The Copper Valley Bro Code Series: Volume 1, page 51
Sarah snort-laughs so hard she’s in danger of waking Emma.
She did a week-long series on weird side effects of sex last week, and yeah, she included the not-so-mythical sneezegasm. And Ellie and Wyatt have disappeared. And everyone reads Sarah’s blog.
Also, yes, I did go back to my hypnotherapist, and I’m just fine now.
Most of the time.
But more to the point, most of the guys know about the sneezegasm problem. So we all know what’s going on back there in the woods.
Which I’m choosing to ignore, since I have my own plans for lots of orgasm time this weekend.
“I love your laugh,” I tell Sarah, because I do, and I don’t even care that she’s laughing at me, so long as she’s laughing.
“I love you,” she replies.
“You really hanging up your underwear, Ryder?” Vaughn calls across the fire.
“If it keeps me home with this brilliant, beautiful lady more,” I reply. And I am. I’m slowly handing over control to everyone else, because I do want to be home more.
And I don’t know everything the future holds, but I know that between Tripp’s plans for all of us to pool our resources to save the Fireballs, and my own itch that I’ve been getting since talking to Sarah more about science and the world, that itch to maybe try college, and who knows, maybe med school after that—well, one way or another, I’ll be more than that retired underwear model who plays video games all day.
His teeth flash in a grin. “Good on you, man. Just don’t propose by tweet. Who knows who you’d actually pop the question to.”
Everybody gets a good laugh—yeah, it’s funny—and I spear another marshmallow to make Sarah the best s’more in the history of s’mores.
“I could live like this every day,” I murmur softly to her.
She leans into me with another one of those smiles I love so much. “Me too.”
“They’re not too much?”
“They’re family. And they’re yours. And they’re perfect. And we’re still locking the bedroom door tonight.”
“You’re utterly perfect, you know that?”
She laughs softly. “Far, far from it.”
“But you’re perfect for me.”
“Who knew one little tweet could change our entire lives?” she murmurs.
“Clearly, I did.”
She laughs again, and Emma startles awake with a cry. I wave Tripp off when he starts to get up, because he’s helping Mackenzie breathe. Also, Sarah and I have conquered worse than a fussy baby.
“Trade me?” I hand her the marshmallow stick, and she shifts to let me take Emma.
And then we sit there together, me calming a baby back to sleep, Sarah proving her marshmallow roasting skills surpass mine, our friends and family chattering happily all around us, and yep.
Life is pretty fucking perfect.
Want to extend the happily ever after? Click HERE to download a super fun bonus scene!
Up next, a smooth-talking baker, the one who got away, and a goat with more matchmaking tendencies than a nosy old grandpa star in Dirty Talking Rival… Turn the page to start reading!
DIRTY TALKING RIVAL
A COPPER VALLEY BRO CODE SPIN-OFF
1
Grady Rock, aka a master baker who’s man enough to handle any jokes about his nickname, but still unprepared for today’s gossip hour
“That’s right, baby,” I whisper as I ease deeper inside into her creamy depths. She’s tight. So full already. “Oh, yeah, just like that. You feel that? Is that good for you too?”
The donut doesn’t answer, but she does grunt under the strain of all the pudding I’m stuffing inside her.
Or possibly that was my pastry bag burping.
“You can take a little more,” I murmur while my kitchen door opens. “I know you can. And then I’m going to eat you so good—”
“Ugh, you are so disgusting,” my sister announces as she breezes in.
I smile at the donut. “Don’t listen to her. You’re beautiful.”
“You realize if you ever bothered to talk to a woman like that, Pop wouldn’t be trying so hard to set you up with every single woman in Virginia.”
“Don’t forget about the northern half of North Carolina too.” I brush a thumb over the top of the donut—smooth and firm, just like she should be—and move on to filling the next donut. “You ever seen a batch of donuts so beautiful?”
“You say that every morning.”
“The trick to life is getting better every day. You should try it sometime.”
Tillie Jean angles into my lair and makes herself comfortable on the spare stool across the metal worktable in my bakery kitchen.
My rolling racks are half full of all of the deliciousness I’ll sell out of before the day’s over. My ovens are baking muffins and scones. My mixing bowl is waiting for tomorrow’s donut dough. And my sink is overflowing with dirty dishes.
Just the way I like it.
If my bottom line would just start reflecting what my kitchen does—prosperity and productivity—life would be perfect.
I’m selling out almost every day. Hired an extra baker. Has to happen soon.
Or maybe never, because no matter how good I feel about what I’m selling every week, as soon as I sit down to trudge through my books on the weekends, I realize I’m still just barely breaking even.
Not like I can increase my clientele in a small town like this.
“You see Pop yet today?” Tillie Jean asks.
“It’s five AM.”
“Yep.”
“On a Tuesday.”
“Uh-huh.”
“That’s sex in the shower day. We won’t see Pop or Nana for at least another four hours.”
She doesn’t answer. Not to tell me I’m disgusting again, or to sigh and hope out loud that when she’s eighty, she’ll be married to someone who still wants to do her in the shower.
Suspicious.
Especially since she’s never out of bed before five AM either.
