The Bluebird Bakery--A Small Town Romance, page 1
Praise for the novels of Lee Tobin McClain
“[A] magnetic second-chance romance.... McClain pits her charming, authentic characters against the realistic problems of everyday life, making for a story that is deeply emotional but never soapy. The welcoming community and beautifully described scenery of Teaberry Island only enhance this cozy romance. Readers won’t want to put this down.”
—Publishers Weekly starred review on The Forever Farmhouse
“Lee Tobin McClain dazzles with unforgettable characters, fabulous small-town settings and a big dose of heart. Her complex and satisfying stories never disappoint.”
—Susan Mallery, New York Times bestselling author
“Fans of Debbie Macomber will appreciate this start to a new series by McClain that blends sweet, small-town romance with such serious issues as domestic abuse.... Readers craving a feel-good romance with a bit of suspense will be satisfied.”
—Booklist on Low Country Hero
“[An] enthralling tale of learning to trust.... This enjoyable contemporary romance will appeal to readers looking for twinges of suspense before happily ever after.”
—Publishers Weekly on Low Country Hero
“Low Country Hero has everything I look for in a book— it’s emotional, tender, and an all-around wonderful story.”
—RaeAnne Thayne, New York Times bestselling author
Also by Lee Tobin McClain
Hometown Brothers
The Forever Farmhouse
The Off Season
Cottage at the Beach
Reunion at the Shore
Christmas on the Coast
Home to the Harbor
First Kiss at Christmas
Forever on the Bay
Safe Haven
Low Country Hero
Low Country Dreams
Low Country Christmas
Look for Lee Tobin McClain’s next novel The Beach Reads Bookshop available soon from HQN.
For additional books by Lee Tobin McClain, visit her website, www.leetobinmcclain.com.
Lee Tobin McClain
The Bluebird Bakery
To Kathy Ayres, who’s helped me
improve countless stories including this one.
Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
EPILOGUE
EXCERPT FROM THE BEACH READS BOOKSHOP BY LEE TOBIN McCLAIN
TAYLOR’S TEABERRY ISLAND SCONES
PROLOGUE
Fifteen years ago
TAYLOR HARP WAS fifteen years old when she learned that, sometimes, it was better to be the smart one than the pretty one.
“Let’s go, Savannah, you’re going to stay with me.” Mrs. Williams, Mom’s best friend, tugged Taylor’s sister toward her Lexus.
Aunt Katy put an arm around Taylor. “Come on, honey. You’ll be living with me.”
Taylor leaned in, welcoming the comfort of her beloved aunt. And then she processed what the two adults had said.
Shock and pain tightened her chest as she looked at her younger sister, gorgeous even with the tears that had streaked mascara down her face. Taylor should have told Savannah not to wear mascara to their mother’s memorial service. She should have done a lot of things differently, she saw now, but it was too late.
She stuffed down the pain and welcomed the anger that rose in its place. Mrs. Williams and Aunt Katy wanted to separate her and her sister? How could they even think that, today of all days? “We need to stay together,” she said, stepping forward to take her sister’s hand.
Taylor was older by a year and wiser by a lifetime. She wasn’t always crazy about her sister, but it was her job to take care of Savannah. It had been that way for most of their lives.
She wasn’t going to cry. She was mad, not sad. Except when she looked at her sister’s tear-streaked face.
Today, when they’d just laid their mother, Birdy, to rest, was not the day to neglect her duty to her sister. “We’re staying together,” she repeated with more force in her voice.
Savannah gripped Taylor’s hand so hard it hurt.
“You can’t stay together,” Mrs. Williams said briskly. “Everything has changed, and we need to deal with it. Your aunt works too much to get Savannah to all her pageants.”
Taylor opened her mouth to make the horrible suggestion that she would come and live with Mrs. Williams, too.
Seeming to read her mind, the woman shook her head. “I can’t take both of you, so don’t even ask.”
Aunt Katy looked like she was about to cry herself. “Savannah could stop competing—”
“She needs to stay visible so she can get more modeling gigs.” Mrs. Williams’s voice was sharp. “Birdy left nothing. You know that.”
Aunt Katy bit her lip and reached out to brush back Savannah’s blond curls. “You can visit. A lot.” Then she turned and patted Taylor’s shoulder. “And you’re so good at math, you can help me with my tax business.”
Taylor tried to maintain her anger, but it was turning into a stone of despair, pressing down on her. If Aunt Katy was giving in to awful Mrs. Williams, that meant the adults had already discussed this. It meant this separation was inevitable. That was a new word she’d learned by eavesdropping on Mrs. Williams’s phone conversation. “It was inevitable she’d take her own life one day,” Mrs. Williams had said.
Taylor swallowed hard and kept a grip on her sister’s hand. “If you ever feel like Mom felt, you come to me,” she whispered. She’d learned online that depression ran in families, and Mom had definitely been depressed. “Whatever it takes, you hear me? Come to me, or I’ll come get you, wherever you are. Do not do what she did.”
