Seeking Happily Ever After (Ever After #8) - Elena Aitken Page 0,2

to see for herself that the situation she was in wasn’t healthy. Still, it had taken a few more weeks for Charlotte to get up the courage to call her brother Jeremy for help.

And now she was home.

She stretched her arms over her head and, opting to talk to her mom in person about the terrible photos, pushed up from the kitchen table that she was using for a temporary office. Her parents had recently moved into an office space just off Main Street, but working from home gave her a little bit of space from them, or at the very least, the illusion of space. She loved her parents, she really did, but it was not normal to be living at home at her age.

She really needed to find a little apartment or something and move out. Of course, to do that, she’d need more money.

Charlotte tried not to think about the circle she was caught up in and instead pulled a sweater over her head. Maybe a morning walk would help to clear her head on more than one level.

April in Glacier Falls was unpredictable. The town was positioned in the valley so that, despite being tucked in among some of the most beautiful mountain ranges in the world, warm winds blew in early to provide an earlier-than-expected spring season. But that didn’t mean that they couldn’t be treated to a freak snowstorm at any time.

The sun was shining and warm on her face as Charlotte took her time walking to the office. She stopped to investigate some of the community garden beds for signs of life and found tulips and daffodils pushing up through the soil. It wouldn’t be long before everything was in bloom and the grass was green again. Spring was Charlotte’s favorite time in Glacier Falls. It had been too long since she’d spent the season in her hometown.

Maybe there were some positives with having to return home?

The smell of freshly baked honey buns floated on the breeze and Charlotte straightened.

Yes. There were definitely positives to being back in Glacier Falls.

The bells over the bakery door jingled as she stepped inside. She shut her eyes and inhaled deeply. Nothing smelled as good as delectable aromas coming from the ovens in the back of Sweetie Pies.

“Oh, sorry.”

Charlotte jostled and almost fell over as the door to the bakery opened directly into her back. She probably should have gotten out of the way. “No,” she said as she turned around to apologize. “It’s my fault. I—Nick!”

Nick Newton was Glacier Fall’s newest resident, who also happened to be extremely handsome and ridiculously wealthy and therefore was the most sought-after bachelor in town. Never mind the fact that he had the sweetest little baby girl and pulled off the single dad thing adorably—not that Charlotte was in the market for a new boyfriend, because she absolutely was not. But she liked Nick. He was kind and sweet and a little bit dorky. And his baby, Amelia, was just about the most gorgeous child she’d ever seen. Charlotte couldn’t help it; she had a soft spot for babies.

“Charlotte.” Nick’s face transformed into a smile. He always looked a little tired, but was it Char’s imagination, or did he look stressed out, too? “I’m so sorry,” he continued. “I didn’t mean to crash into you. Are you okay?”

She rubbed her arm in reflex. “I’m fine. Totally my fault. I just walked in and the honey buns smelled so good, I couldn’t take another step forward.”

He laughed. “It does smell good in here. And that’s exactly why we’re here. A honey bun and some much needed coffee. Will you join us?”

It wasn’t the only reason Nick was in the bakery that morning. Although, more often than not, Sweetie Pies was becoming his go-to breakfast place. He really was going to have to develop a few skills in the kitchen and soon, or he was going to gain twenty pounds and Amelia’s first word would be sugar, for all the time he spent at the bakery.

But that morning, it was more than just the lure of sugar and caffeine that had brought him to the bakery. Nick needed to think. And oddly enough, he’d always done his best thinking when he was surrounded by people in a busy place. His friend and old business partner, Damon, had needed silence to do his work, insisting that a quiet space allowed his mind to take over and the ideas to come to him. But