by Willa Blair
Table of Contents
Excerpt
Praise for Willa Blair
Sweetie Pie
copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
“Would you like some extra luck tonight?”
Makenna cocked an eyebrow his way. “It depends on what use you plan to put it to.” She fought back a grin, knowing full well what he meant. The promise he’d made before dinner at the ranch when she’d reached for his zipper and he’d stopped her by kissing her hand. That’s for some other time. He hadn’t pushed, but she knew he wanted her. Was she ready for this relationship to go to the next level? Aye, she was.
Tom just smiled. “Look, the sun is touching the water. It won’t be long now.”
He scooted their chairs together to face the sunset and draped an arm across her shoulders. The breeze picked up, as if the wind was being drawn into the water with the drowning sun. Makenna could barely keep her attention on the display as Tom’s fingers gently stroked her shoulder, then traced up the side of her throat to tangle in her hair.
“So lovely,” he murmured, his breath warming her ear.
Makenna turned to face him, letting her lips meet his, gently at first, then more firmly. “People can see us,” she warned when they broke apart.
“I don’t care.”
He kissed her again, and she lifted a hand to his face, liking the rough scratch of his whiskers on her fingertips. A change in the light told her the sun had gone down. “We’ve missed it.”
“We don’t need it,” he answered and pulled her to her feet. “Let’s go.”
“The bill…”
“Already taken care of. Your place or mine? Mine’s closer.”
Praise for Willa Blair
“HIGHLAND HEALER is action-packed and full of twists and turns that will keep readers on their toes. It is fast-paced and has a sweet romance that will warm your heart. Well written and full of imagination, this story is a must read for historical romance fans!”
~The Romance Reviews (Top Pick!)
~*~
“Sixteenth-century intrigue, muscled men with claymores and a doomed romance—is it any wonder I was reluctant to leave the rich, riveting world of HIGHLAND SEER? Good thing I can make my way back easily enough—all I have to do is treat myself to Blair's celebrated debut, HIGHLAND HEALER.”
~USAToday HEA
~*~
“HIGHLAND TROTH is Scottish romance at its best!”
~InD’Tale Magazine
~*~
“THE HEALER’S GIFT is a breathtaking tale of Highland magic, lust, intrigue, and love…wickedly delicious!”
~MyBookAddictionReviews
~*~
WHEN HIGHLAND LIGHTNING STRIKES: “Blair’s new Highland romance…had me eagerly turning pages. I thoroughly enjoy Blair’s work and recommend her Scottish love stories to all!”
~Eliza Knight, USA Today Bestselling Author
Sweetie Pie
by
Willa Blair
A Candy Hearts Romance
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Sweetie Pie
COPYRIGHT © 2016 by Linda Williams
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: [email protected]
Cover Art by RJ Morris
The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com
Publishing History
First Fantasy Rose Edition, 2016
Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-0501-1
A Candy Hearts Romance
Published in the United States of America
Dedication
To my very own surfer-dude,
my amazing husband.
This one's for us!
Chapter One
Two hours before dawn, Makenna Stewart unlocked the back door to her new bakery, Sweetie Pie, and flipped on the lights. Their glow spilled into the dark alley and painted a bright slash on the concrete car park. It was time to get to work and despite the early hour, she couldn’t wait. Her place, her rules. Sweetie Pie belonged to her.
Chilled air reminiscent of home blew past her into the warm, humid winter night. January in Hawaii meant whale-watching season and lots of tourist traffic, not the howling snowstorms, rain, and more rain of Scotland. She loved being here.
After losing her job in Pitlochry, she swore never to be under another man’s thumb again. She’d been young and stupid to get involved with her head chef. He’d taken her ideas as a challenge to his expertise and authority. Then he’d closed the restaurant and taken her ideas to Edinburgh without her.
She’d lost her job and her boyfriend in one day. Stung but determined, she’d done her research. Reading about successful gluten-free restaurants on Maui and Kauai gave her the idea. She knew she could make a similar one succeed in this popular tourist town, especially with a little help from her mother’s family.
But it had meant leaving the only home she’d ever known in central Scotland and moving halfway around the world to her mother’s birthplace in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island. Happily, the town was about as far from Chef Angus MacEgo and Scottish weather as one could get.
Cousin Kerry arrived on her heels, yawning but smiling. “Week three and we’re still here!” she announced, drawing a laugh from Makenna.
“Aye, and awake before the sun rises in Hilo,” Makenna answered. “I wish this kitchen had a window to the east. I’d love to see the sun coming up over Hualalai Mountain.”
“You were lucky to get this place,” Kerry reminded her.
“Timing is everything, I guess. Besides, the view of the water out front is amazing.”
“And there’s nothing like being right on Ali’i Drive to catch the tourist trade. Once the breakfast rush is over, your pies fly off the shelves.”
