Sterling Heat

I’d been in Curmudgeon Bakery for one of those lemon baby-Bundt cakes I’d been craving since I found out I was pregnant.

The draw had nothing to do with the baker himself. Tall, tatted, and edgy, looking more like a biker than a man who makes baked goods. I hardly knew him other than taking a tumble in a rainstorm in front of his shop . . . and then tossing myself at him after he rescued me.

We shared a moment but it’s not what you’d think.

Months later, he delivered my baby among his cookies and cakes. Talk about a second chance encounter.

Then he whips up a plan to pretend to be my baby’s father, and everything heats up from there.

My body.

My heart.

My willingness to accept a perfect stranger’s kindness despite him telling me over and over he isn’t who I think he is.

I beg to differ.

He’s that sugary drizzle on a citrus-flavored, guilty pleasure that’s bad for the hips, but together—him, and me, and baby—we’re the perfect blend of ingredients that might do all our hearts some good.