I finish the last of the donut filling and glance up at her.
She has this pensive look tightening her eyes and pursing her lips that I don’t see often, but that always manages to inch my pulse up and make me want to stick my head in the sand.
Or maybe whip up a batch of macarons, because those take time and concentration and are an excellent distraction.
Not to mention delicious, and they particularly like it when I compliment their smooth, perfect mounds.
None of which Tillie Jean seems to be thinking about.
“What?” I ask while I reach back to grab the donut glaze.
She blinks and shakes her head. “What flavor today?”
“Mascarpone and Nutella. Why do you look like you’re about to tell me my goat died?”
“Like you’d be sad if Sue died.”
“Avoiding the question, Tillie Jean. What’s got you in here before the sun on a Tuesday talking about Pop?”
Her lids close over her blue eyes, and I can see her fighting to keep from just blurting out whatever’s eating at her when the back door opens again, this time with a slam.
Georgia Mayberry, my second-in-command, marches in with a flier in hand and outrage in her brown eyes. She’s so mad that the braids at the ends of her cornrows are standing up and hissing too.
“Did you see this?” she demands indignantly, flapping the paper around.
Tillie Jean leaps up and grabs it from her. “No, he has not,” she says on a high-pitched whisper, “and we’re going to ease him into it, okay?”
“Ease me into what?”
“Freaking Duh-Nuts advertising all over Shipwreck!” Georgia announces. She snorts and marches to the fridge, where she starts yanking out butter and eggs. “Couldn’t keep it in Sarcasm like they should’ve. Oh, no. They have to come over here to Shipwreck and try to steal our customers. The nerve of those—those—those donut holes.”
“The nerve,” I agree, because agreeing with Georgia keeps her happy, and keeping Georgia happy keeps her employed here without asking for a raise, and her blueberry muffins are better than mine, which is saying something.
Am I worried?
Of course not. Duh-Nuts has already gone out of business once since I bought Crow’s Nest. They’ll go out of business again.
But my blood pressure still spikes.
Logically, I know the vast majority of my limited customer base would never voluntarily set foot in Sarcasm—and yes, that’s really what they call their town down the road. But it’s still competition, and my profits aren’t where I want them to be.
Not even close.
Plus, she said Sarcasm.
I used to know someone from Sarcasm. A long time ago.
Tillie Jean’s bedhead swivels back in my direction, and—huh.
She’s still in her pajamas. Are those—they are. They’re dancing lips with little stick arms and feet. Cute.
And also possibly why she’s still single.
I make a mental note to remember this the next time Pop tries to talk me into going on a date with a woman he’s hand-picked.
Just because it’s been a couple—several—fine, many months since my last casual girlfriend doesn’t mean my goat and I need someone right now, and if I can persuade him to concentrate on Tillie Jean’s love life instead of mine, bonus.
“Grady,” she says quietly.
I start dipping the donuts in the Nutella glaze and lift a yes? brow at her.
She holds out the flier for me to scan it.
Duh-Nuts Grand Re-opening and Homecoming! it says proudly.
But that’s not what makes my nuts suddenly retract.
Nope.
That’s the next line.
Now I get why Tillie Jean’s lurking around at this hour of the day.
My smile leaps off a cliff, I drop the donut in the glaze, and I feel like someone’s been shoving pudding up my ass.
“Thinking they can be all oh, come to our second-rate town for a grand re-opening of a donut shop that made bad donuts, it’s so exciting!” Georgia mutters with a snort while she slams flour and sugar onto the smaller worktable. “Sarcasm assholes. Who gives a chocolate chip that some chick came home?”
“So Duh-Nuts over in Sarcasm is re-opening. So what?” I try to keep my voice level and unafflicted while I fish the donut out of the glaze bowl, but I don’t quite make it, because I read that second line too, and I know who’s home.
“Grady—” Tillie Jean starts, but Georgia plows her over.
Verbally, I mean.
“They’re trying to steal our customers. Right here. In our own town. Like they didn’t steal half our tourists last month with their freaking unicorn festival. We’ve had the pirate festival every second week of June since the dawn of time, and they think they can just suddenly put a competing festival the same week?”
I let her rant while I watch Tillie Jean watching everything in the kitchen except me.
“So she’s back for good?” I ask.
My sister not looking at me is answer enough.
Annika Williams is back. Back back.
Annika Williams, who couldn’t bake her way out of a paper bag.
Annika Williams, who spent high school counting the days until she could leave our little slice of the Blue Ridge Mountains behind, but still promised me once she’d come back one day and be my business manager when I opened the best bakery on this side of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Annika Williams, who took my heart with her when she left.
She’s back.
Opening her own damn bakery.
Trying to steal my customers.
I thought I’d already felt everything I was ever going to feel about Annika Williams.
Turns out, I was wrong.
2
Annika Williams, aka a daughter and sister who’s changed a lot, but is still best known for her chocolate chip cookie bricks, which means this bakery idea isn’t going to end well
Usually when people say their lives are in the shitter, they don’t mean it quite this literally.
Also, my family’s life was already in the shitter before this, so I’m not amused at today’s turn of events.
To say the least.
