Monahan's Gamble. Elizabeth Bevarly

on the house,” she told him. “I haven’t opened the cash registers yet, so… Consider it a promotional giveaway.”

      He nodded quickly and muttered his thanks but offered no indication that he intended to leave. Instead he only continued to stare at Autumn’s face or, more specifically, her mouth, as if he had some serious plans for it in the not-too-distant future. Then, as if he suddenly realized where his gaze was lingering, he snatched it away, dipping his head to focus instead on the coffee cup that sat on the counter. Very gingerly he reached forward and claimed it, never once so much as glancing at Autumn as he did.

      “I gotta go,” he said hastily. And without further ado, he made good on the announcement.

      For long moments after he left, Autumn stood alone in the shop part of her bakery, gazing out the door he had exited, watching the impending sunrise change the color of the sky above the buildings across the way from heavy black to midnight blue. For some reason she felt breathless and lawless and tumultuous and, at the same time, easy and comfortable and companionable. And there was one other thing she felt, too, she realized. When she remembered the heat in Sean Monahan’s gaze and the brightness in his smile, when she recalled how handsome, how charming, how eligible he was…

      Doomed. Autumn felt doomed.

      Sean didn’t get very far before he had to pull his truck to the side of the road and thrust the gearshift into park. Not because he needed to let the coffee cool a bit before sampling it. And not because he was still too drowsy to be driving. And not because he wanted to admire the way the sunrise was smudging the purple sky with fingers of orange and pink, either.

      No, much to his amazement, it was because he had to try and get a grip on himself and his feelings.

      It was the strangest thing. Not only had he never had to get a grip on himself for anything, but he’d never had feelings like the ones that were spiraling through him now. Strangest of all was that he soon came to realize he wasn’t likely to get a grip on either his feelings or himself anytime soon. How could he, when he couldn’t even identify what he was feeling to begin with?

      Well, other than this weird sense of doom, anyway…

      Just what the hell had happened back there at Autumn’s bakery? he wondered, not for the first time since fleeing it in fear for his life—well, his social life, at any rate—less than half an hour ago. He’d entered thinking to do no more than ask her out on a date and had exited feeling as if he’d been struck by lightning.

      He took a moment to replay every word the two of them had exchanged and to reconsider every suggestive comment he’d made. He recalled every look they’d shared, every sidelong glance they’d sneaked. But he couldn’t figure out where, exactly, things between them had gotten so…hot. Somewhere along the line, though, the two of them had ceased to indulge in harmless banter and had become over-charged with…what? He still couldn’t quite figure it out. And even weirder than all that…

      He sighed his disbelief when he remembered. Even weirder than all that, Autumn Pulaski had refused to go out with him. Had refused to go out with him. Him! Sean Monahan! It was inconceivable. Impossible. Unthinkable.

      Unacceptable.

      Because Sean decided then and there that he would not accept her refusal. And not just because he had a point to prove to his brother Finn, either. But because there was something immediate and intense—not to mention hot and heavy—burning up the air between him and Autumn. And Sean just wasn’t the kind of guy to let something like that go unexplored. Especially when there was a beautiful, desirable, sexy, cinnamon-scented, luscious, mouthwatering…uh…where was he? Oh, yeah. Especially when there was a woman like Autumn at the heart of it. And especially when that woman’s eyes told him she was every bit as aware as he was of the strange fire burning between them.

      So she’d said she wouldn’t go out with him on Wednesday, had she? Well, then. Sean would just have to go back and ask her what she was doing on Tuesday instead. Then he remembered what he would be doing Tuesday. What the whole town of Marigold, Indiana, would be doing on Tuesday. What Autumn Pulaski would no doubt be doing on Tuesday, too. Because Tuesday was the Fourth of July. And everybody who was anybody in Marigold would be at the Annual Independence Day Picnic in Gardencourt Park. It was practically a requirement of citizenship.

      Throwing his truck back into gear, Sean smiled. Yep, Tuesday would be a very good day for seeing Autumn again. Somehow he could just feel it in his bones. Their destinies were about to collide, for sure. And he couldn’t help but thank his lucky stars for that.

      Three

      Sean found Autumn precisely where he’d known she would be on Tuesday, right smack in the middle of Gardencourt Park, at the Autumn’s Harvest bread booth, hawking her wares. The Fourth of July was a very big deal in Marigold, Indiana, and pretty much the entire town closed down and showed up to celebrate it. Many of the local retailers, however, opened booths at the picnic, alongside the local craftspeople and artisans, selling specialty items or products that commemorated the day. Autumn, for example, he noticed as he approached the booth, was offering cranberry scones, white chocolate and macadamia nut cookies, and blueberry muffins—presumably in honor of Old Glory.

      And he was glad he’d dressed up for the occasion in unripped, only marginally faded blue jeans and navy polo shirt, because Autumn, looking quite fetching, was dressed in what he, with his very limited knowledge of history—Rory was, after all, the historian in the family—assumed must be Betsy Ross attire. Except that ol’ Betsy probably hadn’t filled out her Colonial garb quite the same way Autumn did. The full skirt of her multicolored, vertically striped gown flared nicely over her hips, and the top part hugged her generous breasts with much affection.

      So affectionately, in fact, that had it not been for the white apron loosely covering her torso, the picnic would no doubt have had to be called on account of mass licentiousness. But the little mobcap perched atop Autumn’s head went a long way toward tempering what Sean had decided was just her naturally sexy state.

      Well, to the casual observer, the mobcap tempered her sexuality, anyway. Sean himself found the lacy little ruffled number to be surprisingly arousing. Then again, Autumn could be dressed up as George Washington’s faithful springer spaniel, Buddy, and Sean would still find her attractive. Then again, maybe that wasn’t an admission he should be owning up to. Still, she did look extremely delicious—or, rather, her baked goods looked extremely delicious—so what else could Sean do but step up to the booth and ask to sample her—or, rather, them?

      “Excuse me, miss? I’ll have one of those plump, luscious-looking scones, please,” he announced, proud of himself for completing the request without a trace of suggestiveness.

      Autumn’s head had been bent when he approached, but she snapped it up quickly at the sound of his voice. Immediately she blushed, something Sean considered to be a very good sign, then her lips parted fractionally in clear surprise. “I…what?” she asked.

      He jabbed a finger toward the rich bounty of baked goods before him. “I’d like a scone, please,” he said, reading the hand-lettered sign in front of the selection. Otherwise he would have had to call it “one of those big lumpy things with the red spots,” because he had no idea what a scone actually was. He just hoped the letter c in the word was a hard c and not a soft c, otherwise, he’d just made a fool of himself. Then again, maybe that was why she was looking at him the way she was looking at him—as if she weren’t sure what language he was speaking.

      He was about to correct himself—he hoped—and repeat his request, asking for a “sone” this time—or, at the very least, a “big, lumpy thing with red spots”—when Autumn blinked twice, something that seemed to break whatever spell she’d fallen under.

      “Right,” she said. “A scone.”

      Sean breathed a silent sigh of relief when she pronounced it the same way he had. Then he expelled a soft groan of frustration as he watched her lean forward to collect a particularly fat one from the front of the pile—because when she did so, her apron fell forward a bit, offering him a view