His First and Last (Ardent Springs #1) by Terri Osburn

don’t. So forgive me for wanting a break. For wanting something good to finally come my way.”
    “Getting a job waiting tables would be a break?” Spencer asked. “Really?”
    Lorelei threw her hands up. “I don’t know. It would have been something.”
    “It would have been more of what you hate doing.” She needed to see that this was an opportunity to start over. “Take this chance to find something else. What did you love doing in the past that you’d want to do again? Something besides acting.”
    “I don’t know what I could do in this dinky town.”
    “Forget the town. That’s an excuse.” Spencer wrapped his hands around the tops of her arms and gave Lorelei a gentle shake. “What did you love to do that you’d want to do again?”
    Blue eyes darted around the porch as she struggled to find an answer. Then, out of nowhere, she said, “Baking.”
    Spencer stilled. “Baking?”
    “Yes,” she said, shaking him off. “The only thing I loved doing was helping Granny in the kitchen. There’s a method to baking. You know, if you do A, B, and C exactly as the recipe calls for, you’ll get it right.” Lorelei’s voice grew stronger as she continued. “And baking isn’t like cooking, where you can throw in a pinch of this or take out a cup of that and the dish still turns out fine. Baking takes precision. There’s no ambiguity to it.”
    “And the cookies and breads don’t care if you’re pretty enough or tall enough,” Spencer said, leaning against the porch post. “They turn out the same so long as you follow the recipe.”
    A grin teased at the corners of Lorelei’s mouth. “Yes. I guess that’s a plus.”
    “Then there you go,” he said, throwing an arm across her shoulders as he opened the screen door. “Lorelei the Baker is born.”

    Could she really do this? Lorelei stared through Beluga’s windshield once again, gnashing her teeth over what to do next. In her brief perusal of Snow’s shop, she hadn’t seen anything edible. Not even candies near the register. So there was no reason to believe Snow even wanted to sell food. After all, breads and cookies had expiration dates. Jewelry and waffle irons did not. But that also meant Lorelei could provide an item that wasn’t already in supply among the inventory.
    Snow wanted something to fill a void, and that’s what Lorelei could give her.
    Before her confidence could wane, Lorelei marched through Snow’s front door, pausing beneath the jingling bells to let her eyes once again adjust from glaring sun to dim interior. According to the sign in the window, the shop opened at ten. Lorelei planned her visit for 10:02, hoping she’d have a chance to talk to Snow without interruptions fromshoppers. The one stipulation the store owner would have to agree to was that no one would know where the baked goods came from.
    If the locals knew Lorelei supplied the treats, they were less likely to buy. So the source had to remain a mystery. Thankfully, Granny had agreed to keep her mouth shut, though getting her to swear not to tell Pearl had been no easy task.
    “Hey there, Lorelei,” said the woman she was there to see, appearing from the back of the store. “I thought I heard the bells go off.”
    “That was me,” Lorelei said, her entire body filling with heat as she fought the urge to run.
I will not chicken out,
she thought. Moisture covered her palms, and she rubbed them on the front of her white denim skirt. “I’ve thought about what you said yesterday, about bringing in something you can sell.”
    “Really?” Snow’s brows shot up as she leaned a hand on the glass counter. “Do you have something for me to look at?”
    “Not exactly. It’s more of a proposition right now.”
    Snow smiled as she crossed her arms. “I haven’t been propositioned in a while. You have my attention.”
    Lorelei straightened her shoulders as she performed the speech she’d been rehearsing since the night before. “While walking around