As the serious, bookish first child, Brynn was the one who worried about crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s. Even as a kid, she’d made it her responsibility to ensure the rules were properly followed and proprieties were observed at all times. Nana was always saying that her habits made her old before her time. Okay, maybe that was true, but at least she didn’t go off half-cocked over every little thing.
To Brynn’s way of thinking, those straight-laced habits had been a hidden blessing when she started up a business and why, after only four years, the bakery and tearoom had become a financial goldmine. Of course it took a lot of hard work, sweat, and many hours of her time each day, but she’d become a success all by herself. Nana dangling the property deed over her head like a hostage in a negotiation seriously pissed her off. This particular baby was hers, and the only offspring she ever wanted or needed. No daddy required.
Moving by rote around the gleaming kitchen full of stainless steel and wood, she went about the rituals of her workday neatly and efficiently. Sighing heavily, Brynn tried not to let those harried thoughts keep her from all the things she needed to get done. Glancing at the large picture window that opened up into the shop where her customers could gather and watch what went on in the bakery, she saw Amy smiling at a customer and flinched.
Shit. She’d been a bitch just now and that wouldn’t do. When she was finished with the morning tasks, she’d pull her assistant aside and do a bit of apologizing. Taking out her bad mood on an employee was out-of-character for Brynn. Amy was probably wondering what the hell was going on. Groaning at the thought of having to explain this insanity to someone, her thoughts inevitably slipped into the past.
There was something to be said for the been there done that phase in life. It was where Brynn neatly filed any and all relationship issues; she saw herself as a classic overachiever whose only real failure had been a brief, foolish marriage undertaken the year she graduated college. Even now, so many years after the fact, she still couldn’t fathom what in the hell she’d been thinking. Roger Ellis was a sniveling bastard on his best day. Her college boyfriend, he’d cheated on her so many times there was no real way to keep count.
But Roger always came crawling back with a convincing story and an iron-clad promise to never step out of line again. They got married because that was what you did after being together for a few years and having reached the point of either breaking up or getting a marriage license. What an idiot she’d been to imagine that a piece of paper was somehow going to make them different people.
Their wedding had been a cut and dried affair at the county courthouse with a bland and boring lunch afterward at a run-of-the-mill restaurant. Rhiann had been apoplectic, declaring Brynn’s refusal to play the bride a foreshadowing of a dismal future. The only rationale she could come up with to defend her actions came from one of the countless lists she made.
Brynn was known for her crazy lists. Hell, she was working off a daily agenda right this moment. It was how she kept her world in perfect operating order. Ever since she’d been old enough to write, she kept a running ‘to do’ list. And not just for her, but for her sisters as well. Drove them crazy but as the oldest, she figured it was her job to keep everyone on the straight and narrow. Over time, her lists had become legendary and included a long range ‘idea’ list, shopping lists, chore lists, a list of everything in her closet—color coded by season of course—lists of books to read, and even a list spelling out the conditions needed for when she and her husband could be intimate. The wedding list had been short, not very sweet, and brutal in its practicality. She couldn’t see spending a shit ton of money on what was essentially a party and the idea of shelling out beaucoup bucks on a tacky honeymoon never even made the list. A romantic she was not. Well, maybe at one time she could have been, but Roger was more or less a flat-line in that department so she’d never had a chance to even try.
When he wasn’t preening in front of a mirror, her boyfriend-slash-husband proved to be not much of a planner, preferring to fly by the seat of his pants, so Brynn had been the practical one. If it weren’t for her organizational skills and dead-eye focus on priorities, well…she didn’t know what would have happened.
Married life had turned out to be kind of meh. While Brynn commuted each day and worked her ass off at a financial firm in the city, Roger strayed no distance at all from the scenes of his childhood, moving them to his hometown and taking over the running of his family’s hardware store. It was a recipe for disaster that she hadn’t seen at the time.
