The Baker's Beauty (The River Hill Series Book 3)

by Rebecca Norinne

  Now, as he shaved, he reflected that his mother was biding her time to see what he was going to do. That was the sort of person she was. She’d never been the sort of mom who interfered in his life, but she’d always somehow known what he was going to do before he did it. He had no idea if she was aware of how bad his drinking had gotten, but Angelica’s threat of telling her had undoubtedly worked on him. His mother didn’t deserve to be dragged through the mud with him. He’d begged the record label to put pressure on the media not to talk about his hometown or his family during the inquiry, something they’d agreed to do as one last favor.

  He sighed. Noah’s call had come while he was doing his usual—nothing. He’d gone through a few emails from old colleagues and friends and surfed the internet aimlessly for a while. He’d checked on a few market trends—cake balls were still a hot topic, but his mother refused to allow them in The Breadery. Secretly, he agreed with her. Nobody should treat cake that way.

  He wiped down the sink and headed back to the bedroom. The apartment was nice enough—far more spacious than the studio space over Max’s garage that Iain had once occupied. But it was still a far cry from his place in L.A. He stripped down to his boxers and flipped the covers back on the bed, reflecting once again that if he was committing to staying in River Hill, he really ought to get his own place. One that had room for a bigger bed than a full-sized mattress.

  But he still had no idea if he was going to stay. It had been two years, and the idea of going back to L.A. still made him nauseous and shaky. But the thought of staying here, in sleepy River Hill, where it seemed like the only thing he knew to do was drink or stay home, didn’t entirely appeal either. So he stayed here, at his mother’s house, in a strange sort of limbo.

  He slid into the bed and let himself imagine coming up against another body there, maybe the girl he kept seeing jogging past the bakery. Warm skin, long hair, full lips, perfect breasts… He reached down and took himself in hand. If he wasn’t going to have company in bed, he could at least pretend. Lord knew he’d been doing plenty of that lately.

  The next morning, Sean let his hands move through the motions of opening the bakery without paying much attention, still occupied by the questions that had been nagging at him all night. His sleep had been fitful—not great for the early shift. He mixed, poured, kneaded, and shaped dough mechanically, flicking muffin tins and sheet trays in and out of the enormous ovens. It was Tuesday, so he made his specialty—apple fritters. They were Naomi’s favorite too—she and Iain would almost certainly be in to pick up a few later in the morning.

  He paused in the middle of chopping apples, the knife coming to rest on the board with a thunk as he remembered with an internal wince that he was only in the habit of making fritters on Tuesdays because that was when he’d been sober enough to handle a sharp knife safely. The Hut closed early on Monday nights. He smirked and tossed a piece of apple into his mouth. Maybe he’d surprise Naomi with a fritter delivery on Thursday, just to watch her face. It was hard to surprise the cool and collected Miss Klein, though Iain had made her a little less buttoned up these days.

  He finished chopping the fruit and added it to the bowl with the dough, then dug in with his hands to create the lumpy balls that would go into the fryer before being covered in a light glaze. His thoughts wandered back to Naomi, then on to Iain, her boyfriend, although she still winced at the term. Iain sold whiskey for a living. His family was practically royalty in Ireland, as they’d been in the distilling business of for generations. Iain and his sister had brought a new blend to California last year, and their sales were going gangbusters. Sean looked down at the fritters he’d been shaping. “Whiskey glaze,” he murmured aloud. “Wonder if Mom would go for it.”

  Probably not. The Breadery didn’t embrace new things. Even the fritter recipe had come from one of his grandfather’s books. Or maybe his great-grandfather. The front room of his mother’s house was lined with shelves that held the Amory Recipes, sacred hand-written books from generations of bakers. Her pet project was digitizing them. He’d bought her a top of the line scanner a few years ago, and she’d been working to scan page after page of crabby Amory handwriting ever since.

  He dumped the empty bowl in the sink and carried the apple peels and cores to the compost bin by the back exit.

