The Sweetest Things: A Quirky Small Town Romance (Starlight Harbor Book 1) Read online

  The Sweetest Things

  Starlight Harbor #1

  Bria Quinlan

  Contents

  Also by Bria Quinlan

  THE SWEETEST THINGS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  Also by Bria Quinlan

  About Bria

  Also by Bria Quinlan

  BREW HA HA Series

  It’s In His Kiss (FREE Prequel)

  The Last Single Girl

  Worth the Fall

  The Catching Kind

  The Proposing Kind

  Things That Shine - A Crossover Brew Ha Ha /Double Blind Story

  Bria’s YA set RVHS Secrets

  Secret Girlfriend

  Secret Life

  And YA Standalone

  Wreckless

  THE SWEETEST THINGS

  Starlight Harbor’s Sweetheart has had enough…

  Lyra Grigor is the easy going, sweet, smile-at-everyone owner of The Sweetest Things. When an annoying travel site puts Starlight Harbor on their Top Ten Tacky Tiny Towns list for the fourth year running, she knows it’s time to give the writer a bit of spicy tart instead of a teaspoon of sugar.

  An outsider who just wants out…

  Spence Côte has no idea what hit his site. Nearly a thousand replies on some little baker’s comment and everything has blown up. Since the site is up for sale, it couldn’t have happened at a worse time. Now he has to drive up to the middle of nowhere coast of Maine and get this resolved. ASAP.

  Two worlds collide…

  Between the puppies dressed as pirates, the old women masquerading as tavern wenches, and the sweetest little baker he’s ever seen, Spence knows Starlight Harbor might not just be freakishly adorable….it might be what he’d been looking for.

  Can he sell his snark site while still making things right with the surprisingly sweet Lyra??

  1

  “That man.” Lyra Grigor slammed her tiny, flour covered fist down on the counter. “That…words, words, words man.”

  Her best friend, Vivian, looked up from where she was sipping her coffee and eating an old-fashioned donut. ”Must be pretty bad to have gotten the triple words curse replacement.”

  Lyra glanced past her to make sure the bakery was empty. She didn’t want people to think the owner of The Sweetest Things had suddenly become a crazy web stalker. But this article on the travel blog Roadside Adventures was really bringing out a thread of ticked off in her she wasn’t used to.

  She was used to being the softhearted mushy one.

  “Well, you’re in here this year, too. Made the cut, so to say.” She glanced down at the tablet and read, “…so quaint it even has a female mechanic for the four cars in town.”

  “Huh.” Vi took another bite of her donut—well, her second donut—and sat back on her barstool, knowing Lyra didn’t let things go easily that riled her up.

  Lyra glared at the so-called article: “Top Ten Tacky Tiny Towns.”

  It just beat her butter that there was even an article, let alone that Starlight Harbor, with its gorgeous port and its wonderful traditions, made the list.

  There was nothing tacky about what they did here.

  Four years running they’d been on his insulting list.

  “I bet he hasn’t even been here. He just heard about our Christmas schedule, turned that into ‘Christmas every day,’ and puts us up there with the largest ball of twine or the singing shark.”

  That got Vi’s attention. “Where’s the singing shark?”

  “Yeah. It got taken off in year two because it was proven to be a hoax.” She flashed Vivian a triumphant look. “See? This guy can’t even research articles enough to spot a fraud.”

  “Well, there ya go.” Vivian glanced at the pastry case, considering.

  “You know,” Lyra jumped in, “if I didn’t love you, I’d totally hate you. I see you eyeing that cookie after two donuts.”

  She gave her friend the once-over. Vivian’s tall, thin frame could probably carry a couple more pounds and not look out of place. But she carried her model body and looks and hair with something close to disdain, the tough chick keeping all her worries locked out with her kickass boots and her fitted tanks.

  Granted, that was also what she needed to wear to work in her garage, but still. Vivian didn’t take crap. She’d come back to town with her son and lived on her own terms since.

  Vivian wouldn’t let someone kick around people she loved.

  “You know what?” Lyra demanded, getting Vi’s attention from the sugar in the glass case between them. “I’m not letting him get away with this again. I stood by for three years thinking he’d let it go. But, every year he finds tackier and tackier things that are just roadside tourist rip-offs but keeps Starlight Harbor on there.”

  Lyra grabbed her tablet, setting up an account with the stupid wannabe travel magazine site.

  “Someone needs to give this bully a piece of her mind.”

  Vi set her coffee cup on the bus tray, grinning indulgently as she stuffed a dollar in the tip jar that kept appearing on Lyra’s counter no matter how many times she took it away.

