Feels Like the First Time

by Marina Adair

  She remembered it now.

  “What I need is a job.” One that would allow her to get a new apartment, get back on her feet. Although she had some savings, she needed to make sure her bank account had enough padding so that when she started writing those checks, they didn’t bounce.

  “Already got you one lined up,” Edna said, handing her a printout of a job listing for a pie shop. “It comes with a little frosting, too.”

  “What’s this?”

  “Sweetie Pies,” Edna said, snatching the paper back and flipping to the next page to display several photos of a quaint brick storefront and their award-winning pies, including the five-pound Deep Dish HumDinger. Between the sixteen Gold Tins hanging in the window and the title of “Best Apple Pie in the Country,” the two women in the photo were undoubtedly looking for a true, down-home baker. Kennedy was, sadly, neither.

  “My old friend Fiona owns it with her sister-in-law. She e-mailed me that ad.”

  “You called her? About me?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “When?” Kennedy’s life was still shoved in her trunk.

  “The second you said you were heading home,” Edna tutted. “Picked up the phone to see if she was looking for some help for the harvest season. Even told her that my granddaughter is a college graduate with a fancy degree from a fancy school, and works at Le Cordon Bleu.”

  Kennedy was the first Sinclair to finish college, something that gave Edna bragging rights on her side of town. Because people who grew up in this neighborhood seldom got out. But Kennedy had, and there was no way she could go back.

  “I work in an office at Le Cordon Bleu. Writing checks and balancing payroll, not baking pies,” Kennedy reminded her grandmother.

  “You bake on the weekends, take classes every chance you get,” Edna said. “And still manage to win awards.”

  “I was a teenager, it was the junior category, at the Georgia State Fair.” Kennedy looked at the picture of the shop again. It was exactly what she’d dreamed of working in when she’d been a girl. Charming, welcoming, and looked like a mother’s kitchen should look—sweet, warm, and a safe place to land. Then she read the address and her head started to pound. “The shop is in Washington State?”

  “Destiny Bay. It’s a little town on the southern border of Washington, nestled between the Cascades and the Pacific Ocean. Known for apples and, since Fi started baking, pies. It’s the perfect place for you to find a new future.”

  “Destiny Bay?” It sounded perfect. Even the way it rolled off the lips implied it was the kind of place she could go and forget about her problems at home. Create a new life.

  Only running away was a classic Candice move, and Kennedy would rather take dance classes from Gloria than be like her mother. Then again, she didn’t really have a home any longer, so it wasn’t as though she would be technically running away. “Isn’t that where you met Grandpa Harvey?”

  “I met him in Seattle, near where I grew up, but followed him all the way to Destiny Bay, where he got down on one knee, right there in the middle of town, with a bouquet of spring posies and his mama’s ring.” Edna sighed dreamily, as if remembering the day, and Kennedy gave in to the romantic nature of her story. “Met Fiona there, too, she was my maid of honor, my best friend, and the person who took me in when Harvey moved to Tuscaloosa, making it clear it was a journey for one. Fi gave me a job selling apples on her family’s plantation so I wouldn’t starve to death.”

  Kennedy sat up and shook all that romantic naïveté right off.

  She was a finance girl, not a frivolous girl—and baking pies in the meantime to get over a broken heart only prolonged getting her life back on track. And kept the Sinclair curse alive and well. Which was why she refused the urge to make a life-changing decision because of a man.

  “I don’t want to spend the last few weeks of my summer baking pies. I need to buckle down and find a new job.” Preferably before the new semester started.

  “Oh, you wouldn’t just be baking, honey.” Edna leaned in and lowered her voice as though she was imparting a national secret. “I have it on good word that Fi isn’t looking for short-term help, she and her sister-in-law co-own it, and are looking to pass on their legacy. They’re looking for a strong-willed, sensible woman, who loves baking and is brave enough to carve out a little slice of life’s pie for herself.”

  “And there aren’t any of those in their hometown?”

  Edna laughed. “Fi’s got herself a slew of nephews, and Paula a son, but not a single female in the family. And Paula’s got the arthritis, which is why Fi’s still baking pies every day even though she’s got more miles on her than my old DeSoto. She’s ready to slow down and retire, and Paula needs to give her joints a rest and go on that cruise they’ve been blabbering on about. They’re just waiting for the right owner to come along.”

  Now it was Kennedy’s turn to laugh. “And you think that’s me?”

