like Letty and Didi. I would never let that happen,” she said, referring to Zoe’s grandmother, Letty, and her best friend, Didi, who couldn’t come to an agreement about how to run the bakery and it ended their friendship… and started a family feud that lasted until Zoe and Aiden fell in love.
“Hot Cakes—well, Grant, and Cam, and Whitney—offered me a chance to develop a new cake for them.”
Zoe’s eyes widened.
“But I turned them down too,” Josie said. “I love watching people’s eyes light up when they see or taste something I’ve created. I would never get to experience that with a Hot Cakes cake. I do get to do it at the bakery sometimes, and I’m grateful for that. But I’d love the chance to really try new things and get people’s reactions one on one. This is a little more personal, a little more my own thing, and I want a little bit of that.”
Zoe smiled. “I love that. If you want to do this, you have my support, however you want to make it happen. You can do it through Buttered Up or on your own, but either way, I’m here for you. I love you, and I’m sorry that I haven’t let you shine.”
Josie gave a choked sob-laugh and pulled Zoe into another hug. After she let her go, she said firmly, “It wasn’t you. It was me. I wasn’t ready to shine. I was… content. I really was.”
“Until?”
“Grant,” she admitted.
Zoe gave her a knowing smile. “Falling in love has a way of changing your perspective and shaking things up you didn’t even know needed shaken.”
Josie nodded. “I hope it works that way for Grant too.”
“It will.”
She really hoped so. She really, really hoped so.
Just then her phone chimed with a text notification. It was Cam.
I hope you’re almost done. This guy is like a caged animal.
She grinned. A caged animal, huh?
Cam replied, Pacing around, growling at everyone about everything, generally losing his patience… and sense of humor. Don’t know how much longer we can keep him here.
Josie felt her heart swell. Grant Lorre was like a caged animal, huh? Grant was the levelheaded one, the one who talked the rest of them out of reacting purely on emotion.
Maybe Grant was getting a little shaken up too.
Good.
She took a breath, looked at Zoe, looked at the island top full of treats—her creations—and then typed, I’m ready for him.
Finally.
Grant stomped up the back steps to Jocelyn’s house.
It had been fourteen hours since he’d seen her. It felt like a year.
The meetings with Ollie about the new snack cake and the contest and auction and circus had been predictably crazy and annoying. Grant had finally called Cam in as backup because, sure enough, Ollie had a way of getting Whitney worked up and excited about really stupid shit.
Okay, maybe not stupid shit. But when more than half his concentration had been on Jocelyn and what she was thinking and feeling and how to tell her he was in love with her and how to save his marriage… conversations about bouncy houses and how much it would cost to rent a Ferris wheel had tried his patience more than they usually would have. And they usually would have tried his patience a lot.
Now he was finally “allowed” to go to Jocelyn. If he hadn’t known that Cam and Whitney were keeping him away on purpose, because Jocelyn had some plan she was trying to put together, he would have lost it. He’d have fired them both. Or locked them in the supply closet and come over here hours ago.
Then again, the supply-closet thing might have been great. It would have gotten them together and out of his way at the same time.
But now he was here, and he and Jocelyn were going to get back together.
He was going to beg her to forgive him, move his stuff into this amazing old house in this tiny, quirky town, convince her to marry him again with a huge ceremony and the-whole-town’s-invited party after, and then they were going to live here, happily ever after, dammit.
But he paused on the top step, his hand on the handle of the back door, and took a big breath. He blew it out. Repeated the breath. Then opened the door and walked in.
The aroma was the first thing that hit him. As always. Her house smelled delicious. Like a home. Like a place people came to be comforted and to celebrate and to be taken