by Lacey Baker
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Epilogue
Recipe
Also by Lacey Baker
About the Author
Copyright
Prologue
Third Week of May
Parker Cantrell woke up in a bed that wasn’t his.
He’d been back in Sweetland for about three weeks now, having stayed after Gramma’s funeral. His sisters and brothers were also still here. All of them were staying at the B&B. Well, Parker, Quinn, and Preston were staying in the caretaker’s suite, while Savannah still had a room on the upper floor. Michelle had her own house down the street, and Raine had moved in with her so they could have the maximum number of available rooms for rental. In the caretaker’s suite, Quinn used the bed in the bedroom while Preston had taken one of the couches in the sitting room. There was another couch in the sitting room, and it rolled out to a bed; that’s where Parker slept.
It was not a queen-size bed, and it definitely did not have a fluffy pink-and-white paisley comforter on it. Another thing was that the caretaker’s suite faced the back of the house, which meant he usually woke up to a lovely shaded morning, as the front of the house received the blazing sunlight at dawn. This morning, however, he cracked his eye open only to receive what felt like a laser of brightness making a direct hit to his pupils. And when he turned to his left to roll out of the bed, he rolled into a body instead.
Now he was fully awake, and his eyes shot open, only to blink a couple of times in confusion. There was a body in bed with him. From what he could see via the stream of light that slipped through the blinds at the window, the body belonged to a female. A naked female with hair tangled around her face and an arm draped over her waist. Her breasts were high, with enticing light brown nipples that apparently were more than ready to greet him. His gaze roamed lower, to the curve of her hips, the V of her juncture, the softness of her thigh.
Dammit!
He at least had the good sense not to verbalize what he was thinking. Instead he rolled to the right, let his feet hit the floor, and stood up so fast that he almost took a tumble right out the window that was not supposed to be there. Someone must have been looking out for him so that he didn’t crash through the glass, possibly to his death, because he couldn’t remember exactly how high up he was in this bedroom that apparently was not his. That same someone was probably busting a gut laughing as he became tangled in the frothy sheer curtains that hung from said window, his man limbs threatening to tear the soft material that constricted his movement.
On a string of mumbled curses, he managed to break free; then he moved quietly around this foreign room, picking up every article of clothing he thought belonged to him. In less than five minutes, Parker was partially dressed and through the door, standing in a narrow hallway that led to even more narrow steps. He moved through the tight enclosure, pushing through the screened door that had not been locked and almost falling down the three smaller steps that he hadn’t known would be there. Just as he hadn’t known the screened door would lead him right into the center of the flower shop.
“Great move, Cantrell,” he mumbled to himself as he maneuvered his way through wrought-iron carts, white-painted stands, and glass enclosures that all held some form of plant or flower. The front of the store was one huge glass-paned window that received the early morning sunlight as if it were a special gift on Christmas morning.
His eyes instantly revolted, closing without warning so that his next step slammed him right into a wall. Something hit the floor, and the sound ricocheting off the walls of his mind caused a deathly echo that had him clenching his teeth. With steely resolve, he headed toward that damned window and its hellfire of sunlight. The door was to the right. After a minute of fiddling with the lock—which he could barely see, because the more he tried to keep his eyes open, the more determined they were to keep up this game of hide-and-seek they were playing with the sun—Parker stumbled out onto the sidewalk of Main Street and let his curses fall freely from his lips. He did have the forethought to head back to the door so he could lock it. The throbbing in his head was his body’s way of protesting, but he ignored it. Once he knew the door was locked, he stood as straight as he could and took a deep breath.
“First one-night stand back in Sweetland,” he murmured, then took another wobbly step toward the current love of his life parked at the curb—a black-and-silver Suzuki V-Strom 650. “Welcome home, Parker Cantrell.”
The last was said with a good amount of pride and a slight smile, one he figured was too soft to cause any pain from the intense hangover he was currently experiencing.
Chapter 1
First Day of September
Today was the day.
Drew Sidney had decided today would definitely be the day she talked to Parker Cantrell.
It had been months since she’d actually stood still long enough to share more than two or three sentences with him. Of course Parker, being the man that he was, had tried to talk to her at every possible opportunity. She prided herself on being able to resist for as long as she had. Tall—over six feet—built like a linebacker with strong, muscular arms and perfect abs, the darkest brown eyes she’d ever seen, and the best lips she’d ever … Saying he was hard to resist was definitely an understatement.
