Chapter Two
Maggie watched Colton amble out of her store. The man actually ambled, not walked, ambled. She took a deep breath to steady her nerves, but all it did was cause her to inhale the smell of sweet, sugary cupcakes and delicious, sexy man. Like hay and horses.
Why the hell did that turn her on?
Oh right, because it was the smell of Colton Denning. The man she’d had a crush on since she first came to Peak Town to visit her grandmother over twenty years ago.
She shook her head. Thinking about the first time she met Colton made her remember why she had fallen for him in the first place. A few of the local kids had teased her when a very large horse scared her. She had never seen a horse outside the movies and didn’t realize how big they were. Colton had yelled at the other children, shaming them for picking on her just because she had never seen a horse in real life. He saved her from a lot of teasing. In kid world, that made him her hero. Every summer after that, when she wasn’t with her grandmother, she was at the Denning ranch playing, riding, and following Colton and Dade everywhere.
Much to her dismay, Colton had always seen her as more of a kid sister. The summer she turned fourteen, she had come back to find him dating Natalie Brake, a cheerleader at his high school. Her poor teenage heart had broken. That was the last summer she came out to see her grandmother. She’d still called Gran and kept in touch, but she hadn’t been able to bear to see Colton and Natalie together.
Gran had come out to see her a few times, too, but Maggie hadn’t come back to Peak Town. There’d been school to finish and then she had college, finals, and the hassle of finding a job. It was hard to get a day off as a baker, let alone a week to go out of state. Sadly, she just couldn’t find the time until eight months ago. For her grandmother’s funeral.
Pushing away regrets and memories, she glanced up at the clock and was surprised to discover she only had a couple hours left until closing. Time to pull it together. She had two problems to deal with in the here and now. She needed a new distributor for the shop and a new recipe for the blogger. It had to be a good one, too. If she was going to keep her grandmother’s shop open, she needed more business, and that meant needing great exposure.
No time for trips down memory lane or sexy cowboys who didn’t even notice her. Men only brought heartache. Maggie had learned that lesson enough times.
****
“Ow! Mother Fletcher,” Maggie exclaimed as her head connected with the shelf.
The musical tones of her cell phone blaring out Sister Sledge’s “We are Family” had startled her from her crouched position on the closet floor. She would have ignored the call, but that ring tone was attached to only one person.
She crawled out of the closet, rubbing a hand over her throbbing head as she grabbed her cell off the bedside table. “Hey, Lizzy.”
“The new pastry chef is a nightmare!”
The overdramatic tone in her best friend’s voice made her laugh.
“I’m serious, Maggie. The guy managed to mess up chocolate cake the other day. How the hell do you mess up chocolate cake?”
“I’m sure it wasn’t that bad.”
Lizzy’s snort sounded loudly through the phone. “Oh it was, believe me. It was hard as a rock when it came out of the oven, and I think he mixed up the salt and sugar quantities, because it tasted like a salt lick. I am so getting fired.”
She smiled; exaggeration was her best friend’s middle name. Her parents were both involved in “The Biz” as they called it in Hollywood. Her father was a producer and her mother was a B list actress. Both had been disappointed when Lizzy decided not to follow the family tradition of the Hollywood life and instead pursued a career in business management. Still, blood was thicker than water, and the dramatic woman had a tendency to be a bit sensational, but in a fun way.
“I never should have hired him for the restaurant. Of course, if someone hadn’t abandoned me, I wouldn’t have needed to hire a new pastry chef.”
“I didn’t abandon you. I started a new chapter in my life.”
Her friend sighed heavily over the phone. “I know, and I’m happy for you. I just miss you.”
“I miss you, too.”
“So, how’s the land of cows? Meet any cute cowboys yet?”
Her mind wandered back to Colton and how he had looked in those tight, ass-hugging jeans today. She would never understand why the youth of today wore jeans so baggy they fell to their knees. A man’s butt displayed in a tight pair of pants just made you want to grab and smack it.
“You hesitated. You did meet a cowboy! Tell me all about him.”
Laughing at her friend’s exuberance, Maggie shook her head. “I didn’t hesitate. I’m just distracted.”