They’d been married for a little over a year when, coming down with a bad case of the flu, Brynn returned home early one day and walked in on her lying, cheating, shithead of a husband poking the butt of a cashier from the hardware store. Not only was he cheating on Brynn with a cigarette smoking, fake tittied suburban slut, he was ass fucking that bitch in their bed. Who did that?
Unfortunately, the ensuing divorce turned painfully ridiculous. Brynn just wanted out, but Fake Fun Bag Betty, as she liked to call Roger’s anal whore, needed to legitimize the extra-marital romp. She went on a slash-and-burn campaign against her, painting Brynn as an outsider, someone frigid and cold consumed by her career and only interested in money and status. The small town mindset eventually won—even though it was Brynn who had been cheated on, the general consensus was that she got what she deserved for being an ice queen.
Humiliated and depressed, Brynn took an enormous settlement once all their marital possessions and home had been liquidated and moved on. Her six figure job had pretty much paid for their lifestyle anyway, so it wasn’t like she walked away with anything that wasn’t already technically hers by right.
That was how she ended up on her Nana’s old farm in a quaint touristy hamlet in the corner of upstate Pennsylvania. She put her divorce settlement to good use, by first restoring and updating the old cookhouse for a quaint bakery shop. The Wilde Bakery had opened to great acclaim. Brynn held a special talent when it came to the kitchen arts, and before she knew it, a food channel had filmed a segment featuring her business. Shortly thereafter, she took on renovating the attached barn, transforming it into a tearoom. The rustic appeal of Baron’s Tea Room and its homey, comfortable vibe made it a popular stopping off point for locals and tourists.
Right now, it was very good to be her. She lived in Nana’s charming Queen Anne style home situated behind a line of trees separating the house from the business, giving her the benefit of privacy and proximity all rolled into one. Why Nana wanted to mess with the successful life she’d fashioned for herself, Brynn just couldn’t fathom.
Talking about it with her parents would likely get her nowhere. Her mom, in particular, had gotten quite vocal lately bemoaning Brynn’s so-called lonely and isolated life. As far as Darcy Baron-Wilde was concerned, Brynn’s reluctance and downright refusal to look for a man was only making her life more difficult. For a staunch feminist who had raised three smart, talented daughters, Brynn was mystified by her mother’s position.
Dear old dad was no better. He’d side with Nana of course. Plus, he just wanted his girls to be happy. He thought that pushing them to be as fulfilled and satisfied by marriage as he and their mother had been was the answer. Oh yeah, and they both wanted grandchildren, and they wanted them now. Three unmarried daughters just weren’t cutting it as far as their retirement plan went.
All these thoughts were tying her up in knots so she did what she always did when life got weird—she retreated to the refuge of her kitchen. This was where Brynn let the magic flow, a thought that always brought a smile. She didn’t believe in magic per se, that was Charlie’s quirk, but there was a special energy involved in her baking. The synergy of the ingredients, how they worked separately and blended, and the atmosphere when working the dough or batter, even her frame of mind—all those things came into play. It was a unique symphony with Brynn as conductor and lead soloist.
She loved coming up with new items, experimenting with flavors and techn
iques. That was how she’d created an outrageously decadent lemon plum tart that was practically responsible for all her success. The barren wasteland of her post-divorce life hadn’t been all bad. During one of her baking frenzies she’d played around with the recipe until the perfect balance of tart and sweet, soft and crumbly, velvety and dense was achieved. On a whim, she’d entered a regional bake-off where the tart had earned high scores and the attention of the baking world. It was all uphill from there.
Pushing Nana’s meddling to the back of her mind, Brynn gathered what she needed to finish off a batch of sweetened challah bread that was a big hit on the menu in the tearoom. Needing this part of the process the most right now, she uncovered a huge bowl containing a gigantic lump of dough that had been rising, and vigorously punched it down. She enjoyed the way her fist sank into the warm mass and then hefted the heavy stoneware to turn the dough onto the wood work surface. This was what she loved, getting her hands into the act, kneading and working the pasty blob, eventually rolling out long snakes of dough that she firmly braided into the loaf shape.