  “I think this is one of those opportunities we always talked about, where with a little courage and a lot of hard work, you can change your life.”

  Kennedy felt her throat tighten. How many times had she sat right there on the porch swing and wished she could change? Her situation, her options…her life.

  And she had.

  It’d taken years of hard work and perseverance, but Kennedy had created that new life she dreamed of. A posh downtown apartment, a respectable job, and a man who represented everything her childhood and upbringing lacked.

  Only as fate would have it, Philip found her lacking, and Kennedy had lost it all.

  Nope. Courage wasn’t the problem. Neither was hard work. Kennedy hadn’t figured out the difference between an option and an opportunity—between loyalty and love.

  “We don’t know if it would be a change for the better,” Kennedy said.

  “That’s what’s so exciting,” Edna said, her eyes lit with excitement. “You can either spend the rest of your life like I did, pushing someone else’s pencils and dreams and end up right here on this front porch, or you could start making some of your own come true.”

  A strange lightness filled her belly, warming the parts of her soul that had moments ago felt hallow, because suddenly the ridiculous idea didn’t seem so ridiculous.

  Kennedy had gone into business because she loved the idea of owning her own company, building something of her own that no one could take from her. And this opportunity seemed to combine her two loves with what she was trained to do. But there was one thing Kennedy couldn’t seem to get past.

  She rested her head on Edna’s shoulder and admitted, “I can’t even plan my own life, let alone a business.” Especially a pie shop in a small town in Washington.

  “Honey, you came out of the womb planning. It’s what you do.”

  A slow panic started to churn in her stomach, moving faster and faster, until she regretted eating three dozen snowballs. Because wasn’t that exactly what Philip had said?

  “She’s willing to sell it to you for a bargain.” Edna pulled out a packet from underneath Amos, who let loose a throaty growl, and handed it over. “She almost sold it last year to another buyer, but changed her mind when the woman started talking franchising. Here is the contract she’d had drawn up, told me to have you look it over and give her a call if you were interested.”

  Kennedy straightened and flipped through the papers. Fi and Edna had both gone through a hassle putting this together so quickly; it was the least she could do.

  She took her time, read every word, and decided that it was a standard sales agreement, straightforward and easy to understand. Then she reached the overview of the financials and felt her eyes bulge a little. “Her pie shop made more money last year than Philip did.”

  “And it was a slow year since they closed up for ten weeks last spring to take one of those senior trips to Alaska,” Edna said, sounding wistful.

  Kennedy looked over at the woman who had raised her and felt her heart turn over. The dreamy look
on her face over the idea of a vacation was a painful reminder of just how much Edna had sacrificed. She spent some of her best years raising Kennedy, and most of her retirement savings sending Kennedy to Georgia Tech. Kennedy was diligent about paying her grandmother back, but with her student loans and bills, it was slow coming. Owning this business could change all of that.

  “How much is she asking?”

  Her grandmother rattled off a number.

  “That’s it?” Not that it wasn’t a lot of money. It was. In fact, it would nearly wipe out Kennedy’s entire life savings. But based on the shop’s financials, the price seemed extremely low. Which meant either that Edna needed to get her hearing aid checked, or Fi wasn’t being honest about the profits.

  “Oh, that’s the down payment, honey. But since Fi owned the property outright, she’s willing to carry the note so you can pay her in monthly installments, with a small balloon payment due at the end of every fiscal year. She also said she’ll sell you a few acres’ worth of her special apples at cost for the lifetime of the shop and let you stay in her caretaker’s house for six months rent-free, so you can get the apartment above the shop cleaned up.”

  “It comes with an apartment?” This deal couldn’t get any sweeter. Having an apartment would allow her to save up enough money for a down payment on her own home someday—one that didn’t have a live-in heartbreak waiting to happen.

  One that belonged to her.

  “The store, the apartment, her recipes, supplies, and name are all yours if you say yes.” Edna smiled. “Did I mention Fi’s apple pie is a sixteen-time Gold Tin winner?”

  Kennedy gasped. Only the highest honor any pie could receive, and it explained the incredible numbers. It was too good to be true, which in Kennedy’s world meant it was.

  “What’s the catch?” Kennedy asked, her eyes narrowing. “And what happens if I can’t pull it off? Or I can’t make a balloon payment?”

