Page 52 of After All

“Eureka is code for ‘something bad just happened’?” Peyton asked.

Adrianne laughed, but her love for her boys was clear in her smile. “Or something bad is about to happen.”

“Mason is out of town?”

“D.C. until Thursday,” Adrianne confirmed. “The boys are over at Phoebe’s now. They’re playing with Kaelyn and Joe this morning,” Adrianne said of her best friend’s daughter and husband.

“You know those boys are going to turn sweet little Kaelyn into a hellion,” Peyton teased.

Adrianne snorted at that. “Sure. She’ll be the one getting funding for them for all their crazy inventions.”

Peyton loved that. It was true that Kaelyn was already showing all the signs of being the social, know-everyone-and-charm-them-into-doing-anything-you-want-them-to-do girl that her mother was.

Peyton’s phone dinged with another text just then, and she smiled even before seeing that it was from Scott.

My house smells like you. Cinnamon and sugar. I’ll never be able to eat another Snickerdoodle without getting hard.

She laughed lightly. That was sexy, but also funny and sweet. Dang, the guy was good. She walked to the bakery case and snapped a photo of one of the cinnamon rolls on the top rack. She sent it back to him withimagine the fun we could have with some cream cheese frosting.

She sent it and then froze. She swore under her breath. Crap, that was sexy and flirtatious. That wasn’t normal and sweet.

She was going to have to focus.

“Everything okay?”

Peyton lifted her eyes to Adrianne again. And she’d forgotten her boss was standing right there. She could have sworn she felt her cheeks heating, even though she never blushed. Or almost never, anyway. “Yeah, everything is great,” she said with a smile. And it was. It was confusing and she wasn’t very good atnotseducing Scott, evidently, but things were good anyway. “Sorry, Scott’s just…hungry.” Okay, her cheeks definitely heated at that.

Adrianne nodded. “That’s right. I heard you were helping him out. How’s he feeling?”

Sexy. Charming. Full of it.

Which were some of her favorite things.

“Good,” she finally said. “Better overall. But still hurting some.” She frowned as she thought about that. He had beenshotonly two days ago. He should be focusing on getting better, not getting her into bed.

“Well, take him anything he wants from here,” Adrianne said.

“Thanks, I appreciate that.”

“Of course. I’m going to get started on the truffles.”

“Sounds good. I’ll head to the back,” Peyton told her.

Adrianne grabbed an apron from the hooks by the swinging door to the back room. She would work at the table behind the front counter and wait on customers for the morning. Peyton would be in back, mixing dough, baking and decorating until lunchtime.

Peyton grabbed an apron too, and was just tying it behind her back when her phone dinged again. She smiled automatically, anticipating Scott’s reply to her frosting comment.

But the message wasn’t from Scott. It was from Dan.

Your mom is going into rehab. I’m dropping her off on a Wednesday. Thought maybe we could have dinner Thursday night.

Peyton felt all of her euphoria dissolve instantly.

Jo was going to rehab. Again.

Peyton scrubbed a hand over her forehead. She did not want to have dinner with her father. That probably made her a bad person, but dammit. The only reason he wanted to see her was because he couldn’t be alone. She never got dinner invitations when Jo was home.

She typed in a quick response—can’t do dinner, but maybe lunch.

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