“By cute cowboy butt?”
Her nosy friend knew her weakness.
“No. I’m looking for my grandmother’s special recipe box. I’ve searched the entire apartment, but I can’t find it anywhere.”
“Why do you need her recipe box?”
Lifting the bed skirt, she glanced underneath. Aside from some dust bunnies and a sock that was in serious need of washing, it was empty. No recipe box. Where the heck had Gran put that thing?
“I need something for the blogger. Something special to really knock her socks off,” she replied.
“I thought you were making your tiramisu cupcakes?”
Maggie stood with a grunt. “I was, until my distributor decided to be an incompetent jerk.”
Perhaps the recipe box was in the bathroom. It was a long shot, but the only room she hadn’t checked so far. Going down the hall, she explained her situation to her best friend. It felt good to vent her frustrations to someone, and being the manager of one of LA’s most prestigious four-star restaurants, Lizzy knew all about dealing with incompetent people.
“Isn’t this like the third screw up they’ve made?”
“Fourth,” she said, entering the bathroom and scanning the medicine cabinet. Aspirin, bandages, tampons, makeup, but no recipe box.
“You need a new distributor.”
“I know.”
Crouching down, she opened the sink cabinets. Nothing except her cleaning supplies. No recipe box. “Dammit! I can’t find this thing anywhere!” She hadn’t really expected to find it in the bathroom, but she’d hoped.
“Want help?”
“Sure,” she said dryly. “Hop on a plane and travel over a thousand miles to help me find a box.”
“Very funny,” Lizzy said. “Where was the last place you saw it?”
Maggie closed her eyes. She pictured her grandmother opening the box and showing her the dozens of colorful three by five cards, all handwritten with various colored ink. A lump caught in her throat as she imagined her grandmother’s face. She hadn’t seen much of Gran in the past few years before her death. Guilt churned in the pit of her stomach. She had been a terrible granddaughter.
“Maggie?”
Opening her eyes, she tried to snap out of her self-wallowing. “Sorry. I was just thinking about Gran. I should have spent more time with her.”
“Oh, sweetie. She loved you. You brought her out here as often as you could.”
“I should have come back here to see her.”
“It was hard for you to leave the restaurant. She understood that. Plus, she always enjoyed the trips to the beach.”
She smiled as she remembered her grandmother lying on a lounge chair during one of her trips. Basking in the Malibu sun, Gran had declared it to be a little slice of heaven.
“She always did say the coast was the next best thing to her cabin.” A light bulb went off in her head. “Her cabin!”
“What about her cabin?”
“That’s the last place I remember seeing her recipe box. She was teaching me how to make lemon bars when we went out there for the weekend the last summer I was here.”
It had been years ago, but since the box wasn’t in the shop or Gran’s upstairs apartment—where Maggie currently lived—it had to be in the cabin.
“Do you think it’s still there?”
“It has to be.” It only stood to reason. “I’ll head up there tomorrow after I close the shop.”
It was only about an hour up the mountain. She could drive there, get the box, and be home in time for a late dinner.
“Well, I’m glad your problem is solved. Meanwhile, my pastry chef is poisoning half of Hollywood. Happen to have any four star restaurants looking for a new manager out in Podunk Town?”
“It’s Peak Town.” She chuckled at her best friend’s dramatics. “And no, the closest thing to a nice restaurant we have here is Merle’s Diner.”
“Sounds shmancy.”
“That’s not a word.”
“It should be. It means super fancy. Much better than regular fancy.” Much like her life, Lizzy liked to infuse pizzazz into her words. It was just another thing that made the woman so loveable.
They chatted for a few more minutes before hanging up, Lizzy promising to take some time off soon to visit her. Maggie got ready for bed, brushing her teeth and hair before putting on a large nightshirt and slipping into bed.
After she closed the shop tomorrow, she would head up the mountain to her grandmother’s cabin, find the recipe box, pick out the perfect cupcake to knock the socks off the blogger, and everything would work out perfectly.
Right, because her life had been perfect so far.
Slipping a hand out from beneath the covers, she reached over to the bedside table and knocked on the solid oak nightstand.
A little superstition never hurt anybody.