Lia’s fake look of concern only irritated her more. “You really shouldn’t neglect your health, Sarah. You’re not getting any younger, you know.”

“We’re…the same age,” she said through clenched teeth.

“My FitTrack scale would have a hard time knowing it,” she said, opening the bakery door and heading inside.

This time, Sarah didn’t resist the hand gesture as Lia allowed the door to swing back toward her.

“Oh my God, it smells like heaven in here.”

From the kitchen, the sound of a tray being dropped revealed Jessica had heard the familiar soprano voice. A second later, her friend pushed through the swinging door of the kitchen, nearly colliding with a panting Sarah.

“Water. Lots of water,” Sarah said, reaching into the fridge for a bottle and twisting off the plastic cap.

“Why are you sweating?” Jessica asked, removing her cat-patterned oven mitts.

Sarah held up a finger as she guzzled half the bottle. “Lia thought it would be fun to jog here,” she said through clenched teeth as they headed into the front of the bakery. After pulling an all-nighter on the SmartTech proposal, Lia banging on her bedroom door at eight a.m. to rise and shine only two hours after Sarah had crawled into bed had been met with many protests. Only Lia’s persistence that they needed to secure the event’s desserts ASAP and the promise of baked goods had finally gotten Sarah out of bed.

“All four miles?” Jessica looked as though the idea was ridiculous as well, and it justified Sarah’s own lack of motivation to exercise.

“I usually start my day with five,” Lia said, hurrying forward to hug Jessica. “So great to see you.”

Over Lia’s shoulder, Sarah’s wide eyes silently pleaded with Jessica to take over occupying the woman. Since the night before, she’d been glued to Sarah’s hip. Reminiscing about the old days was a lot less fun when two people remembered those days in two completely different ways. Lia’s memory had seemed to block out the competitiveness between the two of them… Then again, being the one who won all the time might have rewired Lia’s brain to see things differently in hindsight.

“I thought the event wasn’t for another two weeks,” Jessica was saying to Lia, her eyes watering slightly as she looked to be repressing a sneeze.

Must be by the slightly too strong perfume Lia wore. Sarah had been sneezing all morning. She was tempted to put up a Scent-Free Zone sign in the B&B. “She got here early…to plan. Isn’t that great?” she said, still struggling to catch her breath.

Lia glanced at her. “You look like you ran the Boston marathon—sweat is dripping down your forehead, and your legs are barely supporting your weight. This is not a good sign, Sarah.”