Chapter One
“Now those are some nice-looking buns.”
Madelyn Chamberlain looked up in time to see Emmett Sawyer walk past her bakery. He was up early for a night owl—or perhaps he was up late for him—but as always, the shaggy, laid-back owner of Woody’s, the local bar, was looking casually delicious. He managed to make a simple T-shirt and jeans look sexy. Of course, it helped that his well-worn jeans fit him like they were custom-made. Just the sight of him wearing them caused an uncharacteristic tingle to run through her body. “They sure are,” she muttered to herself.
“Maddie, do they have nuts in them?”
Emmett disappeared from sight, and Maddie turned to look at Miss Dotty as she perused the bakery case. Apparently, Miss Dotty had been referring to the honey buns, not Emmett’s well-fitting jeans. “No, if you want nuts, get the sticky buns instead. They have toasted, candied pecans.”
“Oooh . . . sticky buns.” Miss Dotty moved to the next case and got engrossed in the daily selections.
Maddie was always dumbfounded when customers came in and stared at the choices as though they weren’t the same every day. When she bought the Rosewood Bakery from the late owner’s daughter, Maddie worked with her father to put together a solid business plan. Part of that was being smart about supplies and offerings. When she reopened as Madelyn’s Bakery & Tea House, she decided to serve a standard set of baked goods available on a regular basis. Each day, in addition to any custom orders, she featured one special item, like lemon tarts or chocolate éclairs.
It’d worked well for her so far. Some people came in and got the same treat every day. Others came in on the same day each week for their favorite special. She normally sold out of the white-chocolate-raspberry-cheesecake bars by noon every Tuesday. They did well enough that she was considering adding them as an everyday offering.
Miss Dotty, a daily visitor, had a sweet tooth and no desire to actually bake anymore. Each day, the older woman would wander into the shop and stare intently at the display case, spending upward of fifteen minutes in the shop. And no matter how many questions she asked or how many other items she eyed, she always left with a cinnamon roll.
“You know, I think today I’ll just have my usual,” Dotty decided.
Maddie smothered a grin. “Sure thing.” She slid open the back of the case and pulled out a cinnamon roll. She already had a small pastry box ready to go by the register. “That’s three-fifty.”
Miss Dotty fussed in her purse for a few minutes and then finally pulled out a few rumpled bills. There seemed to be an endless supply of wadded-up bills in the bottom of Miss Dotty’s leather Coach bag. Surely Miss Dotty could afford a wallet, but it seemed that everything just gathered in the bottom; a stockpile of tissues, pennies, receipts, and stray dollar bills.
Maddie was handing back her change when her soon-to-be sister-in-law, Pepper Anthony, came into the bakery. Pepper worked at the hair salon next door.
“Morning,” she said, moving past Miss Dotty to peruse the treats.
Although they were almost family, Pepper and Maddie weren’t close. According to her brother Grant, it was Maddie’s fault, because she was a stuck-up brat. But it wasn’t her fault she had high standards she held everyone—herself included—to. There was no good reason why someone couldn’t put their very best effort in every day, be it in their appearance, their job, or their attitude. Some people were just too lazy to make the cut. And she felt no reason to play nice with people she didn’t have an interest in.
Of course, now that those people were her customers and some of them would soon be members of the Chamberlain family, Maddie had to find a way to be nice to everyone. And she was trying. But it was hard. For all the grief she got from people for being mean to them, she’d had her fair share of mistreatment from others. Being a young, single daughter of the great Chamberlain family had made her a target of gold diggers and haters alike. Only people like her best friend, Lydia Whittaker, understood what that was like.
“Hey, Pepper,” Miss Dotty said as she dumped her change into her purse and scooped up her cinnamon roll box. “Do you have any openings this week?”
“I’m not sure, Miss Dotty. I’ll have to check my calendar,” Pepper said. “I’m taking some treats over to the firehouse right now, but if you want to come by this afternoon, we’ll see what we can find.”
“That sounds good. I think I need a new look.”
Maddie got a large cardboard container out for Pepper’s order. Regardless of how they felt about each other, Pepper was a good customer. Maddie’s brother Grant had a sweet tooth and Pepper wasn’t inclined to bake, so she stopped in fairly often to get treats for him and the other firemen.
“I like your look,” Pepper said. “What’s prompting the change?”
“Well,” Miss Dotty said with a conspiratorial look in her eye, “I think I want to start dating again.”