When she was finished with the entire batch and they’d had a chance to rise again, Brynn admired her handiwork and forgot all about her troubles. Seeing the beautiful braided loaves with the shiny egg bath brushed over the top ready to slide into the oven was just the Zen she needed to bring everything back into focus.
Nana wanted her married? Well then fine, she snorted. Two can play that game. She knew a whole bunch of gay chefs just waiting for a contracted beard who would be more than willing to help Brynn out. There were worse things than a fake marriage although right this minute she didn’t know what those things might be.
Neither Rhiann, her silly sister with a head full of romantic rubbish, nor Charlie, who insisted lighting candles and carrying crystals would one day lead to the appearance of a soul mate, would ever understand Brynn’s reluctance to let a man anywhere near her. She knew staying emotionally detached was best—for her, anyway.
She didn’t like mess or chaos, hence the lists. Glancing around her meticulous, well-ordered kitchen emphasized that point. Relationships were almost always a shit show. Avoiding the pitfalls was a much smarter way to go. If she couldn’t find a way to wiggle around Nana’s ridiculous power play, she’d simply apply the Kobayashi Maru Principle and change the rules of the game in her favor. Laugh all you want, chided the impish voice of her conscience. A good Star Trek reference always came in handy, and in this case offered a perfect solution.
There was no way on God’s green earth that she would allow her asshole of a cousin, the unctuous Seth Colton, to get his greasy paws on this property. Knowing him the way she did, he’d either throw her and the business out completely, or gouge her unmercifully with lease costs. If she had to resort to a rent-a-husband to stop that from happening, she would. And Nana could eat her hat.
Noting the time, Brynn consulted the checklist of what still needed to be done before the end of the day. Keeping her modest bakery stocked was one thing, but lately she’d been taking on special orders for decorative cakes, shower treats, and birthday goodies. It was becoming too much. Pretty soon she’d have to hire a bakery helper just to keep up. Yet another example of why she didn’t have the time to pursue the sort of relationship that would lead to marriage. She was just too damn busy.
EVEN THOUGH HE WAS BENT out of shape and exasperated, Jax had to admire the scenery around him. Off on a fool’s errand in order to get his father off his back, he was traveling the highways and back roads nestled along the banks of the Delaware River in the scenic countryside of upstate Pennsylvania on his way to fulfill a promise that wasn’t his to keep. He growled a frustrated sigh and squeezed the steering wheel with a death grip.
His father was up to something, he could feel it, and it was annoying the piss out of him that he couldn’t get a handle on just what was really going on. It wasn’t like Dad to interfere in his life, and he wasn’t quite sure what there would be to meddle in anyway. There were a lot of blank pages and empty spaces in Jax’s story. Considering what was written on some of the full pages though, he wasn’t surprised by the missing pieces.
The shorthand code for the Life of Jax would go something like this: Jackson Merrill. Son of Adam and Kate Merrill. Brother to Caleb. Football Star. Homecoming King. New York University – Pre Med. Enlisted in the Army Medical Corps after 9-11. Iraq Veteran. Contractor. Restoration Specialist. Survivor. Loner.
Yep. That pretty much summed him up. Typical All-American boy with a big man on campus attitude and a preference during his college days for anything wild and adventurous. All that young and carefree shit came to a dead halt for him on September 11th. He was just a few days into his junior year at NYU with the whole wide world and a bright future opening up before him when the rude wake-up call from the air changed everything. Born and raised in Virginia, the crossroads of Yankee aplomb and southern charm, he’d become a diehard New Yorker after spending several years in the Big Apple at the university. There was something about hiking out of the city and crossing the Brooklyn Bridge on foot that awful day which sobered him up big time. After graduating with honors, he enlisted in the medical corps a few months later.