  He glanced at his watch. Trash time. If he were lucky, he’d catch his fantasy girl again. He pulled the bag and spun it closed as he opened the door. There she was, just rounding the corner. Today she was wearing teal compression leggings with mesh panels along the thighs, and his mouth watered at the glimpse of skin they revealed. He tossed the bag into the dumpster as she began her usual slow-down-and-sniff routine.

  Normally, he just leaned against the wall and exchanged a smile with her. Today, thoughts of his future in River Hill whirling in his head, he stepped forward. “Hi.”

  She came to a stop and met his eyes. “Hi.”

  “Um, I’m Sean.” He wasn’t entirely sure what to do, now that he’d initiated this conversation. He reached out a hand.

  She set her hand in his, and they shook. Her grasp was warm and firm, the skin of her hands soft. “I’m Jess.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “You too. You work here?”

  “Yeah.” He didn’t qualify it with specifics. He didn’t need to impress her with his last name. At least, not yet.

  “You do good work. Smells amazing.” She smiled, and it was like the sun rising a second time that morning.

  “Thanks.”

  “I’ll see you around, Sean,” she said. “Gotta finish my run.”

  He nodded. “Have a good morning.”

  “You too.” She inhaled one last deep breath, and he couldn’t help himself—his eyes dropped to her incredible breasts. He dragged them back up in time to see her grinning at him before she took off again.

  He leaned against the wall, running a hand through his hair. Jess. At least now he had a name to go with his dreams.

  Chapter 4

  The TV station’s makeup artist dabbed at a shiny spot on Jess’s nose, while a frazzled assistant called out the countdown to showtime from across the set. “I’m sorry.” She continued to forcefully buff and polish Jess’s face. “I can’t get the color to blend properly.”

  Jess held in a sigh. This wasn’t the first time she’d heard that. Honestly, she didn’t get it. She was Mexican-American, but she had a relatively light, smooth complexion. And it wasn’t like brown skin was that uncommon in California. Perhaps it was the abundance of freckles dotting the bridge of her nose and cheekbones—courtesy of her father’s genetics—that was the problem. Damn Irish roots. She’d rather blame the freckles than assume every single makeup artist she’d ever met was vaguely racist.

  “That’s all right,” she said trying not to let her frustration show. “I carry my own foundation, if that’ll help.”

  Over the years, she’d learned what makeup worked on her skin tone and what didn’t. Unfortunately, the former was a much shorter list than the latter. Carrying a brand she knew would do the job under any circumstance meant she was often able to head off disaster at the pass. She hoped this would be one of those times, because by the look on the other woman’s face, whatever she was using was not up to the task.

  Her nose scrunched with disapproval. “I’m not supposed to, but ...” She cast her eyes about the cordoned-off space to make sure no one was paying attention. “We’re only supposed to use the brands that have been approved. Something about—”

  Her words were cut off by a harried-looking assistant carrying a clipboard and an iPad. “Is she done?”

  The makeup artist looked between Jess and her co-worker, and Jess saw the moment the woman decided to throw her to the wolves instead of fixing the bad makeup job. “Yeah, she’ll do.”

  “But—” Jess started to say when the assistant grabbed her hand and pulled her out of her chair. The makeup artist mouthed “sorry” as she was dragged away.


  Jess tipped her head back and looked to the heavens. Ay, dios mío, she thought as the assistant led behind the anchor’s desk. Following the commercial break, she was supposed to sit there and speak authoritatively on the season’s best beauty trends … all while looking like a damn fool. Some expert she was.

  Sylvia Barrows, the anchor for this hour of programming, stepped around Jess to sit in her raised chair. “You have something on your nose,” she said, pointing at her own face and twirling her finger.

  Jess sighed. “Yeah, there was some … difficulty.” She felt bad throwing the makeup artist under the bus. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t know how to blend foundation properly. Wait, no. She shook her head and rolled her eyes inwardly. If it wasn’t the woman’s fault for not knowing how to do her job properly, then whose was it? Certainly not Jess’s. “Suffice it to say; brown skin doesn’t seem to be her forte.”

