“What’s all this stuff?” her grandmother asked, pointing to a light ring Tessa had set up. Her phone was suspended on a stack of books next to her cake.
“I just made a baking video and posted it to my YouTube channel.”
Her grandmother sighed. Then she sat down—always a bad omen.
“I know what you’re going to say,” Tessa said.
“Okay, if you’re so smart, what is it?”
“You’re sorry my mother won’t take the baking deal. Or let me bake what I want.”
“Not exactly,” she said. “I was about to say that you don’t have to make every decision for the family. We’ll be okay if you leave.”
Tessa bit down on her lip. How on earth could she, though? Also, she didn’t want her grandmother to have to choose sides. “You really should be sleeping in and sitting by a pool somewhere, drinking pastel-colored cocktails instead of working three days a week.”
“You’re young,” she said, undeterred. “You can’t keep deferring the start of your own life because the family business is in trouble.”
She didn’t know what to say to that, so she started cleaning up the mess she’d made during the cake project. But she must have been silent too long.
“Knock, knock,” her grandmother teased. “Where are you?”
Tessa shook her head. She needed to change the topic—fast. “Just thinking about my love life. Or rather…my lack of one.”
Gram raised a fine brow, encouraging her to continue. They had the kind of relationship where Tessa could be honest about things like that with her and not be humiliated. Or at least, not too much.
Tessa shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just afraid to take a chance again.”
Her grandmother tapped the battered wood surface that they kneaded dough on each morning. “Don’t worry. You have the Montgomery curse,” she said matter-of-factly.
Tessa dumped her measuring spoons and mixing bowls into the sink, then turned to face her. “The what?”
“The Montgomery curse. We’re hopeless romantics, all of us.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“Well, if you don’t settle, it’s a good thing.” She tipped her head toward the Castorinis’ place. “But it’s also what started the feud with our neighbors to begin with. In 1937, to be exact.”
“I know, I know.” Tessa rolled her eyes. “One of our ancestors fell in love with a Castorini, and he left her at the altar, in front of the whole town. Shamed our family.”
Gram nodded. “A wolf can be a wolf, or he can be a sheep. That particular Castorini, Guido, was a charming, handsome man who had everyone fooled.”
“Did the poor woman ever get over it?”
“She joined a convent and started rescuing stray cats.”
Tessa groaned. She’d never become a nun, but she might as well rescue a couple more cats and settle in, because no decent man was ever going to find her in this town.
“My darling,” her grandmother said, squeezing her shoulder. “You don’t need a man to be happy. But if you meet the right one, your heart will know. You won’t be able to help yourself from falling.”
It wasn’t that she didn’t believe that was true. It was more she was afraid to trust it.
After Gram went on her way, Tessa sat down next to her finished cake and decided to make another. Baking was the one thing she did where all her troubles fell away. Lilac thought she was good enough to make a go of it on her own, but she wanted to learn proper techniques from the best teachers. She wanted to learn how to set up her own business. And she wanted to understand everything about pastries. That’s why, one night after a little too much wine, she actually hit send on her application to pastry school.
It wasn’t the right time, she knew. Not with the business floundering. So if by chance she got in, which would be a miracle, she’d have to say no. But she couldn’t help wondering if she’d get in. For so many years, she’d dreamed of getting that letter.
By nine thirty, Tessa’s stress baking was still not relieving her stress. Now she was visualizing her application to the Chicago School of French Pastry sitting in a pile on a famous chef’s desk. She’d be French, of course, and would murmur approvingly at Tessa’s experience in her family’s multigenerational bakery.
But then…she’d see the bread on the résumé. Only bread, bread, and more bread. Where is the pastry experience? she’d ask. And just like that, Tessa would get tossed from the maybe pile to the no way pile.
Tessa sat in the silent bakery, noticing the light from the big, bright, pizza-pie moon flooding in through the window. The lovers’ moon was still there. She might carry a romantic gene and a curse on the women in her family that doomed them to fall head over heels, but her sensible side knew that some fairy-tale moon wasn’t going to save her. Nothing short of getting out of this town for good would do that.
Wine. That’s what she needed.
She checked the fridge in the back and all the storage cabinets. Nada. And she knew she didn’t have any at home in her apartment. She even rummaged through her deep desk drawers in the very back room, but the spreadsheets were still open on her computer, reminding her of their troubles. And that made her even more determined to find a bottle somewhere.
A glance at her phone told her it was almost ten o’clock. The grocery store was closed, and a trip to the next town and back would take an hour.
Then she had a ridiculous idea. The restaurant next door might still be open…in the old days when there were more people dining in, they’d stayed open till ten. They wouldn’t turn down a paying customer, would they? Even if she was a Montgomery.
Mr. Castorini didn’t let that stop him from taking her desserts. Of course, that was only if she delivered them to the back door and never let anyone but him see her.
Leo had seen her the other day, though. His father’s taboo indulgence wasn’t a complete secret anymore. Maybe that was enough that she could start using the front door now.
She untied her apron, tossed it into the dirty apron bin, and walked out into the quiet street. The little brick shops were shadowed, their windows warmly lit in the fragrant spring evening.
At first glance, the Castorinis’ place was dark, but then she noticed a very faint glow. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could see Leo hunched over a laptop, a small lamp burning at his table.
Call it the moon, call it desperation, call it whatever you wanted, but something made her rap on the glass.
Leo jerked his head up. His brows lifted in surprise, and he gave her the hold-on-a-sec sign.