Chapter 4

• The old storefront still smelled like stale flour and lemon polish, same as it did when it was Miss June’s sewing shop. The window was cracked at the corner, the screen door squeaked, and the wood floors groaned under Sadie Lawson’s cowgirl boots like they remembered her mama’s laugh.
• She stood in the middle of it all — hands on her hips, hair braided loose down her back, clipboard tucked under her arm. She smelled like cookies and vanilla again, the same sweetness that had Beau Walker pacing his porch that morning with a cigarette he didn’t even light.
• She wants to open a bakery, she’d said, all smug in her tiny shorts. Sparrow’s Bakery, she’d told Cade, after her mama. Cade damn near teared up — didn’t care who saw it.
• Beau told himself he was just passing through town. Just needed a few fence posts from the feed store. But his truck ended up parked at the curb outside the old sewing shop, engine ticking while he watched her through the dusty front window.
• She was laughing. He felt it in his spine before he even heard it. Soft and sharp, same as it ever was.
• Beau pushed the door open, let the squeak announce him. Inside, the old place was warm with late sun, dancing dust motes through big windows Sadie was half-cleaning. She was perched on a step ladder, fiddling with a piece of yellow bunting she’d found in a box, the hem of her shorts riding high enough to make a preacher cuss.
• On the floor stood a man Beau didn’t know. Skinny jeans, button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbow like he’d never worked a fence line in his life. Hair too perfect, grin too slick. That grin was aimed straight at her ass — and she knew it, if that flirty giggle was anything to go by.
• Beau felt his jaw flex so hard his molars squeaked.
• Sadie spotted him over the man’s shoulder and her grin doubled — wicked and sweet. She tugged the bunting down, hopped off the ladder like she’d been doin’ this dance her whole damn life.
• “Well, look who it is,” she sang, voice syrup-thick with that country twang that’d drive him nuts if he let it. “Didn’t think they let Walker boys this far into town without a leash.”
• The man — too-pretty city boy type — turned, stuck out a hand. “Hey there. Name’s Tyler June. Dad owns the building. You must be Beau, right? Cade’s friend?”
• Beau didn’t take the hand right away. He stared at it, then at the man’s perfect hair, then at Sadie’s little smirk. Then he clapped his palm around it, gave it just enough squeeze to test the bones.
• “Beau Walker,” he said, voice flat. “You rentin’ her this place?”
• Tyler pulled his hand back, flexing his fingers like he wasn’t sure they still worked. “Well, my dad is. I’m just… helpin’ out. Making sure she’s got what she needs.”
• Sadie rolled her eyes, popped the clipboard against her hip. “He means he’s tryin’ to talk me into fancy light fixtures I don’t need.”
• Tyler grinned, soft chuckle. “Just sayin’ — place could use an upgrade. New windows, fresh counters, some tile. Maybe even—”
• “—A man to fix what’s broke,” Beau cut in, tone dry enough to start a brush fire. “Reckon she knows how to handle that fine herself.”
• Sadie’s eyes snapped to his, a spark there. She liked it — he could see it in the way her lip curled slow. Little shit.
• Tyler either didn’t catch it or didn’t care. “Just being neighborly,” he said, chuckling again. He glanced at Sadie — let his eyes flick down her body like he owned that permission. “Can’t blame a man for wantin’ to be helpful.”
• Beau stepped forward, boots thudding on the old wood. “Plenty of help around here she don’t need.”
• Sadie shifted her weight, a lazy grin blooming on her lips as she watched them square up. “Boys, boys. It’s a bakery. Not a damn bull ring.”
• She moved past Tyler, shoulder bumping his chest just enough to break the tension. She brushed Beau’s arm with her free hand as she passed him, that cookie-sugar scent curling around his nose like a rope.
• “Come on, cowboy,” she purred. “Help me haul some boxes from the truck out back. Unless you’re too busy glarin’ holes in people’s heads.”
• Beau didn’t look at Tyler. Didn’t need to. He heard the little huff that passed for a laugh, the man trying to recover face. Didn’t matter. Sadie already had a fist wrapped around Beau’s guts and she didn’t even know it.
• He followed her out the back door, boots heavy on cracked concrete, the scent of her vanilla trailing behind. She bent over the tailgate to tug a flour sack forward — same trick she’d pulled at the farm. Beau swallowed a curse. She knew exactly what she was doin’. The girl had teeth now.
• She straightened, half turned, arms full of supplies. “Don’t you go scaring off my landlord’s boy,” she said, mock-sweet. “Need him happy or he’ll up my rent.”
• Beau leaned in, took the box from her arms — close enough his shoulder brushed hers, close enough to see the freckles dusted over the top swell of her chest where her tank gapped.
• “Careful who you let be neighborly, Bug.”
• She smirked, slow and mean. “Ain’t Bug no more.”
• And damn if that didn’t make him want to ruin her mouth for sayin’ it.