Fresh tears rose to Savannah’s eyes and spilled over. “You, too,” she choked out. “If you ever feel like...” Her voice rose to a squeak on the last words.
“We have a train to catch.” Mrs. Williams took a tissue and tried to wipe Savannah’s face, then gave up and grasped each girl’s wrist, yanking them apart like they were beads on a child’s plastic necklace. “You can call your sister tomorrow, after the pageant.”
Aunt Katy pulled Taylor into a side hug, her warm softness comforting. “Come on, we’ll stop at the bakery and get cupcakes on the way home.”
Seriously, their mother had just died and Aunt Katy was offering cupcakes? But Taylor bit back the snarky remark. Aunt Katy was sweet, and really, cupcakes were as good a comfort as anything else would be.
“I want a cupcake,” Savannah croaked out.
“No cupcakes for a pageant princess. Your dress is already tight.” And with that, Mrs. Williams opened the passenger door of the Lexus and half pushed, half lifted Savannah inside.
Mrs. Williams must have seen something on Aunt Katy’s face, because her own expression went sour. “It’s not our fault, it’s Birdy’s,” she said. Her voice was harsh, but at the end, her face sort of caved in, her mouth twisting. She hurried to the driver’s side of the car and got in. Before Taylor could catch her breath, the car had squealed out of the parking lot, taking her sister away.
Taylor watched the Lexus until it blended into a traffic jam of other vehicles. She kept squinting, trying to see it long after it had disappeared.
“Come on, honey.” Aunt Katy took Taylor’s hand, even though Taylor was way too old for that, and they headed down the street toward the small apartment that would become Taylor’s home for the next however many years. Until she was eighteen and on her own, she guessed.
On the way, they stopped in front of the neighborhood bakery. As they walked inside, the checkered tablecloths and sweet-smelling cookies and happy chatter washed over Taylor. They gently soothed, for just a moment, the hole in her heart.
CHAPTER ONE
Present Day
IT WAS 5:00 A.M., and US Army Staff Sergeant Cody Cunningham—retired Staff Sergeant—had given up on trying to sleep.
No surprise there. He hadn’t really slept, not for more than a few hours, since he’d been found wandering just outside of an enemy camp, naked and with no memory of what had happened to him. If he slept, the demons lurking near his conscious mind might make their way in. Whatever part of his brain controlled sleeping didn’t think he could tolerate that apparently.
At least here, on Teaberry Island in the Chesapeake Bay, he had a few friends, a few loved ones and a place to stay.
Temporarily.
He made sure that his nephew was sleeping and that Betty, who lived next door, was awake and available if the boy needed her. Then he slipped out of his newlywed brother’s home and walked the short distance to the island’s main street. As he’d expected, it was deserted. Except...
There was a light on at t
He walked by, staying in the shadows out of habitual caution he couldn’t seem to shake. When he saw the Help Wanted, Housing Included sign, though, he couldn’t resist stopping to study it.
Sudden movement inside the bakery let him know that his presence had been detected, and he backed up.
“Who’s there?” A woman flung open the door, saw him and stepped backward, shock warring with simple dislike on her face. “You scared me. What are you doing here?”
He blew out a sigh and scanned Taylor Harp, the instant assessment another habit from his combat days. She stood in the doorway of the bakery, a hand propped on either side of the frame as if she were a bouncer ready to physically block him from entry. Silvery moonlight washed over her hair, tied back in a practical bun. Her wide, happy smile had captivated him when she’d visited the island as a teen, but now those full lips had turned downward into a frown. “I couldn’t sleep,” he admitted.
“Some of us wish we could, but we have to work.” Just like the last time he’d spoken with her, at the end of their high school acquaintance, she was as disapproving as an old-fashioned schoolmarm.
Prettier, though.
She started to close the door, from which wafted the smells of bread and cake baking. Familiar, good smells. They drew him like a fish to bait, a bee to flowers, an enemy soldier to a decoy. “Wait, Taylor.”
“What?”
He gestured toward the sign. “That job, have you filled it yet?”
She snorted. “No. No one of legal age to work nights has applied. Doesn’t help that I can’t pay much, even though housing’s...” She trailed off and studied him. “Why are you asking?”
He shook his head. “I’m looking for work, and a place to stay, but I know—” He paused. His therapist said he shouldn’t automatically discount opportunities. “Is there any chance I could apply?”
“Are you kidding me?” She squinted at him like he was a two-headed rockfish. “You want to work night shift at a bakery?”
“Never thought about it before. But I was a cook in the army.”
“Oh, my lord, that’s right. That chef show.” She shook her head. “You were funny.”
He’d definitely been more lighthearted back in those days. Quick with a joke or quip. The military channel show had gone viral, army chefs competing for silly prizes. It had eased the monotony of wartime and entertained the troops.
And then everything had blown up. Literally.