Makenna nodded, but Kerry’s mention of the breakfast rush got her thinking—not about pie, but about the man who’d been having morning coffee at Sweetie Pie since she opened. He always passed up her Morning Glory muffins in favor of saltier fare, either her pretzels slathered with cream cheese or on occasion her salted caramel cranachan, a Scottish dessert she’d adapted for the islands. Full of whipped cream and gluten-free oats, topped with a drizzle of caramel sauce and sprinkled with sea salt, it was filling but not overly sweet. Flavoring the cream with vanilla instead of whisky and layering it with passion fruit, or lilikoi, as the locals called it, had been her first try at adapting her recipes to local ingredients.
It wouldn’t have been her first choice for breakfast, but Tom liked it. And clearly, he had no problem burning off the calories. She suspected there was more to surfer-dude Tom than Greek-god sexy looks and a great body honed by years in the water. Not that there needed to be more. What she could see looked fine enough, indeed. After weeks of his low-key charm, she had started to entertain a hope the passion fruit filling would live up to its name and inspire him.
“We’d best get some baking done,” she said, as much to remind herself as to direct Kerry.
“Have you talked to Auntie Leila,
yet? About our favorite customer, I mean?”
“Nay. Nor do I plan to. Not after Angus. I dinna need a matchmaker, thank ye very much.”
Kerry shrugged. “Up to you, but if you haven’t noticed, Tom’s interested in you.”
Makenna grabbed several containers of her special gluten free flour blends. Hadn’t noticed? How could she not? Kerry had.
“Let’s get to work, aye?”
Hours later, as morning light turned the waterfront pink and gold, Makenna unlocked the front door and greeted her first customer of the day.
“Good mor-r-r-ning.” She made sure to take her time rolling her r’s.
“Ah, there it is. The thought of hearing your accent gets me out of bed in the morning,” Tom greeted her as he followed her to the counter. “That and your Kona coffee.” His impish grin challenged her to grin right back.
Answering his challenge was no hardship. She smiled, then tore her gaze from him and turned away long enough to get his coffee.
“And what will ye be havin’ to br-r-reak yer-r fast this fine mor-rnin’?” she asked, laying it on as thickly as she could. God, she was awful. “Might ye want to sample something new? Like a pineapple cr-ream bar?”
He clutched his coffee with one hand and laid his other hand dramatically over his heart. “Such music to my ears. I could listen to you from morning to night.”
He’d said things like that before, always teasing, but the words made a shiver of anticipation run up her spine, nonetheless. “Ye dinna want me,” she scoffed, “ye just want my bakin’.” And bless him for being a regular. She hoped he told his friends where he spent his early mornings. Businesses like hers depended on word-of-mouth to bring in the locals, especially to an area like this one, frequented mostly by tourists.
“I do. I can’t believe they let you take such talent from Scotland. So why did you leave?”
Makenna stifled a gasp. He’d never asked anything so personal before.
Kerry cut her gaze between Makenna and Tom, then saved her with a droll, “Cold winters,” as if that explained everything.
Tom quirked one dark eyebrow, then quickly looked aside before meeting Makenna’s gaze again. His intense expression revealed he suspected there was more to her story, but he hesitated to pry any deeper since she hadn’t acknowledged Kerry’s comment.
Makenna’s heart picked up its pace, and she fought back the urge to lick her lips. Tom was a customer—a badly needed customer—nothing more. Or was he? His conversation this morning made her wonder if his interest in her had finally grown beyond her coffee and pastries.
“Don’t underestimate your charms,” he warned, then colored slightly and dropped his gaze to the bakery case.
Oh my. Makenna crossed her arms, not sure how to respond. Tom didn’t give her the chance.
“But since I do like your baking,” he added, too quickly, “and that’s all you’re offering today, how about, hmmm…”
He took his time studying the contents of the case and deciding, which kept his gaze averted. Surely, he’d still been teasing when he’d made his last comment? She knew it was foolish, but part of Makenna wanted Tom’s dark-chocolate gaze focused back on her.
****
Tom Bensford thought the exotic looking wahine with the lustrous black hair, ocean-blue eyes, and oddly out-of-place Scottish accent wouldn’t last a year, but he was determined to get under her milky-pale Celtic skin and be there to pick up the pieces if her specialty bakery failed. The track record for small businesses, and for restaurants especially, wasn’t good. Any advantage she gained by opening at the start of whale-watching season would be lost come the summer slump if she didn’t also attract a lot of business from the local population. In the tightly-knit community, newcomers could find that hard to do.
Yet, there was something about her he couldn’t resist any more than he could resist a perfect wave. And it wasn’t just because she had no idea who he was. He’d first gotten a glimpse of her in one of his leasing division offices as he passed by while she signed papers at an officer’s desk. Since then, thoughts of sweaty, salty sex filled his head along with images of her in his arms, her silky fall of midnight hair spread on his thighs, and her body forming a perfect arc above him.
Her assessing stare, just visible out of the corner of his eye when she thought he wasn’t looking, made him imagine the attraction was mutual.
