Gluten for Punishment by Nancy J. Parra Read Free Book Online Page A

the man
     you were with. You had to trust that you weren’t fooling yourself. And if I were to
     be brutally honest, I doubt I would ever trust myself again. I mean, if Eric could
     fool me for five years, what could someone else do? No. I couldn’t trust that what
     I thought was love really was. I could never trust my own heart again.

CHAPTER 5

    T he online orders were prepped to ship, the sky was dark, and it was me and Bon Jovi
     on my mp3 player. Carrie had gone home a half hour before. I should have been ready
     to drop after a long day and the even longer ribbon cutting the day before, but I
     was ready to dance. The bakery store hours were technically seven A.M. until nine P.M. , but I was being way too generous. In winter, the streets of a small town rolled
     up by eight. Now just past that hour, I was dancing to the music as I pulled the coffee
     carafes off the bar. Time to take them in the back and give them a good cleaning.
    The door jangle startled me and I glanced over to see a gorgeous man of about six-foot-two
     step inside my shop. He wore a cowboy hat, which he promptly took off. His dark brown
     hair was thick and wavy with the right touch of gray at the temples. He had a square
     jaw, a generous mouth, a straight nose, and dark brown eyes that seemed to look right
     through me.
    I swallowed and blinked. This must be a hallucination, another reaction to yesterday’s
     flour bomb, because I’d never seen a man that handsome in real life. I mean, they
     didn’t exist. Santa existed. Fairies existed, heck, unicorns existed, but not men
     who looked like this . . .
    He stared at me. I stared back, my mouth dry. He wore a rancher’s jacket made of denim
     outside and faux shearling inside, a dress shirt in some blue stripe, and jeans. Right.
     Jeans molded to him like a man who took care of his body and anything else he thought
     was his. Boy, did he take good care.
    I refused to swoon. After all, I was hallucinating, right?
    “Hey.”
    Well, hell, even his voice was nice. It had a dark sexy tone to it. “Hey,” I replied
     like an idiot. I did a mental shake. If he was real, then he was a customer. “I mean,
     can I help you?”
    “I certainly hope so.”
    I clutched the coffee carafes to my chest and retreated behind the nearly empty display
     case. He smiled at me. Not a sexy crooked smile. Not a flirty smile, but the smile
     of a man who was desperate. Hmm, maybe he was real. “I need something to serve at
     a party.”
    He walked up to the counter, hat in hand. In his dark eyes I saw intelligence, surrounded
     by crinkles from the sun and possibly laughter. A man who worked and laughed. Damn.
    I put the carafes down and grabbed a pad and pen. “When’s the party?”
    He glanced at his watch. “Now.” He looked back at me and ducked his head a bit, then
     turned on the sexy smile. “It’s been one of those days.”
    I bet he’d practiced his smile from birth. “What kind of dessert did you have in mind?”
    “I’m not picky and neither are my grandma and her friends.”
    “Your grandma?” The thought of this good-looking man bringing his grandma dessert
     had me melting.
    “Yes, you see, my grandma fell on the steps of her porch today and twisted her ankle.”
    “Oh, no. . . .”
    “She’s fine. Doc says it was only a sprain, but her friends came over and a poker
     game broke out and they sent me to get party food.” He ran the rim of his hat through
     his fingers. “I was on my way to the Dillon’s Grocery when I saw your sign and I stopped.”
     He glanced at the nearly empty display case and winced. “I guess I’m too late. . . .”
    “Oh, no, I have more in the back,” the salesman in me piped up. In the back of my
     mind I was processing senior ladies playing poker and trying to figure out what kind
     of dessert to recommend. “Are there any food allergies I need to be aware of?”
    “I’m sorry?” He pulled his thick brows together and looked at me as