“Can you fix it?” I ask Roger Rogers, owner of No Shit Plumbing, who’s standing over the toilet in Duh-Nuts Bakery’s lone bathroom, staring down at the swirling gray water.
He scratches his balding head, then claps his Copper Valley Fireballs baseball cap back on. His dark beard is streaked with gray, and he keeps shooting a glance at the kitchen like he’s hoping to be paid in double chocolate fudge cookies.
Which I won’t be baking, because I’ve turned committing sins against sugar into an art.
“Normally a plugged crapper ain’t a big deal,” Roger says, “but normally the plunger ain’t broke and stuck real good inside the crapper either.”
I tamp down on the urge to throw the plunger handle at his head and shout I know, that’s why I called you when his lips turn up in an ornery grin.
“Aw, c’mon, Annika. Had to give you shit about it. Heh. Shit. With a broken crapper. That’s funny. ’Course I can fix it. Just gotta go grab a new plunger to plunge out the old plunger pieces, since you ripped yours in two when you pulled the handle out and left the plunger stuck in the john.”
He grins at joking about plunging out a plunger head that’s currently stuck in the toilet and blocking the water from flowing the way it’s supposed to after someone attempted to flush raw cinnamon roll dough down the toilet an hour ago.
I don’t grin back, because if I can’t get this bakery back up and running, I don’t know how I’m going to take care of my mom and sister.
I swallow a lump of tears the size of the iceberg that took down the Titanic.
Who am I kidding?
I can put Mama’s building back together, but I don’t know how I’m going to lure in enough customers to keep her brand-new bakery in business.
Not with my skills.
We’d be better off with me buying all the snack cakes the grocery store has in stock and sticking unicorn horns in all of them to make them “unique” than with letting me take over the baking.
But I can’t tell Mama that going ahead with her plans for Duh-Nuts right now is a bad idea.
Not when it’s everything she’s ever dreamed of.
Not when she’s finally managed to get her hands on it.
And not when it’s the only thing getting her out of bed and coping right now.
“Hey. Chin up, baby girl. You know we got this.” Roger claps me on the shoulder with his meaty hand. “Take me less than five minutes. Go on. Time me.”
With a wink, he ambles out of the restroom, and a minute later, I hear the bells jingle on the front door as he exits to get his tools from his truck.
I sag against the bathroom wall, still clutching the plunger handle, and try to convince myself that I can do this. That we can do this.
Funny.
Ten years in the Army didn’t seem as daunting as getting through today.
But then, in my ten years in the Army, I knew my mom and sister were okay on their own, I had a job where I could spreadsheet and plan the hell out of everything, which is where my real gifts lie, and I didn’t need to train myself to be a master baker overnight in the midst of running Mama to doctor appointments and managing social worker and contractor visits to her house.
“Shitter cleared up yet?” Bailey, my baby sister, asks as she peers around the corner. Her big dark eyes are daring me to call her out on being crude—or on being the culprit who tried to flush my awful, thick, crusty, over-floured cinnamon roll dough down the toilet—but I have bigger problems than a thirteen-year-old pressing her luck with her mouth, especially when I know she was just trying to remove evidence of my crimes against dough so she could whip up her own batch.
Which I should’ve let her do in the first place.
“No. Did you finish frosting the cupcakes?” The ones that she made, because my cupcakes tend to look more like coal turds that even Santa would reject for the naughty kids, and those are my vanilla cupcakes. Don’t ask how my chocolate cupcakes turn out.
“Yep. But…I made fresh frosting, and probably you should leave the cookies to me too.”
That’s right.
Mama’s new shop is called Duh-Nuts and do we have any donuts this morning?
No, we don’t.
Because I couldn’t make a donut to save my life, and with Mama suddenly blind and unable to fry things, because safety, we’re concentrating on the bakery part of her business instead of the donut part these first few days.
“Good thing all our customers today will be pity customers,” I mutter with a sigh.
“That seems unlikely,” a deep voice answers, startling both of us.
I lean out of the bathroom while Bailey’s eyes go round, and I’m instantly eighteen again.
Unprepared, not entirely happy, uncertain what I’m supposed to do with the plunger handle, and very much on edge.
“Holy shit,” Bailey whispers.
“Language,” I say quietly, because it’s either that, or I might start dropping a few creative words I learned in the Army that she doesn’t need to know yet.
“Holy shirt on a shirtcake,” she corrects. “He’s hot for an old guy.”
Grady Rock’s blue eyes crinkle at the edges when he smiles at Bailey, which is an expression he wasn’t aiming at me, for the record.
Also for the record, he’s not old.
He’s my age, not yet thirty, and he’s aged as well as double-oaked whiskey.
“Adults ruin all the fun,” he says to her.
“I can say whatever I want at home. Just not here, or Annika will swap out my mascara for her special homemade chocolate frosting. Who are you?”
“He’s—” I start, and I realize I have no idea how to finish that sentence.
My former best friend?
The boy I crushed on all through high school, even though I knew better?
The guy who asked me to sacrifice my future and my independence and all my life plans to wait around for him to get back from culinary school since he finally realized, on graduation night, mere hours before I had to catch a bus to Army basic training, that he couldn’t live without me?