He didn’t mind getting up early to be here when she opened the shop. He’d lived in Hawaii most of his life, following the surf here and on the mainland’s Left Coast. Before the accident that ended his career, dawn patrol was dawn patrol, no matter which part of an ocean he surfed. His now included a stop at Sweetie Pie for some quality time with its delicious owner.
He always arrived early, hours before the shops in the other buildings opened. They were also leased through his leasing division rather than directly, so with luck, no one would recognize him. He should have told her right up front that her friendly beach bum customer owned this building and the ones around it. She should know her rich landlord spent a lot of time in her shop flirting with her. Yeah, that would go over well. At best, she’d think he didn’t trust her and wanted to make sure she didn’t burn the place down, or he wanted to know how much she earned so he could raise the rent as soon as the first lease expired. She’d never believe he lacked an ulterior motive…other than getting to know her and, if his luck held, getting her alone. Then he’d see where things went from there. If she found out the truth she probably wouldn’t have anything to do with him.
Plus, he never got to be just Tom, a washed-up surfer with a coffee addiction. He wanted to enjoy his anonymity for as long as he could. Too often, in his experience, women looked at him and saw dollar signs. So he kept quiet about the millions he made in surfing endorsements and shrewd Kailua-Kona real estate deals, and hoped no one he knew wandered in for an early breakfast. Just once he’d like to know if a woman could get interested in him without the lure of his fame or his money. For the past two weeks, he and Makenna had been chatting companionably over coffee. It was time to see if she might be interested in more.
“You’re working too hard,” he told her as she finished with another customer. “What time did you get here this morning?”
She glanced at the clock. “Early. About three.”
“You do that every day?” He thought he was an early riser.
“No, but I have to get an earlier start to prep for the weekend rush.”
“Don’t you have any help?”
“Sure. You’ve met my cousin Kerry. She’s in the kitchen with me from the time I open until she goes to her morning classes, then she comes back for lunch and to help me close up.”
The old adage, all work and no play, popped into Tom’s mind, giving him the perfect solution to getting her alone and—mostly—undressed. “I’ve got an idea. And don’t say ‘no’ until you hear me out.”
She leaned a hip against the counter, crossed her arms, and gave him a speculative look, one eyebrow raised. “What idea?”
He liked her gaze on him, maybe too much, but he didn’t let it distract him.
“You need something to lure you out of here for a few hours now and again. To take your mind off of work. How about I teach you to surf?”
“Surf? Are ye serious? Do you teach for a living?”
Tom shrugged off her question about his livelihood. If she wouldn’t talk about Scotland, he would keep his past private, too. For now. He enjoyed the look of incredulity on her face. But the way her eyebrows slanted and wrinkled the pale skin between her blue eyes reminded him, given where she was from, she might not have grown up in the water the way local kids did. “You can swim, can’t you?”
“Of course I can swim. My mother made sure of that.”
Ah, he’d challenged her, and she’d responded with some heat. He liked the hint of a spitfire under her polite facade. He shouldn’t be surprised. It took guts to do what she’d done, moving halfway around the world. �
�Then it’s settled.”
Her nod of agreement came across a bit uncertain, but he’d hold her to it.
****
Starting a business meant hard work and long hours. Makenna desperately needed a break and some fun in her life since Sweetie Pie had been open a few weeks and seemed to be doing well. Since she’d arrived, she’d seen little of the island except Kailua-Kona from her apartment to Sweetie Pie and from Sweetie Pie to the market. She remembered almost nothing from the one visit she’d made as a child with her parents to her mother’s family. They’d spent most of their time with relatives or on a beach playing in the surf under her mother’s watchful eye. She could swim. Her mother gave her lessons and made her practice until she could swim a hundred laps at a community pool in Scotland. But she’d had little opportunity to go swimming the last few years. Now that she lived here, she looked forward to some beach time, but also to exploring what the Big Island had to offer with friends, she hoped, if not with one special friend.
Okay, one special man. She found herself hoping Tom might be that one special man. Granted, in board shorts and T-shirts, he didn’t seem like one-special-man material, but he was good company, and that wasn’t the only reason she couldn’t keep her eyes off him. Tanned, dark-eyed, with sun-bleached brown hair and a well-muscled swimmer’s build, he drew her gaze like Loch Ness drew tourists.
But his lack of response about what he did for a living had not escaped her. And for him to offer to give her a surfing lesson? That was way above and beyond anything she expected from one of her customers. Even one as lick-worthy as Tom.
She debated possible outcomes for a split second. She didn’t want to lose him as a customer, and getting overly familiar might drive him away. On the other hand, she needed to get away from work, needed to meet people—including men—and this man seemed as good a place to start as any—as long as she didn’t make the same mistake of falling too hard and too fast the way she had with Angus. She was older and wiser now. So, why kid herself? She wasn’t going to resist this opportunity…any more than she could resist Tom’s killer smile. She’d just have to guard her heart more carefully from now on. “When would we go?”