Small-Town Cinderella (The Pirelli Brothers)

by Stacy Connelly

  “I could have some tasting cakes ready by this weekend. If you have any of the menus set for the reception dinners, I could see if there’s a certain flavor of cake that would complement the entrees.”

  “I’ll send you what our chef has come up with so far.” They spoke for a few more minutes before Evelyn said, “I think this partnership will benefit us both, and of course, all the credit for the wedding cakes will go to you and your bakery.”

  Debbie accepted the businesswoman’s card but waved aside her offer to pay for the coffee. Promising to be in touch, Evelyn turned and walked out on her three-inch heels. With echo of the bell still ringing in her ears, Debbie held tight to the small card—proof that the past few minutes hadn’t been an illusion. Evelyn wouldn’t be an easy woman to work for, but the opportunity was still too incredible to possibly pass up.

  It was exactly what she wanted—a chance to find her own success in the bakery that still bore her mother’s name. After so many years of keeping her mother’s dream alive, this was her one shot to live her own, and she couldn’t let anything stand in her way. The partnership with the inn would mean a lot of hard work and sacrifice, but that at least was nothing new.

  After all, the bakery had always come first.

  * * *

  Drew wasn’t sure what to expect when Debbie asked him to come over that evening. She’d told him she had some exciting news to share, but something in her voice was off. Something that sounded more nervous than excited.

  When he walked into the bakery, he could see she’d been baking up a storm. The sink was filled with mixing bowls and cake pans and a dozen or so cakes lined the cooling racks. She was whipping something in a stainless-steel bowl, the whisk moving so fast it became little more than a metallic blur in her hand.

  “Give me just a second. This whipped cream is almost ready.”

  “You’ve been busy. Is this another round of taste tests for the new menu?”

  “Not exactly.” Seeming satisfied with the peaks in the cream, she set the bowl aside to face him. She took a deep breath, and a bad feeling settled in Drew’s gut. Whatever news she had to share, he already knew he wasn’t going to like hearing it.

  “Evelyn McClaren stopped by today.”

  As she filled him in on the conversation she’d had with the inn owner, Drew thought maybe he’d misread the situation. Maybe it was just Debbie’s nerves he was picking up on and he’d imagined the rest.

  “That’s great, Debbie! I’m so proud of you.” But when he stepped closer, he knew it wasn’t his imagination that she took a small step back. The movement was slight. Just the tiniest step, but Drew swallowed, seeing it for the chasm it truly was.

  “The thing is, I’m going to be really busy the next few weeks coming up with the perfect cakes and decorations, and then I have Kara and Sam’s wedding cake to bake on top of all that. If this partnership with Hillcrest House takes off the way I hope it will, I’ll have to hire on more help. But that won’t be for several months.”

  “What are you saying, Debbie?”

  “I just think it might be time for us to take a step back.”

  A step back? Most days he felt like he barely had a toehold into her life as it was. “Back to what, exactly?”

  She hesitated. “Just being friends.”

  He couldn’t believe it. “Because you’ve let me so far in already.”

  Her chin rose at his burst of sarcasm, her expression so stubborn and so beautiful it hurt him to look at her. “We agreed. This was just supposed to be a fling.”

  Drew swore beneath his breath. “Don’t give me that! It’s been more than a fling from the start, and you know it.”

  Crossing her arms over her apron, she said, “I told you I wasn’t looking for anything serious. You agreed.”

  “I don’t agree with you kicking me to the curb because you’re scared to realize how serious our relationship already is.”

  “I am not scared! This is my chance to go after my dream, and I’m taking it! This time I’m not going to let anything stand in my way.”

  The blow she landed hit him square in the chest, knocking more than just the wind out of him. Somehow it shattered what was left of his hope. “Is that what you think I do? Stand in the way of your happiness?”

  “No, not— No. But I need to focus and not leave myself open to...distractions.”

  “Distractions. Right.” Because that was what she was reducing their relationship to. The distraction of a meaningless fling.

  Hurt and frustration boiled up inside him, and the hell of it was Drew couldn’t even say that she hadn’t warned him. Debbie had always said the bakery came first. But he’d never expected to find himself so completely out of the running.

  Chapter Twelve

  “What’s this I hear about you not staying open for Halloween night?” Sophia demanded as she walked through the bakery’s back door and into the kitchen.

  “Who told you—” Debbie didn’t need to finish the question as Kayla guiltily ducked her head and muttered something about making sure everything was locked up out front.

  Planting her hands on her hips, her friend looked just like she had when they’d argued as kids. Well, except for her expanding belly. But the stubborn lift to her jaw and flashing eyes were still the same. “You always stay open late on Halloween for the kids to trick-or-treat here before they head over to the Fall Fest in the town square!”

  “I’ve just been too busy this year to even think about it. The other stores on Main Street will still be open—including The Hope Chest—so it’s not like the kids will be disappointed.”

  “It’s not the kids I’m worried about. You love dressing up every year almost as much as you love seeing the kids in their costumes and passing out miniature cookies for them to eat!”

