Bluegrass Blessings. Allie Pleiter

It wasn’t like anything else about her was subtle. “Okay, then,” she said abruptly, grabbing the remaining tray of sticky buns. “We’ll have to use yours, too.”

      “What?”

      “You. Your oven. Between the two ovens, I might be able to get enough buns and muffins baking to see me through the morning.”

      “Oh, no.”

      “Hey, you’re up and all.”

      He reached under his glasses to rub his eyes. “I don’t want to be.” She parked her hands on her hips. He guessed she thought she was giving him a fierce look, but he’d seen far fiercer any given workday—her “ferocity” was mostly just entertaining. Like he’d just been launched into a bluegrass I Love Lucy episode without his consent. “This oven, as I just said, is not my problem to solve. I was merely trying to be helpful, but you look very resourceful—I’m sure you can get by on your own.” He reached down to remove the hideous flip-flops, which didn’t even make it halfway down his feet anyway, and handed them back. “I’m going back to bed, Miss Hopkins.”

      She put her hand out to stop the transfer of footwear. “You know my name?”

      Cameron yawned again. “It did come up in the real estate transaction. Pertinent detail and all.”

      She pushed the flip-flops back toward him. “Well, as I see it, my oven is your problem.”

      It was becoming a struggle to remain civil about being roused out of bed by a flame-haired, loud-mouthed tornado in the middle of the night. “Not according to my paperwork. And believe me, Miss Hopkins, I read my paperwork.” He thrust the pink monstrosities back in her direction.

      “Well, if I can’t open my bakery, I can’t earn money. And if I can’t earn money, then I can’t pay my rent. So, unlessen you want to start off the year badly, I reckon it is your problem.”

      The Southern phraseology in her East Coast accent was just absurd. He glared at her. “Exactly what part of New Jersey are you from?”

      That stopped her. “Exactly how much do you know about me?”

      Exactly too much. And none of it prepared me for this. “I’m going back to bed now.”

      “By all means. I won’t need any supervision from you. I’ll just slip in and slip out, moving batches in and out of your oven. You’ll never even know I’m there.”

      Oh, he doubted that. “No.”

      “Look, do you understand the concept of a bakery? It generally involves baked goods. That means baking. And you know, Mr. I’ll-just-show-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night-and-scare-the-pants-off-my-new-tenant, my day is off to a really bad start.”

      Cameron took off his glasses and gave her his most domineering I-am-immovable-on-the-subject look. “And you know, I can’t imagine what that feels like.”

      That set her back a bit. As if she’d just realized most of the civilized world didn’t take kindly to rising so painfully early. So early it was actually still late. The pity was just a flash across her features, replaced almost immediately by a sharp scowl. “Well, fine, then. Be like that. Just what kind of heartless beast did Sandy sell to, anyway?”

      “Her nephew,” he shot back. He hadn’t intended to let her know that just yet, but his growing exasperation pulled it out of him. Aunt Sandy told him Dinah could be a handful.

      Which was sadly funny, because Aunt Sandy usually exaggerated.

      Chapter Two

      Knock. Pause. Louder knock. Pause. Bang.

      “Aw, for crying out loud, Dinah, will you give it up already?”

      “Cameron?” Knock.

      Cameron thrust his head under the pillow, moaning. Kentucky was proving to be the most miserable retreat on Earth. “Go away!”

      Bang. “Cameron Jacob Rollings, don’t you talk to me like that, young man.”

      Cameron shot straight up. Nasty, shiny sunlight invaded his bedroom while the sickening smell of cinnamon assaulted his nose. “Aunt Sandy?” He hauled his protesting body up off the bed.

      “What’s gotten into you?” Sandy Burnside’s unmistakable drawl came through the door. “Open up right now.”

      Cameron checked his watch as he shuffled to the door. It seemed way too bright to be seven-thirty. “Coming, coming.” She swooped into the room the minute Cameron got the door open. “You have a key, Aunt Sandy, you could have just let yourself in instead of breaking down my door.”

      She poked a finger into her mass of blond hair as if to replace a stray strand. He always found that gesture odd on her—there was so much hairspray on that head he doubted gale force winds could pull a hair out of place. “I do not invade the privacy of my tenants. No matter how rude they are.” She paused, taking in the strong scent of the room. “I haven’t had a tenant in this apartment since Dinah moved in. Does the bakery send that powerful a smell up here all the time? I’ll have a word with Dinah. Mac in the office downstairs has never complained about it before—of course, it is a nice smell at that. Not that you’ll be here that long once your house is built.”

      Aunt Sandy’s heels clacked into the kitchen as she poked her head here and there, assessing his meager attempts at unpacking his possessions—which were truly meager, considering he’d sold most of his New York apartment’s furnishings before he moved and this apartment of his aunt’s was only supposed to be temporary. “Honey,” she pointed a red-lacquered fingernail at his oven, “y’all left that on.”

      Cameron stuffed his hands in his jeans pockets, leaned up against the refrigerator and glared at his aunt. “Dinah Hopkins.”

      “Dinah? What’s Dinah got to do with your oven?”

      Cameron reached for the coffeemaker. “Long story. Want a cup?”

      Dinah closed her cash register drawer with a satisfied click. It was five minutes to nine and she’d made it through the morning rush—granted, with only two blueberry muffins to spare and a couple of last-minute substitutions for customers, but she’d made it. Thank you, Jesus! The oven repair company would open in five minutes and she could place a service call.

      She’d never have made it without the use of Cameron Rollings’s oven. She made a mental note to thank him sincerely—that is, if he ever spoke to her again. When that muffin pan had slipped off the counter and clattered loudly to the floor, he’d growled like a grizzly bear with murder in his eye. The man was from Manhattan; he should be used to all kinds of noise. Still, she had to give him credit; he had finally relented and let her use his oven—the third time she knocked on his door to ask. She’d whip up a batch of her famous macadamia nut cookies in an hour or so, after the sandwich bread finished baking, and take them over as a peace offering. He was her new landlord, after all.

      And really, how had that happened? And so quickly? Granted, Sandy was the spontaneous type, but to sell the bakery out from underneath her (okay, so it was really just the space the bakery sat in—she still had her business) while she was gone on vacation? Without so much as a phone call to let her know? Sandy had come in the bakery just after eight, all flushed and apologetic, saying “If I’d known Cameron was gonna scare the pants off you in the middle of the night like that, I’d have left y’all a note or something.”

      There was a story behind Sandy’s sudden sale to her nephew. Dinah was sure of that. She just wasn’t sure whether she’d get the story out of Sandy or Cameron first.

      He walked in the door about half an hour later—thick dark hair neatly combed, a yawn crossing his clean-shaven face. Cameron had the sleeves pushed up on the rust-colored wool sweater he wore over black jeans and his glasses were gone. With an expensive-looking watch and leather shoes, he looked everything and nothing like the man who had invaded her kitchen last night. He walked toward her with