Love Takes the Cake by Betsy St. Amant Page A

That was all.
    â€œWow, really?” Julie reached for another reject, eyes wide as she absorbed the news. “You wouldn’t have known it from the way he interacts with you here at the bakery.”
    Charlotte’s hand stilled on the next lemon. “What do you mean?”
    â€œYou haven’t noticed the way Will looks at you?” Julie asked incredulously. “I thought it was obvious. That’s why I always tried to leave you two alone. I was playing cupid.”
    Cupid aiming at the wrong heart.
    Charlotte began to zest again, her thoughts racing. Was Julie right? She’d automatically assumed she’d been leading Will on in her attraction to him. Apparently, that was what she did, if the accusations of her ex and his fiancée had any merit. Was it possible Will had been coming on to her instead?
    But Julie didn’t say flirting. She’d said “the way he looks at you.” Which to Charlotte, went a lot deeper than mere witty conversation or banter.
    Eyes didn’t lie.
    Either way, she didn’t want to be that woman. No, wait. She wasn’t that woman. Why did she keep forgetting that she hadn’t known about her ex’s fiancée? She definitely hadn’t been living a lifestyle she was proud of at the time, but she would have never cheated on someone she loved—or helped someone else cheat. Still, the accusations from years ago lingered. She was . . . stained.
    Charlotte had to avoid any man the least bit like Zoe’s charming, attractive, flirty father. It was too risky, too complicated. Too dangerous.
    She dropped her grater and grabbed a reject cookie for herself. “Cupid needs to quit fooling around and bring me suspenders and a bow tie.”
    â€œWhat does that mean?”
    â€œSuspenders and a bow tie. You know, a nice, predictable, stable nerd.”
    Julie stopped chewing and stared at Charlotte as if she’d completely lost her mind.
    â€œDoesn’t matter,” Charlotte said. She tossed the remainder of the cookie into the trash can. “Doesn’t matter at all.”

    It wasn’t quite 5:40 yet.
    Will hesitated outside the front door of The Dough Knot, lingering just out of sight of the picture window that boasted the bakery’s name in gold script. A little girl sat at a table inside, head down as she scribbled on top of a—was that a toy cupcake?—with a pink marker. Other than that, the bakery appeared empty. Charlotte must have been in the kitchen, or on the other side of the counter that he couldn’t quite see from this angle.
    He paced back and forth onthe sidewalk, hands in his pockets, braced against a sudden gust of September wind. The temperature was starting to change, some days dipping lower and hinting at the coming autumn, other days burning hot and clinging tight to summer. Like the world couldn’t make up its mind if it was going to transition or not.
    He knew the feeling.
    If he went inside The Dough Knot and told Charlotte everything that his heart wanted to say, he’d be free falling through transition himself.
    But if he didn’t . . . well, how could he keep this up? He’d have to buy cookies for Melissa elsewhere, and that was the least of his problems. He saw Charlotte’s face every night before he closed his eyes and woke with her the first thing on his mind.
    Yesterday at the gym, he was trying to teach old Mr. Conrad how to lift weights without throwing his back out. Adam had been there, following him around and bending his ear about Charlotte.
    â€œGo for it, man,” Adam said. “You know we’ve been trying to set you up with someone for months now. Don’t you want the bliss me and Brittany have?” He winked.
    Conrad, a feisty old geezer who had to be ninety if he was a day, seemed to have an opinion on everything—including Will’s love life. “Sounds like this girl’s a keeper,” he huffed between bicep curls.