Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 32231 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 161(@200wpm)___ 129(@250wpm)___ 107(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32231 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 161(@200wpm)___ 129(@250wpm)___ 107(@300wpm)
“Ember!” Tessa sings from behind the counter, purple hair piled high, apron dusted in powdered sugar. “Our very own phoenix bride.”
“Oh God.” I drag a hand over my face. “Please tell me you’re not calling me that.”
“Too late.” She jerks her chin toward the chalkboard menu.
I look.
And choke.
Fire & Frosting
Vanilla maple cake • Hot honey caramel core • Cinnamon buttercream
Inspired by Copper Mountain’s hottest couple
My mouth falls open. “You baked us?”
“We baked your love,” she corrects, waggling her eyebrows. “Well, technically we baked your firefighter. You’re the frosting.”
“Obviously,” I mutter, dropping my tote on the counter. “He’s all fire and I’m all sugar.”
She leans in. “So…is it true?”
“What part?”
“That he carried you out and whispered ‘you’re safe now, honey’ in your hair.”
I blink. “No?”
“That he shielded you with his body and said ‘I’ve got you, baby’ like a romance hero.”
I stare. “Definitely no.”
“That you two were secretly seeing each other and the fire was the catalyst for you to finally tell the town.”
I groan. “Why would anyone think that?”
“Because you cried into his jacket for three full minutes on Main and he let you,” she says. “Clay Walker doesn’t let anyone within ten emotional feet. You cracked him, babe.”
I brace my elbows on the counter. “He confiscated me.”
She laughs. “Same thing.”
“Just give me a latte,” I sigh. “And a Fire & Frosting. If I have to be publicly engaged to a human brick wall, I deserve sugar.”
“On the house,” she says, boxing one up. “Perks of being Copper Mountain’s Very Own Love Inferno.”
I roll my eyes. “Tessa.”
“What? It’s cute. We have Christmas couples, fall festival couples, only-home-for-the-holidays couples. We needed a blaze-born couple.”
“It’s fake,” I hiss. “F-a-k-e.”
She pops my to-go lid on, unbothered. “Uh-huh. Tell it to the Gazette. And to the ladies’ book club, because I heard they’re inviting you to couples’ trivia night.”
I freeze. “No.”
“Yes.”
“They can’t.”
“They already did.”
My phone buzzes like it heard its name. I check it.
GROUP TEXT: Mountain Mavens Book Club
– so excited to have you and Clay tonight!!
– we’re doing a Spicy Couples Halloween Trivia
– bring your fiancé
I drop my head on the counter. “I hate it here.”
Tessa pats my hair. “You love it.”
I do.
Ugh.
“Fine,” I mutter, straightening. “I will go to trivia with my fake man and we will annihilate the competition with our fully fabricated love.”
“That’s the spirit.”
“Do not tell him about the cupcake.”
“Oh, I have to,” she says. “I already took a picture. He’s gonna be so grumpy. It’ll sell out.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “We’re exploiting him.”
“We exploit the people we love.”
“It’s fake love.”
She smirks. “Tell that to the way you’re wearing his jacket.”
I look down.
Busted.
The navy turnout jacket swallows me, smelling like smoke and pine and something metallic. It’s too big. I look like a child who stole her dad’s coat. I refuse to take it off.
“It’s cold,” I lie.
“Sure,” she says, laughing.
I grab my coffee, cupcake, and what’s left of my dignity and head out.
Tonight: trivia. Later tonight: charity bonfire in the town square. Always: pretending not to stare at Clay’s hands.
Lucky me.
The ladies’ book club meets in the back of The Copper Kettle, which is hilarious because they talk louder than the Friday soccer dads. When I walk in, they all swivel.
“There she is!” Marta from the post office squeals. “Where’s your fiancé?”
“He’s on shift,” I lie. “He’ll meet us at the bonfire.”
“Oh, good,” she says. “We can test your chemistry there.”
“I did not consent to being a town science experiment.”
They ignore me.
We pair off for trivia. I get shoved in the front with a whiteboard and a dry erase marker that smells like terror. Categories flash up on the projector:
– Small-Town Romance Tropes
– Fire Safety
– Spicy Scene Guessing Game (??)
– Know Your Partner
“Uh,” I say, lifting my hand, “we’re still early days, so—”
Marta winks. “That’s okay. We know more about him than you do.”
“Comforting.”
“Question one,” she says, adjusting her glasses. “How old was Clay when he joined the Hotshots?”
I blink.
Everyone else writes.
“You’re kidding.”
“Tick tock, lovebird.”
I write 20 with a question mark.
They look at me like I just spilled soup on the Constitution. “Twenty-two,” Marta says, tsking. “You two need to talk more.”
By the time trivia is over, my brain is a casserole of gossip. I know what year Clay won the Firehouse Chili Cookoff, what river he pulled a drunk fisherman out of, and that he once dated a nurse named Kendall for a week but she didn’t like dogs.
I also know I cannot let the town out-know me about my own fake fiancé.
Which is how I end up at the bonfire early, in boots and paint-streaked overalls over a thermal shirt, hair in a messy knot, standing there sweating in the cold like an idiot because I’m nervous.
Nervous.
Over a man I’m not actually marrying.
Perfect.
The town circle is strung with orange lights and pumpkin lanterns. Kids run with sparklers. Someone set up a chili table. The fire crew is stacking wood for the bonfire like it’s controlled chaos. I spot Clay immediately.