  “Go get him, tiger.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She waved Vi off, because she was already typing madly into the comments section.

  Dear Mr. Judger of People’s Homes,

  I can’t help but notice that for a fourth year in a row you’ve included Starlight Harbor, Maine, on your list of Tiny Tacky Towns. The only tacky thing here is taking a beautiful community who honors military families by creating a place to celebrate the holidays they were separated for based while serving ungrateful jackasses bullies.

  While you may not appreciate these traditions, I would think that at least the sheer beauty of the Maine coast and a centuries-old village would be obvious even to a Neanderthal like you.

  Perhaps you didn’t do your research, or you just hate Christmas. I mean, we all know that sharks can’t sing.

  Well, most of us do.

  Next time, before you attack hardworking people and their quaint seaside village, you should do your research. Perhaps start with the definition of the word tacky. I’ve included a link to the word's page in Merriam-Webster.

  That’s a dictionary, for those who don’t know. It tells you what words mean.

  Yours,

  Starlight Cupcake

  Lyra stared at her words and got angry all over again. How dare he attack a place where people were dedicated to helping others?

  He obviously had no soul.

  Thank goodness she didn’t have to deal with people like that. It was the number one reason she’d had no doubt she’d come back to Starlight Harbor after she finished getting her degree from Johnson & Wales.

  She’d seen what the competition and the general ambitions of the city had done to her fellow pastry chefs and bakers.
The push to get ahead had quickly made the beauty of baking and the joy it gave others shrink in importance.

  But now, now that she’d said her piece, all was right in her world again—and she had cookies to decorate for the Historical Society’s trip to the hospital to tell stories about smugglers and their mascot dogs to the children.

  Life was pretty darn good.

  2

  Spence Côte’s life was a mess. An absolute mess.

  Classic case of if he knew then what he knew now.

  Pulling up his month’s numbers, he tallied his ad revenue for Roadside Adventures and knew this was the closest to fixing his life he’d been in years. He was so close he could almost see the tipping point within reach.

  It had seemed like such a good idea when he’d started the site. Just a stupid hobby while he was looking for a job after college.

  He’d had too much time and energy to burn—which, at thirty wasn’t as much of a problem as it had been at twenty-two. And after driving back across the country, all his belongings in his old, beat-up clunker, he’d seen so many crazy things he’d wanted to share them.

  It had started out as funny. Hey! Check this out! Can you believe there’s actually an entire museum of fake dinosaur bones rejected by paleontologists? Who wouldn’t want to stop and take a driving break to see that?

  It was supposed to let him get in some fun writing while he searched for that perfect journalism job. The one he didn’t get right out of college because he’d been stupid and done the summer between junior and senior year in Southeast Asia with his girlfriend instead.

  Now, the older he got, the more it wore on him. He tried to deviate to funny, inspiring articles about his travels through Europe and Asia. To share with his readers more earnest and honest experiences that showed the beauty of our world. They did okay, but not like his top ten lists or snarkier pieces. People used those to create road trips. His site was added again and again to the must-have lists for road trip planning.

  He’d created a template for the year at this point—small towns, amusement parks, craziest historical markers, weirdest junkyards…the list of lists went on.

  People loved this stuff.

  He got hundreds of photos a week uploaded to his directory now.

  And ad clicks that paid the bills.

  What had started as a hobby while he chased being a travel writer had slowly taken over his life. He could barely remember the last trip where he was able to unplug for more than two days.

  There was no way to write a travel exposé in two days.

  Every day, every moment he worked on Roadside Adventures, he felt his dreams slipping away.

  But, at the same time, he’d built a large enough following—and he’d spent the money he earned as it came in—creating his own financial prison.

  Because he was apparently stupid.

  His own coffee table was littered with copies of National Geographic and The Smithsonian and other amazing, deeply crafted collections.

  All the places he longed to write for—all the articles he wished he’d written.

  At least Roadside Adventures was low maintenance in its dealing with trolls and such. The conversations were usually more humorous than not, even people chiming in that they’d been to the location and their thoughts or some suggestions on what else could have been included.

  On the flip side, he’d just seen an amazing article on the destruction of Middle Eastern artifacts as acts of war—especially in Syria—and after he’d read it, he expected the comments to reflect his own feelings: that of unjust loss for the beauty and gifts from the past.

  Instead, it was riddled with hate and anger and doubt that it had even happened, or that if it had “they” deserved it.

