Let It Rise: A Steamy Small Town Romance

Bree Cordell gets up at four, bakes the best bread in three counties, and is completely, certifiably fine. Ask anyone. Ask the whole town that watched Daniel Reyes leave her at nineteen with flour on her wrists and a promise in her ears. Eight years later, Daniel knocks on the bakery door. He's taken on the cottage next door - the one that shares a wall with her ovens - and he's not leaving this time. He knows exactly what he broke. He's a carpenter. He brought tools. She hands him a to-do list and one rule: they don't talk about it. Fine. He doesn't talk about it. He fixes her mixer, borrows her pans, learns her opening shift, and looks at her across the counter like the talking was never going to be the point anyway. The wall between them is one brick thick. The winter is long. And everything in that bakery - the bread, the heat, the eight years of wanting - obeys the same law: give it warmth and time, and stand back.