This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
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str2-13: 9781477828618
str2-10: 1477828613
Cover design by Anna Curtis
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014957337
To chocolate. To coffee.
To the man in my life who puts up with my love of both.
And whom I love because he puts up with me.
And for Jedi
Who needs a bookstore of his own.
Thanks, too, to Shannon W. for the tip on tribal tats!
CONTENTS
ONE
TWO
TWO OWLS’ ULTIMATE CHOCOLATE BROWNIE CAKE
THREE
FOUR
FRIDAY, MAY 26, 2006
FIVE
SIX
ADDY DRAKE’S OOEY GOOEY CAKE
SEVEN
EIGHT
BLISS’S ORANGE-SPICED WHITE HOT CHOCOLATE
NINE
TEN
SHIRLEY DRAKE’S OREO CAKE
ELEVEN
MONDAY, JUNE 10, 2013
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
BROOKLYN’S BANANA BREAD SPICE CAKE
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
TWO OWLS’ CRACKLE-TOP BROWNIES
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
BACK ALLEY BURGERS’ TRES LECHES CAKE
NINETEEN
TWENTY
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2001
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
MAX MALINA’S MAMA MIA! ITALIAN CREAM CAKE
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ONE
Inked script at his nape. Colored sleeves beneath his rolled cuffs. Elaborate artwork in his oxford’s open collar. Her imagination wandered to his back and his chest, to his shoulders. His biceps. His abs. The tattoos were symbolic, not simply cosmetic, and part of the biker culture, leaving her to wonder how important the club had been to his life before he’d walked away.
Tats intrigued her—the creativity, the significance, the commitment—even when the man wearing the ink was her student’s father, and off-limits. This particular man also wore, not a beard, but an unkempt scruff framing a devilish smile. His hair was long, pulled back in a disheveled sort of knot. It had her thinking of Heathcliff, tortured and haunted and wild on the moors.
Had her, too, wanting to rescue him.
Hands curled over the edge of her desk as she leaned back against it, Brooklyn Harvey looked out at her class of kindergartners. The fifteen five- and six-year-olds sat on the floor in a semicircle, their rapt attention on Callum Drake. Rather than using the full-sized chair she’d offered him, he’d lowered his six-foot-plus frame into one of those from the pint-sized collage table. Watching him fold himself to sit had been as breathtaking as watching him walk through the door.
She’d met Adrianne Drake’s grandparents, Shirley and Vaughn, at orientation before school started, and visited with them again at parents’ night, and at the Halloween costume party, and when they’d eaten lunch with the girl on Grandparents’ Day, and at Christmas. But today, over halfway into the school year, was the first time she’d seen Adrianne’s father for herself.
After months of his daughter’s chatter, and details dropped by the older Drakes about their son, Brooklyn had found herself wanting to know more about him. But the man who’d arrived right on time for story hour left her speechless, because none of the photos she’d seen—the success of his business put him in the local spotlight on a regular basis—had him looking like he’d walked out of a foggy Irish landscape, green eyed and larger than life, with a touch of ginger tinting his dark brown hair.
When she’d read his name on the sign-up sheet for her Dads Love Books, Too! reading program, she’d been surprised. And a little bit apprehensive. Involving the parents in their children’s learning experience was an important part of her curriculum.
But was exposing her students to a member of a biker gang—okay, an ex-member of a biker gang—a smart thing to do? Would other parents object should they get wind of a man with his background, celebrity or not, upstanding citizen or not, interacting with their children in her classroom?
And then she’d thought about Adrianne Drake. The girl was one of the most well-adjusted children Brooklyn had ever taught. She was bright, and gave serious thought to her questions and her answers. She was kind to her classmates, and responsive when Brooklyn asked for help. Yes, the girl’s grandparents were an influential and hands-on part of her life, but she lived full-time with her father. She adored her father. She rarely stopped talking about her father.
In the end, that had been the deciding factor in Brooklyn’s e-mailing Callum the details to confirm the date. She’d needed