like a biscuit when there’s cake right next to it?”
I was inclined to agree with her. I stepped up and perused the menu. After today’s job interview debacle, I thought I deserved something nice, sweet, and delicious.
“I’ll try the German chocolate,” I said.
The woman punched it into the register. “Will that be all?”
My gaze caught on their cookie selection. I could have never eaten like this when I was still in LA. The disapproving stares would have turned even the most delicious thing into dust in my mouth.
“I’ll take a dozen crispy chocolate chip cookies.”
“Nice,” she said with a nod. “They’re a slow seller. Most people like a chewy chocolate chip, but I like mine to have a bit of a crunch.”
“Me too. Plus my parents like them, too.” I swung back around to look outside, trying to remember the name of the place.
“Pepper’s,” the woman said as if she knew what I was trying to do. “The decor takes everyone by surprise and they forget everything.”
“Pepper’s,” I repeated. “I’ll have to tell my mom about this place.”
She rattled off my total and went to gather up my goodies.
And that was how for the space of about thirty minutes, I forgot about Seth Morrow and how I probably blew a job interview over him.
Head to Amazon to purchase or borrow your copy of MOURNING ROUTINE so that you can keep reading this cozy mystery series today!
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About the Author
Stella Quinn is a multi-award-winning author.
She has three words written on the corkboard above her writing desk: romance, adventure, escape…and she tries to instil elements of these in her books. Small town romance is her favorite genre to write, but she has a soft spot for all romance where the heroes are ordinary people with charm and heart, and the heroines are totally capable of saving themselves, but boy-oh-boy is it nice when some sweetheart of a guy steps up to help from time to time.
She also loves dogs…big ones, small ones, sweet ones, naughty ones. After a life-long love affair with Labradors, she’s now the proud servant of a feisty shit-zhu x cavalier puppy named JoJo Bean. She also loves cats, but don’t tell JoJo Bean that. When she’s not scribbling romance stories into notebooks in cafes, she can be found tucked up on the sofa reading, thrashing her four children at scrabble, or trying to coax the puppy-chewed plants in her garden back to life.
To read a small town romantic novella where a Labrador named Jellybean is guarding a wounded hero, why not join Stella’s reader group and receive your free copy of The Umbrella Diaries.