  “No catch. But if you default on the payments, the shop passes back to Fi,” Edna said as if the word default were no big deal. As if it didn’t cause perspiration to break out on Kennedy’s hands and her stomach to roll with unease. After a lifetime of being passed back and forth, only to eventually be passed over by the people who were supposed to love her forever, it was terrifying.

  And sure, money would be filtering in for her half of the condo she and Philip had shared. But she had no idea when he could make that happen or how much it would even be worth—details she wasn’t ready to face. And money she couldn’t rely on.

  “Look at you, already planning yourself right out of an opportunity,” Edna said softly, taking Kennedy’s hand in her frail one, and giving a pat that connected with every insecurity Kennedy tried so desperately to control. “The worst that can happen is that it doesn’t work out, you check a few things off your list, get a chance to live in a new and exciting place, and have memories that will last a lifetime.”

  In true Sinclair fashion, Edna completely overlooked that she’d also wind up broke and homeless. Then again, Kennedy was already the latter, and she’d spent most of her life being the former. But she’d never been a failure—until now.

  She felt the familiar crushing disappointment close in, but refused to let it take hold. Because, while the setbacks caused from her chaotic childhood were out of her control, she’d chosen the path with Philip.

  And she could choose a new path, a path of her own, she told herself, because more than her fear of failing was the fear that she’d be sidelined for the rest of her life. Spend her career behind a desk, managing other people’s dreams and never stepping out to go after something of her own.

  Maybe this was her chance. Sure, it didn’t come in the package that Kennedy expected, but sometimes the best opportunities presented themselves in the most unexpected ways. And hadn’t she just been wishing for some excitement in her simple life?

  Kennedy pulled her phone from her sweatshirt pocket, and swallowing down all the what-ifs that would normally have her wearing her cream ballet flats, she clicked on the selfie mode of her camera and said, “Smile, Grandma. I need a new photo to go next to my snowball cookies.”

  “Of you covered in crumbs and crying?”

  “Nope, of me going after a little icing.” And Kennedy snapped the photo.

  Also by Marina Adair

  Destiny Bay series

  Last Kiss of Summer

  Feels Like the First Time

  Sequoia Lake series

  It Started with a Kiss

  The Eastons

  Chasing I Do

  Promise You Me

  Crazy in Love

  Sugar, Georgia, series

  Sugar’s Twice as Sweet

  Sugar on Top

  A Taste of Sugar

  Heroes of St. Helena series

  Need You for Keeps

  Need You for Always

  Need You for Mine

  St. Helena Vineyard series

  Kissing Under the Mistletoe

  Summer in Napa

  Autumn in the Vineyard

  Be Mine Forever

  From the Moment We Met

  Fall in Love with Forever Romance

  DEADLY SILENCE

  By Rebecca Zanetti

  Fans of Maya Banks, Shannon McKenna, and Lisa Jackson will love this sexy, suspenseful romance from New York Times bestselling author Rebecca Zanetti. Paralegal Zara Remington wants to keep things casual with private investigator Ryker Jones. But when a secret military organization starts to hunt them down, her true feelings for him surface—just as their lives are being threatened.

  TOO HARD TO FORGET

  By Tessa Bailey

  The “Queen of Dirty Talk” is back with the third book in the Romancing the Clarksons series! Peggy Clarkson is returning to her college alma mater with one goal in mind: confront Elliott Brooks, the man who ruined her for all others, and prove she’s over him for good. But she’s in for a surprise when this time Elliott has no intention of letting her walk away.

  IT HAPPENED ON LOVE STREET

  By Lia Riley

  Lawyer Briar Bates finds herself stranded and unemployed in Everland, Georgia, and she turns to the sexy town vet, Rhett Valentine, for help. But when she starts to fall for him, she has to decide: Will she be able to give up her big city dreams for love in a small town? For fans of Kristan Higgins, Jill Shalvis, and Marina Adair.

  REED

  By R.C. Ryan

  In the tradition of Linda Lael Miller and Diana Palmer comes the latest from R.C. Ryan. Cowboy Reed Malloy is Glacier Ridge’s resident ladies’ man and now his sights are set on the beautiful Allison Shaw. But a secret feud between their families threatens their love—and their lives. The heartwarming conclusion to R.C. Ryan’s Western romance series, the Malloys of Montana.

  Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Hachette Digital.

  To receive special offers, bonus content, and news about our latest ebooks and apps, sign up for our newsletters.

  Sign Up

  Or visit us at hachettebookgroup.com/newsletters