  She did love dressing up. So much so that she’d bought a costume a few weeks ago. An ice-blue ball gown complete with white, elbow-length gloves, a sparkling tiara and glass—well, clear plastic—slippers. Her hand lifted to a real glass slipper—the tiny crystal pendant Drew had given her—and the one she hadn’t been able to take off.

  “I just—can’t.” To her horror, her eyes filled with tears, and she couldn’t look away fast enough to hide them from Sophia.

  Sympathy softened her friend’s expression for a split second before her typical drill-sergeant personality took over. Grabbing Debbie’s arm, she practically dragged her from the kitchen to the stair that led to the apartment above.

  “The bakery—”

  “Kayla will finish up anything that needs to be done. That’s why you hired her.” Marching her over to the living room’s small, shabby-chic love seat, Sophia settled Debbie against the cushions before raiding her bathroom for a box of tissue and her kitchen for a pint of mint-chocolate-chip ice cream and two spoons. “Now tell me,” she said with a sigh, “how badly do I have to beat up Drew?”

  Almost choking on her first frozen bite, Debbie stared at her friend. “You—knew?”

  “Of course I knew! You’re my best friend and Drew’s my brother. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice something going on between the two of you?”

  “You never said anything...”

  “Because you weren’t talking! But I did warn Drew that I’d hurt him if he hurt you. So tell me, how badly do I need to beat him up?”

  Her eyes burning with tears again, Debbie stuck the spoon back into the ice cream, unable to eat another bite.

  “That bad, huh?”

  “No, and that’s what makes it so sad.” Pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes, she admitted, “It wasn’t Drew. It was me.”

  “Well, I guess I should be glad about that, at least. Don’t tell Nick or Sam, but Drew’s always been my favorite brother.” That got a short laugh out of Debbie as Sophia pulled her hands fro
m her face and passed her several tissues. “So I guess my next question is how badly did you hurt him?”

  “Oh, Sophia. I never meant to.” And just like that, the whole story came pouring out—from the moment Drew had overheard them at the bachelorette party to when he’d walked out a few days before.

  “He was right, too. I am scared. I don’t know how to handle this opportunity with Hillcrest House and still make time for a relationship. If I blow this chance with Evelyn, what if I end up blaming and resenting Drew? And if I focus too much on the bakery, then he’ll just end up resenting me.”

  She took a deep breath and looked over to her best friend for comfort and support and—

  Sophia lifted a shoulder in a casual shrug. “Other couples juggle jobs and relationships all the time.”

  “What?”

  “Well, they do. Jake and I manage even with all the work he does out of town. Nick and Darcy. Sam and Kara. We’ve all made it work.”

  “Okay, well, thank you very much for the pep talk that’s made me feel like an even bigger failure.”

  “You’re not a failure, but I don’t think you’re being totally honest with yourself about what it is you’re truly afraid of.”

  “This partnership with Hillcrest House is a really big deal. What else would I be afraid of?”

  After setting the ice cream on the beat-up steamer trunk Debbie used for a coffee table, Sophia picked up the framed photograph sitting there. The last picture taken of her father before he died. “He’s the only other man you’ve ever loved, and you lost him,” Sophia said softly.

  Tracing a finger over the cool, smooth glass, Debbie argued, “I was just a kid. I don’t even remember...”

  Except that wasn’t true. Not entirely. A memory, far more faded and faint than the picture in the frame, lingered in her mind. Her birthday party the year she turned four. She’d invited friends from preschool and had worn a new dress. The cake her mother made had been enormous in her childish mind—bigger than she was—with layer after pink layer reaching to the ceiling.

  Her father hadn’t been there, but a calendar had hung on the refrigerator, and each day she and her mother had marked off another day. First counting down to her birthday and then to the day when her daddy would be home. And she’d been so excited... She’d closed her eyes tight when she’d blown out those candles, wishing so hard that when she opened them, her daddy would already be there—

  Opening her eyes over twenty-two years later, he still wasn’t there.

  Maybe it was that moment when she was a little girl—or maybe it was years later when her mother was diagnosed with cancer—that she’d stopped wishing, stopped hoping, stopped believing. And in place of wishes and hope and faith, fear had taken root. The fear that nothing good could last and that temporary was all she could count on.

  She’d been right about Drew all along. He wasn’t a temporary kind of guy. He was the kind of man a woman could love forever—if she was brave enough to trust in a forever love.

  “You’re right. I’m afraid of how much I already love Drew. I did my best to minimize what we had and to keep him at a distance and it still didn’t work. I still fell in love with him, and if I lost him—the way my mom lost my dad—”

  “Sweetie, you know how much your mom loved your dad and how much she missed him, but don’t you think if she had the chance to do it all over again, she would? In a heartbeat? Because that’s what love is. It’s a celebration of the time we do have together—whether that’s decades or even only days.”

  “She would have lost him a hundred times as long as it meant she had the chance to love him first.” Wiping at her eyes, she looked at her friend. “So what do I do? How do I fix things with Drew?”

  “Well, first off, you’re staying open late for Halloween and you’re coming to the Fall Fest.”

  “Seriously?” Debbie fell back against the cushions with a faint laugh.

  “Yes, I take all holidays very seriously. Now tell me—because I know you already have one—what’s your costume for this year?”