  The fact that people didn’t understand that art belonged to all of us—no matter the culture that created it—confused him beyond belief.

  Roadside Adventures’ commenters could perhaps be mocking in tone, but they weren’t cruel. But, he did have to moderate them for spam and the occasional argument about the order of his lists. People felt really strongly about which waterpark was the best in the midwest or which chili dog should be rated the number one must try.

  He opened the day’s posts and sat back in shock. He had to have gotten hit by a spambot, but geez. 751 comments since eight this morning? That was a record for sure.

  The most he’d ever had was like seventy when he’d done a post on churches that were now homes. It had taken nearly a week to get that many and it was because people were fascinated by the buildings and because there was an argument about damnation based on religion.

  He’d shut that down.

  No politics, no religion. He was a travel site. He wasn’t qualified to moderate those topics.

  Since all of the comments seemed to be on his Tiny Towns article, he might as well clean that out first. There were two posts he had to write for tomorrow still and he wasn’t feeling either of them.

  Which was par for the course lately.

  The first two comments were typical—expressing thanks for more crazy roadside stops. It was the third that brought him up short, and the reply number was insane. He clicked to open it all the way, doubting this was going to make his day go any smoother.

  Dear Mr. Judger of People’s Homes…

  3

  It took four orders before Lyra caught on.

  She was going to blame her eternal optimism for that and chalk it up to being a happy person. As a little girl, she’d realized that there were two paths when your mom was off on adventures and your dad had left for good: keep it happy or not-so-happy.

  So, happy it was.

  Most of the time.

  When the phone rang again, she’d had enough of a break between it and the last phone call to realize something was going on. That was the thing about the food industry. Sometimes you didn’t get time to stop and breathe—or think.

  But, after a few sips of tea, she knew a storm of craziness was truly hitting her that shouldn’t.

  “The Sweetest Things. How can I help you?”

  “Yes, I’d like to order four hundred cupcakes for an event next weekend. The theme is tacky toppings.”

  Lyra rolled her eyes. She was on to the game now that it had dawned on her exactly what was going on. If she hadn’t been, this guy would have blown all the prankers’ covers with that super-obvious remark.

  “Right. That’s a great theme. I’m sure we can handle your order. It’s just…well, George Clooney is doing his annual—oh. I mean, we’re booked solid for… um, things. You know, we’re just a small town bakery and no one remotely interesting ever comes to the coast of Maine.”

  She paused, as if waiting for a response, before rushing on.

  “But, if you’re local, I’d suggest going up to Portland. They have some bakeries almost as good as ours. I studied with one at Johnson & Wales and can tell you that while his buttercream frosting is superb, he does use a bit of a light hand with it.”

  She waited this time, silence on the end.

  “Was there anything else I can do for you?”

  “Um…no?”

  “I didn’t think so.” She hung the phone up with such force she was shocked the glass screen didn’t crack.

  Now that she knew who was to blame, she was so going to take care of this.

  Just after she handled what were potentially three false orders before she put her weekly order in.

  “Hi, this is Lyra confirming your company’s order for next week. No? You aren’t a company, and you didn’t order anything? Sorry to bother you.”

  And so it went, through all three phone numbers. Although, one person got on her site, declared it “delightful,” and promised to give them a call if they ever did anything like her Decedent Desserts party again.

  She put the phone on mute and went back to work, mulling just how angry she was.

  The fact that this could have cost her, a small business, owned and run by one person, six figures in wasted f
ood and energy was enough for her to say yes. She was very, very angry.

  Pulling up the article again, she scanned through the replies to her comment. Hundreds of them. It was very, very clear the type of people who enjoyed a site dedicated to mocking other people’s happy spots.

  After treating herself to a lemon cookie—something she almost never did—she sat down and pounded out a response.

  To the owner of this site and the commenters who attacked my business,

  I’m not sure why you would do this or even how much energy it took, but I’ve spent the day trying to figure out what calls are real—and not letting those customers down—and those that are fake. The fake ones could have cost me over a hundred-thousand dollars, perhaps bankrupting me.

  And yet, I doubt anyone here cares about that.

  The tone of not only the articles but the comments led me to believe that trying to point out that this lovely part of a beautiful state doesn’t deserve four years of mockery.

  I guess that was asking too much.

  Please call your army off, or I’ll send mine your way. Mine would be the town lawyer.

  Sincerely,

  Starlight Cupcake

  Lyra read it over. Her tone was stronger than usual but far less forward than her angry WWVD—which, next time she decided to go with What Would Vivian Do, she needed to stop herself immediately.