What?

I shake my head in an attempt to clear the confusion suddenly clouding my mind. Harley deserves the best … He’s a lucky guy … Nash Harris is seriously beginning to confuse the hell out of me. If he thinks so highly of me, then why the hell did things end between us all those years ago?

I hadn’t seen Nash since the funeral. He’d stayed to help as much as he could, but he had to get back to school for midterms. Plus, I’d kind of wanted to be alone while I tried to pick up the pieces after my mother’s death. But six weeks was a long time to go without seeing the love of your life, particularly when the rest of your world was lying at your feet in tiny, jagged pieces.

Piece O’ Cake suffered while Momma was sick. I’d tried as hard as I could to manage the orders that continued flooding in, but between looking after her, taking her back and forth to the hospital, and tying up loose ends just before she passed away, it was almost impossible to keep the store afloat.

With everything we owned of value sold off, I’d been living off beans and working around the clock so I could try get the store back up and running. But, doing everything on my own was more difficult than I had ever imagined. Thankfully, I had one thing going for me. My mother had taught me how to bake when I was just 7 years old. I was her shadow in the kitchen when I was little. Watching her like a hawk while licking every spatula, I learned all I needed to know. I knew I’d never be as good as she was, but it was the gift she’d passed on to me, and I’d hoped and prayed it would help me save what was left of her legacy.

I’d been busily working for weeks on the grand reopening, and I had spent a good chunk of Momma’s insurance money on radio advertising, signage, balloons, children’s face painters, you name it. It was what would hopefully bring Piece O’ Cake back from the proverbial dead. Nash was supposed to come home to help me. But then, something came up.

“What do you mean you can’t come?” I cried, my cell phone clamped between my cheek and my shoulder as I busily frosted a batch of cupcakes.

“You know how I was telling you about that accelerated program they’re running at Sacred Heart?”

“Yeah,” I lied. He probably did tell me, but likely my mind had been elsewhere, as it had been ever since I’d found out Momma was ill.

“Well,” he began, his voice tentative, “I got in. Can you believe it? I actually made it. But … it begins this week.”

I placed my piping bag down, my hands gripping the stainless metal countertop as I tried desperately to take a few steadying breaths.

“Are you there, babe?”