Chapter 1

Monday afternoon, one week before Halloween, Evan Goldman regarded the cake. The cake regarded him right back, with fresh-baked optimism.

He thought this recipe would be a good one. Chocolate, whiskey, autumn spices. An experiment, but ideally a delicious one. A taste-test of his thoughts about the cake he’d be making for his best friend, a thank-you and conspiratorial excitement rolled into one.

Jeff, the best friend in question, was responsible for the financial half of the bakery’s success, and had turned Evan’s excitement about flavors and experimentation into an actual thriving well-organized business; Jeff, Evan knew, was planning to propose to his long-time partner on November first, as a surprise part of their birthday celebrations. Lindsay, the partner, was also Evan’s best sugar artist and decorator. Their surprise proposal cake had to be spectacular. They’d made Jeff happy. They deserved nothing less.

So he hoped this cake had come out okay. If not, he had some time to try again. But he had thought this one had come together right; it’d felt good, in the making. He’d come in today to play around with flavors, spices, the recipe he’d had in his head; he liked doing that, liked the creation, liked making people smile.

Evan stared at the cake some more. It did not cool any faster, being unable to ignore the laws of thermodynamics; he sighed and went out to the front of the bakery to see if there was anything he could scour into customer-friendliness. Technically they were closed today, but he needed something to do.

He eyed his selections of sparkly witch hats and skeletal kitten decorations, and Lindsay’s swooping cobweb window art, with satisfaction. He swiped a towel across the counter. He considered tidy chairs and tables.

A knock rattled off the door. Invaded his space.

Evan spun that way. An arriving boulder loomed beyond glass, in parking-lot October sunshine.

The boulder waved. He had short dark hair and light brown skin and hopeful molten-cocoa eyes and the most massive shoulders in the universe under a shiny blue bomber jacket, combined with an unfair waist and enough height to make Evan feel positively tiny.

Evan felt other things too. Every one of his preferences about size and muscles and power sat up and took notice.

And then he silently cringed, because he was not at allprepared to be dealing with a customer. That morning he’d rolled out of bed and thrown on his much-loved black-and-green Witch, I’m Fabulous!shirt, comfortable jeans, and glasses because he’d been too lazy to put in contacts; he still had faded purple in blond hair because he’d been needing to re-dye it. He’d not expected to see anyone other than his ovens and ingredients.

He certainlyshouldn’t be having instant lust over a customer. Especially one rudely knocking when the sign said otherwise. Even with that shoulder-to-waist ratio. Good God

The man peeked into the window. He even did the little cupped-hands peering against lightly tinted glass and the bakery’s swirling logo. Somehow even that was cute.

Evan considered pretending not to’ve noticed, realized he’d been standing in one spot far too long for that to be convincing, gave up on pretending, and came over to the door.

The man’s expression grew, if possible, even more hopeful.

Evan pointed at the Closed—Sorry!sign.

The man gave him a first-class impression of epic tragedy in puppy form: big sad eyes, drooping shoulders, exaggerated and adorable. All the muscles got less intimidating and more plaintive.

Evan fought back the urge to fling the door wide and pat one of those shoulders. Being firm

The man fished around in a pocket. A notebook emerged. Evan caught a glimpse of sketches, flowers and a puppy—a park?—before words appeared, held up to thick muffling glass. Only wanted to say you’re amazing. Cinnamon pumpkin cupcakes = heaven. Sorry, I’ll leave you alone, I swear.

He even meant it, apparently: those long-lashed earth-brown eyes watched Evan read, noted the exact second Evan finished, and then made a show of putting the notebook away in a pocket. He even took a step back, clearly ready to leave. With a smile.

Evan sighed. Eyed the sign that should’ve meant the bakery wasn’t open to customers today. Glanced back toward whiskey-spiced chocolate cake-in-progress and oven-heat and cooling-racks.

He thought about flavors, and heat, and sharing. And powerful shoulders. And niceness.

He flicked the lock. “Wait!”

The man spun around—he clearly hadn’t been expecting this summons, headed toward what was presumably his plain blue Honda Accord—and all those exuberant muscles ran back in Evan’s direction. “You opened up!”

Evan looked at the, yes, very open door, and tried to resist the sarcastic impulse. “I did. For you. Thanks for the compliment. We don’t have too much today, but if day-old vanilla-orange petit fours or apple spice cake pops would work, I’ve got a few of those.”

“You deserve all the compliments. You should be on television or something. Your own baking show. Totally famous.”

This was utterly sincere, and consequently disarming; Evan did not quite know how to reply. “Um. Thanks again. Sorry, though, I have to ask—when were you in here before? I try to remember everyone, and I can’t think of your name, I’m sorry.” He did not add I’d’ve remembered wanting those muscles to pin me against the back wall and pound me until I scream,though he thought it. Loudly.