Page 3 of Working For Her Sweet Treats

“After professional intervention.”

He looks at the muffin again. “Add it.”

I smile as I ring up his order. “You won’t regret it.”

“We’ll see.”

“That sounded like a challenge.”

“It’s a muffin.”

“Not in here, it isn’t.”

Something changes in his expression. The humor remains, but curiosity joins it. I know I can get carried away when I talk about the bakery. This building sat empty for almost three years before I bought it. Before that, it housed a discount furniture store, an insurance office, and, according to one elderly customer who stopped me on the sidewalk yesterday, an establishment where women danced in short skirts sometime during the nineteen seventies.

Long before any of those businesses, it was Forge Creek’s first bakery.

I found one surviving photograph taken shortly after it opened. The brick had been darker then, the windows narrower and the sign hand-painted. A family stood outside in white aprons, all of them looking serious except for a little girl holding a loaf of bread larger than her head. The photograph hangs behind the register now.

I restored what I could, replaced what I couldn’t, and spent too many nights wondering whether using part of my divorce settlement to buy an old bakery in a town where I knew not a single soul was brave or completely unhinged.

Sweet Treats has been open for only a few days. So far, the answer changes hourly.

I slide his cup toward him. “Cream and sugar are at the end of the counter.”

He picks up the coffee but leaves the cinnamon rolls and muffin where they are.

“You’re eating here?”

“I thought I might.”

I glance at the muddy footprints.

He follows my gaze. “Do you charge extra for that?”

“For eating here, no. For the floor … I haven’t decided.”

He takes his plate to the closest table and lowers himself into one of my delicate café chairs. The chair suddenly looks as though it regrets several life choices.

I reach for the mop.

“You’re doing that now?” he asks.

“I’m considering preserving the evidence for a civil case, but yes.”

He picks up the muffin while I dampen the mop head in the utility sink behind the counter. I pretend not to watch him take the first bite. His jaw slows and there is a brief pause. Then he takes another bite before he has fully finished the first. Victory warms me from the inside.

“Well?” I ask.

He chews deliberately, as though withholding judgment might restore some balance of power.

“It’s good.”

“Good?”

“Very good.”

I prop one hand on the mop handle. “You should know that excessive enthusiasm is permitted inside Sweet Treats.”