  Sylvia glanced at the countdown clock across the room, and then covertly passed Jess a moist baby wipe. A kind smile stretched her expertly-lined lips. “You don’t have enough time to fix it properly, but you can wipe most of it off before the camera rolls. You might wind up shiny, but at least you’ll be the right color.”

  “Thanks.” Jess turned in her seat to hide the shoddy work she was surreptitiously undoing.

  “No problem,” Sylvia said, gesturing to a small waste bin at their feet. “My sister-in-law is Mexican, so I get it.”

  Before Jess could respond, Sylvia held up her index finger and tapped her ear. Then, she sat up straight in her chair, her demeanor suddenly all business-like.

  “Hello, and welcome to your favorite morning news broadcast,” she began a few seconds later. “This hour, we’ll bring you live reports from the fires raging down in Santa Barbara, as well as news on the proposed teachers’ strike in Marin. But first, let’s get your morning started on a more positive note. Today we’re welcoming Jessica Casillas-Moore back to the show. Jess is here to discuss the season’s biggest trends. Good morning, Jess.”

  Sylvia swiveled in her chair to face Jess, her cue to launch into her prepared remarks. Suddenly, however, she didn’t feel like she could say what she’d planned to. The station had brought her in as an expert, and she didn’t look the part right now.

  Jess knew she had a choice to make. She could either phone it in and hope the audience wasn’t too vicious when they tore her to shreds for her appearance (which would result in the station never inviting her back, as well as a storm of negative comments on her own blog), or she could get real with the audience and hope she wasn’t blacklisted. Either way, she probably wouldn’t get another opportunity to show her face in studio 3B again after this morning. She firmed her jaw. If she was going to be ripped to shreds by assholes in the comments section online regardless of which path she chose, it might as well be because she’d delivered some hard, honest truths.

  “Good morning, Sylvia, and thank you for inviting me back.” Jess flashed the smile that had won her a dozen or more trophies, and then slumped over theatrically and ran her fingers through her hair. Or at least tried to. While the makeup person the station used might not have known her craft, their hairstylist was no joke. Jess’s hair was not moving.

  With a self-deprecating laugh, she dropped her hands onto the counter. “Honestly, I’d love to tell you all about the best corduroy jeggings to fit your body type, or why nude lipstick is all the rage, but as you can see from my face, today is not going the way I’d intended. So instead, I wanted to talk to you about something else.” She gestured toward her freckled nose, on full view to the camera.

  Jess let her eyes slide to Sylvia to see if she was going to put a stop to the change of topic, but the other woman smiled and said, “I think all of us can say we’ve been there. What mom hasn’t?”

  Jess wasn’t a mom, but sure, she’d play right along—especially since she knew most of the program’s viewers were parents. “As you can tell from my name, I’m a bit of a mutt—a mixture of Mexican on my mom’s side, and Irish-American on my dad’s. That means sometimes all this—” she raised her hand and rotated her finger in front of her face “—can pose a bit of a challenge in the makeup department. And I know I’m not alone. As Sylvia said, we’ve all been there.” She took a deep breath and plunged on.

  “And while there are days where we might want to say to heck with it, the reality is, we can’t. How many times have you skipped your blush, only for your co-worker Greg to mention that you look a bit tired today? Or, when you didn’t fill in your brows, the guy at the coffee shop remarked that it looked like you could really use that double espresso? Or, how about when you pick up your kid at school, another mom asks if you’re getting enough sleep.” She leaned toward the camera, hoping it would pick up her earnesty.

  “Every day, we put on our faces … not necessarily because we want to, but because we have to. Otherwise, we’d spend all our waking hours justifying the looks we were born with. Take me, for example. I guarantee you, twenty minutes after this program airs, the station’s Twitter feed will be flooded with ‘helpful’ comments about the ugly woman who was there to deliver beauty advice.” She raised her hands and used her fingers to make air quotes.

