Chapter 18

• The smell inside Sparrow’s Bakery hadn’t changed much since Miss June sold her the lease — old flour, fresh paint, a hint of lemon oil when the sun cut through the dusty front window just right. But this morning it smelled like her — sugar warm off her skin, buttercream stuck in her hair from the test batch she’d tried at sunrise, a faint bite of something sharper under her perfume that Beau couldn’t name and didn’t dare breathe too deep.
• She stood barefoot on the counter stool, tugging painter’s tape off the front window frame. The hem of her soft cotton dress — pale yellow, frayed just enough to tease him — fluttered every time she leaned up, flashing the line of her thighs under that warm flood of sun. Her cowgirl boots clomped heavy when she shifted her weight. Hair down today, soft waves catching the bandanna she’d tied neat behind her ears, dark red lipstick slick and perfect on her smirk when she caught him starin’ too long.
• Beau should’ve been fixin’ the new shelving by the register — the one she’d whined about needing done yesterday. Instead he stood half-hidden behind a stack of fresh lumber, hammer loose in his grip, teeth sunk hard in the corner of his cheek every time she stretched enough to show him the soft shadow where her thighs met under that dress.