Jax shipped out to Iraq not too long after the war started. Four years later he was more than happy to leave the military behind. In the time since, he’d found a healing Zen-like quality in the work he was doing. It took a long time to get his shit together after a couple of tours in a war zone, and expecting him to walk away from his military experiences unscathed and simply finish his medical school training was insane. That bridge got burned along with a lot of other stuff in the hellfire of war, which explained the blank pages.
Working with his hands let him focus—be totally in the moment. Not a lot of room for the mind to roam. There was something freeing about being so involved and immersed in work. He had a particular feel for renovation and restorations and got into the research aspect paying close attention to even the tiniest detail. As a result, he’d built an exclusive clientele that led to an attention-getting article in an architecture magazine.
These days he could pick and choose his work projects, which was part of why he was torqued with his dad for sending him off to do a personal favor at a time when Jax had scheduled a much-needed break from work. After several intensive back-to-back assignments, he was feeling burned out and edgy. Without any discernible social life, something nearly impossible to achieve when you moved around for business, Jax was resigned to his loner lifestyle. But that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.
All that shit, when rolled together, was why Adam Merrill had no problem asking his oldest son to make good on a decades old promise. His dad had caught up with him a few nights ago and told him some crazy fucking story about a fraternity friend from his college days who was searching for a restoration specialist to help out the man’s kid with an unusual project. Jax had called bullshit on his dad’s rambling explanation within a minute of hearing it but what was a son to do? It wasn’t like he could say no. So far the only good thing he could come up with as he drove along a rolling country road was the magnificence of the scenery.
Holy cannoli. Would you get a look at this guy, Amy thought when she caught sight of a seriously good-looking man climbing out of a truck parked in the first space at the end of the walkway to the bakery. She might be a happily married woman with a very hunky husband and two rambunctious kids but that didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate the confident swagger or the bad boy head-to-toe black wardrobe on the man coming her way. Whoever the guy was, he certainly wasn’t a local, and judging by the fierce frown on his stubble covered face, he also wasn’t in the running for the happy camper award.
Amy hurriedly took her place at the bakery counter and slapped a beaming, welcoming smile on her face as he swung the door open and she heard the delicate chimes hung on the doorknob tinkle playfully. Rhiann would so love this guy, she chuckled silently. He had bad-ass Alpha Male written all over him. Sh
e wished she could pull out her phone, snap a picture, and send it to the budding romance writer for her inspiration board. Before he’d spoken a single word, Amy had already pegged him as perfect hero material.
“Hi there!” she gushed enthusiastically as the man in black yanked off his sunglasses and glanced around the shop. “Welcome to Wilde Bakery. You’re just in time too. The baker just put out a fresh tray of cinnamon rolls. They’re beyond yummy. Would you like a sample?”
The minute he opened the door and heard the faint jingle of chimes, Jax was engulfed with so much sensory input he had to stop and gather himself. Aromas that made his mouth water filled the air—cinnamon, warm bread, apples, vanilla sugar, coffee—and wrapped around his nerve endings.
Pulling off his Ray-Bans, his eyes were inundated with detail. Whoever did the renovation on this building had done some magnificent work. Reclaimed wood floors reflected the sunlight shining from ceiling to floor windows at the rear of the shop. The entire outer wall, running front to back, was exposed brick. A curved counter sat in front of the wall, faced in beadboard and painted a soft, muted sage. Large old-fashioned chalkboards hung along the brick wall detailing the day’s specials and modern glass bakery displays anchored either end of the long counter. Rustic wood tables and shelves were covered in baskets and wood crates filled with loaves of bread, rolls, and every imaginable baked good.
Behind him a wall had been opened up into the old barn he’d noticed driving in; the large open space was set with tables and chairs and featured wood beams, a tremendous stone fireplace, and more tall windows. The place was seriously amazing, and his appreciation helped rein in his annoyance at his father. Maybe his expertise really was needed. He kind of hoped so. Whoever was visualizing this transformation had a great eye, and he wouldn’t mind bringing his talents and skills to such a project.
Wilde Forever (Wilde Women Book 1) Page 2