  “You ain’t kidding,” Sylvia whispered under her breath.

  Jess cast her a quick, conspiratorial grin. As one of the area’s leading news anchors, Jess knew how much time Sylvia spent in hair and makeup. No way was the local news putting a woman on air who didn’t look perfectly coiffed and painted.

  Jess sat up straight and took a deep breath. Through the glare of the studio lights, she couldn’t see what the reaction to her sidebar was, but no one had rushed the stage or cut her mic, so she figured they were going to let her finish the segment. “Now, since the station invited me here to give you some beauty advice, with my remaining few minutes, I want to offer you a handful of quick tips on how to spend as little time possible looking your best.”

  “First, get at least eight hours of sleep.” She rolled her eyes deliberately as if to say, ‘yeah, I know, that’s garbage advice.’

  “I know, I know.” She shook her head. “Who has time for that, right? Since no woman I’m familiar with does, here’s my second recommendation: drink as much water as possible. It’ll flush the toxins out of your body and help hydrate your skin from the inside.

  “Third, always use moisturizer. Don’t worry. I’m not talking about that thousand-dollar-a-jar stuff either. Good old Oil of Olay is what all the women in my family use and several of us are pageant winners.” She flashed a saucy grin, as though she’d just aced the talent portion.

  “Fourth, if you only have time for one item of makeup, always make it mascara. It’ll make your eyes pop, which will make it look like you actually did get those precious eight hours of sleep, and then the lovely Greg will be forced to keep his trap shut.”

  Sylvia stifled a laugh next to her, which turned into a very real cough.

  Jess set her elbow on the counter and rested her chin in her palm, her fingers brushing against her cheek. Putting on an exasperated tone, she added, “And finally, always carry baby wipes in case you find yourself needing to remove foundation three shades darker than your normal skin tone. No one wants an orange band around their face.” She smiled at the audience through the camera, and the light turned red.

  “And … go to commercial.”

  Jess slid out of her chair and unclipped the mic from the neck of her sweater. She didn’t know if she’d just committed career suicide or garnered herself a whole slew of new fans. Either way, her segment certainly hadn’t been routine. People could say what they wanted to about her, but one thing was certain—Jess Casillas-Moore wasn’t boring.

  “That was … refreshing,” Sylvia commented, standing and adjusting the waistband of her skirt. From the way she shimmied and swung her hips, Jess was pretty sure the woman was wearing two layers of Spanx under the heavy wool of her suit.

  Jess smiled and fluffed out her hair, shaking her long mah
ogany curls loose from their stiffened prison of style. Goodness, she hated hairspray. “Thanks. I know it wasn’t the segment the producers brought me in to deliver, but I couldn’t sit there looking like this and risk my professional reputation. No one wants to take beauty advice from a woman who looks like a hot mess.”

  “Unless she starts by acknowledging it,” Sylvia answered.

  Jess nodded. “Exactly.”

  “Well, I’m not sure how my bosses upstairs are going to react, but personally, I thought the segment was a success.” She tilted her head to the side and pursed her lips. “In fact, would you be open to doing more like it?”

  “Come again?”

  “If I can get the producers on board, how would you feel about being a regular guest? Say, a weekly bit where you come on and give straight-talk beauty advice. None of this ‘how to look great during bikini season’ nonsense—none of us look great in a bikini, and we all know it—but rather real, practical advice for real, practical women.” Sylvia’s enthusiasm was evident in her tone, getting brighter as she went on.

  Wow. That certainly wasn’t what Jess had expected when she’d decided to go rogue with her spot. At best, she’d anticipated being told she’d never be welcomed back; at worst, escorted out of the building and tossed into the parking lot like a used rag doll. “That sounds … really great, actually. Provided, of course, your producers are willing to let me back in the building after today.”

  Over Jess’s shoulder, Sylvia scanned the room from left to right. “If the smiling faces around here are any indication, I think it’s a genuine possibility.”