He hadn’t cooked since then, aside from fixing breakfast for his nephew or heating up a can of soup.
“You’re not seriously thinking—” Taylor broke off, still staring at him like he had a few screws loose.
Which, in fact, he did. “No. It could never work,” he said.
“No,” she agreed.
He breathed in the smell of baking bread and looked at her. “Could it?” he asked.
“No,” she said firmly, and shut the door.
* * *
TAYLOR SHUT THE door and then leaned back against it, willing herself to settle down after the shock of seeing Cody Cunningham. How could he still be so appealing, with those eyes that seemed to see right into her soul? How had he gotten even more handsome than when she’d seen him, at a distance, on her friend Mellie’s wedding day?
She was half waiting for Cody to knock again or try to open the door. That was what he’d have done when she’d known him as a teenager.
And Taylor, foolishly, would have opened the door and invited him up to her apartment above the bakery for breakfast, because she’d have hoped against hope that he wanted her, wanted to be with her, cared about her.
When, of course, it was always about Savannah.
Cody didn’t knock, and when she peeked out the window, she saw him disappearing down the street. She blew out a breath and headed back to the oven to check on twenty loaves of teaberry sweet bread.
Savannah.
The sight of Cody had brought her sister to the forefront of Taylor’s mind, and now she was stuck there. Where was Savannah now, and how was she doing? Why hadn’t she been answering Taylor’s calls?
Even though the island was distant from the everyday world in some ways, accessible only by boat, old-fashioned, they had the internet and cell phones and news, at least most of the time. There was no excuse for Savannah to be out of touch.
No excuse except that she was ashamed of the way she was living. Taylor, having spent her adolescence under Aunt Katy’s influence, was the wholesome type: be strong, do your duty, go to church. Savannah had lived in a different, more glamorous world, with completely different values.
Taylor didn’t judge her sister, or not too much. She prayed Savannah hadn’t descended to the dark place they both feared after losing their mother to it. Surely, whatever had caused Savannah to pull away from Taylor, she’d land on her feet and get back in contact, just like the other times she’d run into some kind of trouble.
Taylor straightened and went to the window, looking out into the now-empty moonlit street. She was half glad, half sorry that Cody was gone. What had the world come to, when a heroic and decorated veteran was seeking a job as a night shift baker and wanted to live in an apartment above the shop? Cody should have come home to more fanfare.
She looked inside, tested her feelings the way you’d poke at an old scar. Did she still feel that way about him?
Slowly, she walked back to the kitchen and washed her hands. She’d been rolling out dough for cinnamon rolls, and now she touched the big sheet of it with one finger. It had gotten dry while she’d been talking to Cody, so she dipped a brush into the pot of melted butter and re-coated the sheet. Today’s customers would find the rolls a bit richer than usual, which wouldn’t arouse any complaints. People didn’t come to the Bluebird Bakery for diet fare.
She looked at the clock and started sprinkling the streusel she’d already prepared onto the dough. She added nuts to one half. Ideally, she’d have made two separate batches, one with nuts and one without. She’d probably sell out of these by 9:00 a.m. But she didn’t have time to do it all. There were still scones and muffins to get ready before the bakery opened at six thirty.
Which was why she needed to hire a night baker.
She yawned and stretched, rolling her shoulders. It was a good problem to have. She’d moved to Teaberry Island and started the bakery on way too little capital and an intuition that it would go well, that it was what the island needed. The island had a lot of teaberry bushes and was named for them, but aside from ice cream, no one had capitalized on the unusual minty, root-beer-like flavor.
She’d worked her fingers raw for the first two years, selling all the standard bakery hits but also developing recipes for teaberry scones and muffins and cakes.
It had paid off. Not only during the tourist season, but the rest of the year. She’d had a steadily growing customer base. She’d hired summer help, a high school and a college student, and she’d kept the high school student on to help on weekends and the occasional weeknight. A friend’s daughter who had a cognitive impairment and a temperamental senior citizen worked for her in a random way, too.
But since she’d put out feelers about distributing teaberry baked goods more widely, she’d started getting off-island orders. More than she’d expected. Now she really needed a night baker.
She was on her way to achieving her fondest goal. Not just owning her own bakery, not just scratching out a living, but making a huge success of it. Enough that what had happened to her and Savannah would never, ever happen again. Enough that she could take care of Savannah and maybe, one day, the kids she desperately hoped to have, without the constant dark cloud of financial and emotional disaster following her around.
She could do it, but she had to have help.
The fact that she’d had exactly one potential applicant, and it was the man who’d come close to breaking her heart...well. It was par for Taylor’s course. She put it out of her mind and focused on her baking.
* * *
SAVANNAH HARP WISHED this party were over.
She smoothed down her sparkly dress and waved away the caterer’s assistant, who was circulating with a tray of champagne glasses. She was new enough to all of this to marvel that there was a caterer, in her own apartment, overlooking the bright lights of New York City.
