He didn’t deserve love.
And he certainly didn’t deserve Emily.
There was no amount of time or distance that could put Emily Porter behind him. Oh, he’d tried all right. He’d gone to the far end of the country, putting as many miles between him and Maple Woods as possible, only his dark, dirty secret to keep him company and serve as an aching memory of everyone he’d left behind. Of why he could never return.
He was the reason Emily had grown up without a father. He was the reason she’d been stuck in the mercy of this town and all its limitations, and that wasn’t something he could ever forget. But it was something he would have to set right. Once and for all.
Chapter Two
The steady trill of the alarm clock pulled Emily from a deep slumber. She blindly slapped at it and rolled over in bed. The grand opening of Sweetie Pie had kept her at work longer than she’d expected, plus she’d stayed late to prep for today. Poor Lucy had been so busy bouncing from the diner to the bakery that she had barely stopped to take a breath. They hadn’t even had a moment to discuss Scott’s return.
Scott. At the memory of his startling arrival the day before, Emily’s eyes popped open, and she sprang out of bed. She showered and dressed quickly, quietly, so as not to wake her sister Julia, who rarely emerged from her bed before eight. Tiptoeing through the living room, she paused at the stack of yesterday’s mail piled neatly on the small table just beside the front door. She had been so preoccupied with seeing Scott again that she had failed to check the mailbox on her way home last night. It wasn’t like her, and with a frown she realized the hold he still had over her nearly a dozen years later.
Recalling his words yesterday, she shook her head and silently scolded herself. She’d been a fool to pin any hopes on that man. There was nothing in Maple Woods for Scott—there never had been, it seemed—and he made it very clear that he wasn’t planning on staying in town for long.
Well, neither am I.
Her heart began to thump as she picked up the stack of crisp envelopes and began thumbing through them. When she reached the end, she sighed—possibly in relief, possibly in disappointment. She wasn’t sure which anymore. It had been three months since she’d sent her application to the cooking school in Boston, and as the weeks passed without a response, her anxiety grew stronger. So many hopes were hitched to this opportunity that a part of her was happy her fate wasn’t yet sealed. It was good to have a dream, and this had been hers for as long as she could remember. She wasn’t ready for it to be over just yet.
The bakery still wouldn’t be open for another two hours, but the day was still young and there was plenty of work to do. Lucy was a pie-making expert—there was no denying her skill—but when she’d tasted a few of Emily’s creations, she had decided to feature those each day, as well. Emily had free rein on what she could create.
Emily gave a sad smile whenever she thought of the irony of the situation—who would have known she’d get such an opportunity just when she might be able to finally break free of this town once and for all?
Determined to think about nothing but the second day at Sweetie Pie, she rolled up her sleeves and went into the kitchen. A couple hours of straight-up baking, fortified by strong coffee, were sure to banish the blues that had set in when Scott walked through that door yesterday.
“Oh, thank goodness you’re up!” Julia gushed, bursting into the kitchen half an hour later, already dressed for her job at the yarn shop. Her cheeks were flushed and her green eyes flashed with excitement as she quickly pulled her hair into a ponytail.
“Good morning to you, too,” Emily said mildly as she finished slicing pears into a bowl and showered them with sugar.
Julia’s eyes danced. “You will never believe who is back in town!”
Emily smiled as she measured out a cup of flour, then diced a stick of cold butter and pulsed the mixture in the food processor with a teaspoon each of sugar and salt. This was a little game of theirs, and even at their age, it was endlessly amusing, adding a bit of suspense to an otherwise routine life. Julia would come home with a juicy bit of gossip, usually about who was dating whom, and question by question, Emily would narrow it down until the titillating conclusion was reached. Sadly, on this occasion, there was no buildup of clues; Emily already knew the answer.
“Scott Collins,” she said and immediately wished she had just played along when she saw Julia’s face fall with disappointment.
“You knew?” she cried. “And here I nearly shook you awake last night to tell you!”
“He came into the bakery yesterday,” Emily said.
“Did you speak to him?” Julia’s eyes were wide with interest. “What was he like?”
Emily heaved a sigh. “Not much different than I remembered,” she admitted, catching the wistful edge to her tone.
“Still a hunk then, huh?” Julia dipped her finger into the sugar canister, and Emily rolled her eyes.
“Still a hunk, as you so delicately put it.”
Julia regarded her for a long moment, a dreamy look creeping over her face, as if she were lost in time, clinging to a memory. “Sorry,” she said, straightening herself. “I know it’s a touchy subject.”
“I was seventeen,” Emily reminded her. “It didn’t mean anything.” Clearly.
“Well, it meant something to me.” Julia lifted her chin, her eyes suddenly darkening at the memory. ”I still haven’t forgotten the way he took off without so much as a goodbye.”
“Really?” Emily narrowed her gaze in mock confusion. “Because you seemed to have completely forgotten about that episode when you came bounding in here two minutes ago.” She flashed her sister a rueful grin as she formed the dough into a disk and wrapped it in cellophane. She set it in the fridge to chill, swapping it for one that had cooled, and plucked her rolling pin from the drawer beneath the stove.
“Well, I admit, I did get a little swept up in the memory of how handsome he was,” Julia explained, and Emily bit her lip to keep from laughing. “But the truth is that he treated you like a first-rate jerk, leaving you like that, without any explanation.”
They were supposed to have gone to a movie the next night. Emily could still remember sitting on the steps of her front porch, waiting. She’d called his house, worried he might be sick or worse—that he’d had an accident. It was a fear of hers ever since she was little, since her father had died. Instead she was told in clipped tones by Scott’s father that he was gone. He’d left town the night before, and they didn’t know when he’d be back. If he’d be back. And he never did come back. Until now.
Emily shrugged off the twinge of hurt with a smile. “Please, Julia. That was ancient history. We were kids.”
Julia watched her carefully. “If you say so.”
“Are you accusing me of still pining after Scott Collins?”
Julia tipped her head. “I just thought that you would be interested to know he was back in town. That’s all.” She paused. “So...is he married?”
“No,” Emily said, stirring more forcefully.
“And you know this—”
“Because he told me,” Emily huffed, whipping around to face her sister. “Because I asked, okay. I...asked.” It was a normal question, she told herself, but probably not when it was posed to the man whom she had once imagined an entire future with. His answer had filled her with a surge of hope that had no business being there.
A spark passed through Julia’s bright green eyes. “Huh. Interesting.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.” Julia shrugged. “Nothing at all.” She smiled conspiratorially