The mere fact that Parker had tried talking to her after their one steamy night of passion was a contradiction of the already established reputation of Sweetland’s most notorious player and the prominent half of the Double Trouble Cantrells. He’d been back in town for a little less than five months, and she’d managed to get caught in his trap just weeks after his return. That said a lot about her personality and the resolve she’d sworn to uphold since the fiasco in Stratford, the small town in the city of Havre de Grace, Maryland, where she’d grown up. Neither of which Drew really wanted to think about at the moment.
If life were only that easy.
If she could simply push to the side all the things she did not want to think about or deal with and continue her forward trek in life, things would be all good, all the time.
Yeah, that was a big crock of bull if she’d ever heard any. With a deep sigh, a relaxing, soul cleansing sigh, Drew closed her eyes and wished for the absolute best out of this day. It was going to be a long one, an emotional one, and definitely a life-changing one.
“Your flowers are blocking the freakin’ sidewalk again, Sidney!”
The loud, slurred words poured through the front door just as the wind chimes above the access sang in introduction of a new customer. Or in this case with the arrival of Hoover King, Sweetland’s resident drunk, cabdriver, historian, and all-around handyman.
“Mornin’, Mr. King,” Drew said in her most cheerful voice.
“It’s a morning,” Hoover continued, huffing as if he were in desperate search of his next breath. “And the parade’s gotta come down Main, which means I gotta run this ribbon all up and down the street to keep everyone on the sidewalk. And your sidewalk’s all junked up with these flowers,” he informed her, as if she didn’t already know each of these points.
He lifted an arm, using it to wipe the sweat from his forehead and the top part of his head that was left exposed by his receding hairline.
“Those buckets of flowers are for the flag float. Mr. Flannery’s going to use his pickup truck to haul them down to the dock for this evening’s festival,” she explained calmly.
But Drew was anything but calm. Her stomach had just rolled and she’d had to pause and take a deep breath in an attempt to hold the nausea at bay. For the past few weeks since it had hit, she’d thought about being annoyed with the intruder, but the thought of what it signified kept the annoyance at bay. And replaced it with happiness that filled her like sunshine and a field of wildflowers—which in Drew’s world was the equivalent of unimaginable joy.
“Festival’s not till tonight. Why can’t you keep those buckets inside until then?” Hoover persisted.
Drew shrugged. “Not enough room. But I can come out and push them up against my front so they’re not in your way.” Even though Drew was almost positive they weren’t really in Hoover’s way at this moment.
Since Hoover’s wife, Inez, had been busted for embezzlement from the town council and implicated in a bigger drug scheme that stretched up the coast to New York City, Hoover had been wandering around town in a constant state of annoyance. Well, no, that might not be the absolute truth. When Hoover was drunk—which was 91 percent of the time—he wasn’t annoyed, but either angry or overly flirtatious, neither of which was one of Drew’s favorites. And whenever he was sober, he was sad, which was the sole reason Drew felt sorry for him and excused a lot of the rude and unnecessary things he said to her.
“Naw,” he said, waving a hand at her as he walked back and forth in front of the counter where she’d been standing, clipping the ends of a lovely batch of Gerber daisies that Preston Cantrell had ordered for his fiancée, Heaven. “You just sit tight. I’ll push ’em back.”
Heaven and Preston lived in the cutest little blue house Drew had ever seen, and Heaven loved flowers almost as much as Drew. So Preston made it a point to buy her a fresh bouquet at least once a week. This colorful arrangement was in honor of their kitchen renovation being completed two weeks ahead of schedule. The cheery array of colors would look lovely against Heaven’s dandelion-yellow walls that had just been painted two days ago.
“Nonsense, you have other things to do this morning,” Drew said, dropping her scissors and wiping her hands down the front of the charcoal-gray apron she wore.
Blossoms was decorated in Drew’s favorite colors, lavender and gray. Sheer curtains hung to the floor at the front door and at the two French doors that opened to the back terrace. The walls had been painted lavender with the faintest hint of pixie dust—as she liked to call the iridescent-like overlay. Through the main showroom were carts, tables, trellises, and shelves full of flowers and plants and everything imaginable in between. It was a quaint little place that she’d been falling steadily in love with every day in the last three years she’d been in Sweetland.
Hoover had continued to huff and puff with more complaints as she’d come from behind the counter and headed for the front door right behind him. Stifling air smacked her in the face the moment she was outside, and it was barely ten o’clock in the morning.
“I’ll just push ’em back here,” Hoover was saying as he lifted a foot and pushed a bucket full of white carnations back up against the wall of her storefront.
Inhaling deeply, she leaned forward and more gingerly moved a bucket full of red carnations back. “I’ll go over and see Mr. Flannery now. It’s really humid out here and I don’t want the flowers to start to wilt.”
“Fall over and die is more like what they’re going to do out in this heat,” a female voice said from behind.