  Heaving a sigh, she admitted, “Cinderella.”

  Sophia’s clapped her hands together. “Yes! That is just perfect.”

  “Why?”

  “Because,” she said with a matchmaking twinkle in her dark eyes, “I am your fairy godmother.”

  * * *

  True to her word, Sophia arrived the afternoon of Halloween to help with the magical transformation of turning Debbie into a princess. She had to admit her friend had done an amazing job with her makeup and hair, sweeping her blond curls into a cartoon-perfect twist.

  The only change Debbie made to the costume was passing up the glass slippers for the heels Drew had bought for her. Not that anyone could see them beneath the gown’s full skirt, but she felt a little more hopeful simply knowing she was wearing them.

  And she could use all the hope and all the help she could get.

  No matter how many times she asked Sophia, her friend had refused to tell Debbie how she planned to get Drew to come to the Fall Fest that night.

  “Trust me,” Sophia promised when she stopped by the bakery looking adorable in green leggings and an orange sweatshirt with a grinning black jack-o’-lantern face over her pregnant belly.

  “Drew will be there. Just make sure you get to the square before midnight,” she teased with a wink.

  “I’m closing up at seven. I think I’ll make it,” she said as she handed out another bite-size cookie, this time to a toddler dressed in the cutest black-and-red ladybug outfit. She couldn’t help smiling as the delicate little girl tried to shove her whole fist, cookie and all, into her mouth, much to her mother’s embarrassment.

  The festival was in full swing by the time Debbie arrived. The cool evening air was filled with the scents of fried food, kettle corn and the hay bales scattered around for seating and ambiance. The town square was decorated in the orange and black of Halloween along with the rich, vibrant colors of fall. Music drifted above the sounds of talking and laughter, and she saw that the local cover band had taken its place on the stage.

  Looking around for her friends, she spotted Sam Pirelli first. Dressed in full Captain Jack Sparrow regalia, complete with hat, eyeliner and dreadlocks, he was hard to miss. Kara stood alongside him, looking at once embarrassed and yet proud to have such a good-looking, if outrageous, fiancé. Jake Cameron, Sophia’s husband, hadn’t dressed up, but he stood behind his wife, his arms wrapped around their “pumpkin” in the oven.

  Debbie knew Kara hadn’t wanted Timmy out too late and figured his grandparents had already taken him home. Nick’s daughter, Maddie, had stopped by the bakery earlier with a group of friends, giving Nick and Darcy a night alone.

  Which left only one Pirelli unaccounted for.

  As Debbie made her way through the crowd, the band switched to a ballad. First Sam and Kara, and then Sophia and Jake stepped onto the makeshift dance floor. Debbie’s footsteps slowed as the couples wrapped their arms around each other and gazed into one another’s eyes. As much as she loved spending time with her friends, did she really want to play the part of the fifth wheel throughout the evening if Drew didn’t show?

  She pulled the white shawl she’d added to help ward off the October chill a little closer. Her pale blue skirt rustled against her legs, and while she certainly wasn’t the only one in costume, she was starting to feel all dressed up with no place to go.

  * * *

  Drew had done some foolish things in his life. A man could hardly reach the age of thirty without having more than a few what-the-hell-was-I-thinking moments, but he was pretty sure tonight might end up taking the cake.

  Walking toward the square, he stopped short as he caught sight of himself in a darkened store window. In a small town like Clearville, businesses shut down in the early evening on most nights.
They certainly did on nights when the town had an event like the Fall Fest planned.

  The event would run for hours, starting with little kids trick-or-treating throughout town rather than trying to go from house to house where neighbors were separated by several acres of land. After that, families would head toward the town square. Costume contests and pie throwing and pumpkin carving were all scheduled, and he could already hear music from a local band playing. A cheer rose as they switched to a classic-rock song with a pulsing beat guaranteed to get the crowd jumping and bounce the slow dancers off the floor.

  But it was still early. Early enough for him to go home and change.

  The wavy image in the storefront window seemed to urge him to do just that. To change his clothes and change his mind and maybe not make a total ass out of himself.

  Why had he listened to Sophia in the first place? For all he knew this was some kind of setup, payback for him pulling her pigtails one too many times back when they were kids. Except his sister wasn’t the type to kick a man when he was down, and there was no question that was how she’d found him when she’d stopped by his house the day before.

  He’d crashed on the couch, Rain by his side, as he’d tried to watch the midweek football game. By the third quarter, the contest was a rout, but that had little to do with his lack of attention.

  Had he really read Debbie so wrong? He’d been so sure she wanted more than casual, more than temporary. Had he only seen what he wanted to see?

  He heard the knock on his front door a split second before the sound of it opening, signaling it was a member of his nosy family. Rain jumped down to welcome the visitor, and his sister greeted the dog in a high-pitched voice guaranteed to set the puppy shaking with excitement.

  “The point of knocking,” he told her as she carried the ecstatic puppy back into the living room, “is to wait for the person inside to let you in.”

  Dropping onto the couch beside him, she lifted her chin out of the way of Rain’s darting tongue. “Thought I’d save you the trouble.”