It was a familiar voice, a familiarly negative one that Drew loved for the most part and tolerated for the rest.
“Hi, Mama,” she said, turning around to see Lorrayna Sidney stepping onto the curb, sun hat covering the upper portion of her face, a purple silk hand fan in her left hand working overtime to keep her cool.
“Why are you out here in your condition? You should be inside in the air-conditioning,” Lorrayna snapped as she came closer.
“Shhhh,” Drew hissed, standing to face her mother. “Mr. King can hear you.”
Lorrayna’s thin lips pressed together in a tight line as she looked over Drew’s shoulder to see Hoover kicking more of the buckets against the wall.
“All the more reason you should be inside,” she whispered conspiratorially.
Drew could only sigh. Her mother meant well. At least she thought she did. Lorrayna had been the first person Drew had called two weeks ago when she’d returned from an appointment in Easton. She’d had nobody else to turn to. For a minute she’d thought about calling Heaven, especially since Drew had been in Heaven’s yard when she’d almost fainted, causing Quinn Cantrell, the town’s new doctor and Heaven’s soon-to-be brother-in-law, to come and see about her. Luckily, Quinn had referred her to a female doctor and hadn’t given any hint as to the reason why to her or to anyone else that she knew of.
“Come on inside. I have some orders to fill before I bring out the umbrella and small table to watch the parade.” Drew had walked back into the store and knew her mother was close behind. She could tell by the series of three sneezes that never failed to announce Lorrayna’s entry into Blossoms even better than the wind chimes did. They still hadn’t figured out what in the shop she was actually allergic to.
“Do you have something to drink? It’s blazing hot in here,” Lorrayna complained.
“In the refrigerator,” was Drew’s reply.
Nothing—and by nothing, Drew meant anything short of Arthur Sidney being raised from the dead—was ever good enough for Lorrayna. She’d complain about the sun and how hot it burned, then turn right around the next day and complain about the rain making mud puddles in her backyard. All of which Drew was used to and tried not to be annoyed by—emphasis should be added to the word tried.
A few minutes later, Drew heard her mother’s sigh and looked up to see her standing near the refrigerated display case. Lorrayna was not as into plants and flowers as Drew was—truth be told, she hadn’t been really into anything since her husband’s death three years ago—but she always paused at the display case in search of one particular item. The Peace Lily served as a reminder of the day they’d buried Lorrayna’s husband, Drew’s father. The otherwise peaceful and quietly beautiful plant marked that day in Lorrayna’s life as if it had been etched on every calendar from here to forever. And her mother searched for it like a wolf hunting prey.
It was sad, the way she stood in front of that display case staring off into what seemed like oblivion, holding on to a memory tha
t was better left clipped to the nub, as Drew had just done to the Gerber daisy in her hand.
“Your father was so excited when I told him I was carrying you,” Lorrayna said quietly.
Drew didn’t reply. She didn’t want to talk about Arthur Sidney, but that was all Lorrayna ever wanted to talk about.
“I thought he’d want a boy. You know, so he could play ball with and pal around with him,” Lorrayna continued. “But then he said he’d rather have a girl. ‘A girl that looks and acts just like you, Raynie.’ That’s what he’d said.”
Well, he’d gotten his girl, Drew thought with another quick snip of the stem. But she hadn’t been blessed with Lorrayna’s curvy frame; instead, she’d taken after her father and his family with height and a willowy build. Her mother also had wide, light brown eyes that once upon a time were filled with expression. Now, the only expression they sported was sadness, and they were either red-rimmed from crying, puffy from crying, or simply downcast. Another thing Drew had inherited from her father was her snappy attitude and impatience, or so her mother would quickly point out.
“He had the perfect family, then,” Drew heard herself saying. When the words were out, she clamped her lips down so tight that her temples ached.
“Nothing’s ever perfect,” was her mother’s retort.
“Nothing except Arthur Sidney, right?”
Lorrayna turned away from the display case at that question and glared at Drew. “Don’t do that,” she said, and it sounded like a hiss through her teeth.
“He’s dead, Mama. How long is it going to take for you to accept that?”
“I’m sorry if I’m not as cold and unfeeling as you are, Drew. One day maybe when you find true love you’ll know how it feels to lose it and you’ll know it isn’t as easy as taking out the garbage.”
Drew shook her head vehemently. “I’m not looking for love, true or otherwise.”
“Really? Then what do you suppose you’re going to do about your situation?”
Yes, her “situation.” That’s what Lorrayna had taken to calling Drew’s medical condition. She shook her head as she caught herself calling it a “medical condition” instead of what it really was. A baby.