Sweet Buns (Cedar Falls Book 1) Read online

  Sweet Buns

  Cedar Falls 1

  By

  Shea Balik

  Sweet Buns

  Cedar Falls 1

  Welcome to Cedar Falls, a small North Carolina town nestled amongst the Smokey Mountains.

  Zane Fisher is prepared to fight against a proposed casino being built in his small hometown. Sure, it would bring in more visitors to their dying town, but at what risk?

  Aidan Dempsey is sick of the bad coffee Cedar Falls has so far had to offer. After an exceptionally bad cup, he’s decided to swear off the stuff, that is until he’s dragged into the local bakery.

  Not only does he find the best cup of coffee he’s ever tasted, but the bakery owner, Zane Fisher, just might be the sexiest man he’s ever met. Too bad Zane seems hell bent on avoiding him, as he’s the project manager for the casino Zane is against.

  Will they be able to find common ground or will Aidan be doomed to only having bad coffee?

  1st Edition Copyright © 2015 Shea Balik

  2nd Edition Copyright © 2020 by Shea Balik

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Cover by Harris Channing

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  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  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

  EPILOGUE

  About the Author

  Also from Shea Balik

  PROLOGUE

  Orlando, Florida

  The slam of the door had Zane Dempsey wincing. He hadn’t meant to be quite that forceful when he’d come home but it was hard not to take out his frustration when his day had been as bad as this one. Then again, it was that way most days lately. He loved being a pastry chef, but he hadn’t gone through all that training to make what some big corporation wanted. That was especially true when, if anyone bothered to ask Zane, which they didn’t, it had its collective head up its ass.

  “I take it you had as terrible a day as I did,” Ethan said as he handed Zane a much needed drink. “I swear to God if one more mother whines that I need to do a better job getting her brat to smile, I’m going to bitch slap someone.” Ethan tipped back his head and downed the rest of his beer.

  “Sounds to me like you bitches need a pitcher party,” Jesse sing-songed as he strode into the living room skipping. Rubbing his hands together, Jesse said with way too much glee considering the mood both Zane and Ethan were in, “So, what shall it be? Margaritas? Cosmos? Daiquiris? Mojitos?

  “Or should I bring in the alcohol and we’ll do shots?” Jesse suggested when neither Ethan nor Zane said a word as they considered which one to choose.

  Tempting as that was, Zane still had to be at work in the morning. “I vote for strawberry daiquiris.” It wasn’t Zane’s favorite but the fact that it was frozen helped to slow him down when drinking so he wouldn’t get too drunk.

  “That sounds perfect to me,” Ethan added. “But I’m going to go jump in the shower.” He pulled his Disney uniform away from his skin as if it were sticking to him, which, although it had been a warm day in January, that was still doubtful.

  Zane waved him off. “I’ll take one after you.” Zane may work inside, but he was around ovens most of the day baking, so he had been sweaty. At least he still managed to smell like vanilla, chocolate, and cinnamon.

  Joining Jesse in the kitchen, Zane pulled out some snacks for them to have while relaxing with their daiquiris. “Who would have thought the ‘happiest place on earth’ would make you two ready to hit someone?” Jesse teased.

  It was a common joke amongst them. After culinary school, Zane had managed to land a job in the Disney World parks. After several years of moving around the company, he was currently working as assistant pastry chef at the Wilderness Lodge. It was a really great opportunity for his career, not to mention the money was fantastic.

  “I swear,” Zane grumbled as the agitation of the day once more rose up inside of him. “It’s like they are all so determined to be in complete lock step with the corporation that they won’t even listen to any ideas.”

  As much as Zane loved being a pastry chef, what he enjoyed the most was creating his own recipes. That was hard to do in a place where everything had to be identical. It was irritating to his creative side. Don’t get him wrong, he believed when making a dessert they should all look the same, but did they really need to serve the same ones every damn day?

  It was as if their bosses didn’t realize there were other flavors in the world than the ones they used and had been using for years. There were some of the resorts that had a few differences, but for the most part, every place that sold pastries had the same ones. Talk about boring as hell.

  “I don’t see why you don’t take me up on a loan to open your own bakery,” Jesse suggested once again. It had been something his friend had offered shortly after Zane had gotten his current job and realized nothing was ever going to change.

  His dream was to open up his own bakery, but Zane wasn’t about to borrow money from a friend. He didn’t want to take a chance things would get weird between them.

  “Thank you,” Zane said as he carried out a tray of crackers, meats, cheeses, and two bowls of their favorite chips and dips. “I just need to stay at it for a few more years and I might be able to afford a place on my own.”

  Not.

  They lived in Orlando, Florida, nothing was cheap. Only because he lived with Jesse and Ethan sharing the bills was he able to have saved as much as he had. In his hometown of Cedar Falls, North Carolina, Zane would have easily been able to open up a bakery with the money he had. But not in Orlando. Probably nowhere in Florida, since it was so damned expensive as people were moving south in droves.

  Flopping onto one side of the couch, he gratefully took the glass
Jesse had poured him and took a sip. He wouldn’t have minded that first glass being less icy so he could have gulped it, but tomorrow he would appreciate the restraint of being forced to only sip in order not to get brain freeze.

  “I still think it would be easier to take a loan from me, but whatever.” Jesse set down Ethan’s glass as well as the full pitcher before taking his own seat on his favorite chair. “I mean, we only live once. If we’re not running like we’re on fire, what’s the point?”

  Zane stared at Jesse for a full minute before he blinked and then looked at the daiquiri in his hand. “Just what did you put in this?”

  “Ha ha.” Jesse stuck out his tongue.

  “What did Jesse say this time?” Ethan asked as he sat on the other end of the couch and took a long drink that had him wincing at the cold. Apparently, Ethan’s day had been harder, because he went ahead and took another long drink, downing half the glass.

  “Fuck,” Ethan cried out and held his hand to his forehead. “Why did we choose daiquiris again?”

  Ignoring that question, Zane answered the first one. “Jesse thinks we should run like we’re on fire.”

  “I do not,” Jesse exclaimed. Then he tilted his head and twisted his mouth as if contemplating what Zane had said. “Okay, maybe I kind of said that, but you missed my profound point.”

  Ethan and Zane looked at each other, each taking another drink, then turned back to Jesse expectantly. They could have asked, but they knew it would drive their friend nuts when they didn’t. Since Jesse couldn’t keep anything to himself, he’d tell them without them having to say a word anyway.

  “You two are assholes, you know that?” Jesse told them as he gulped down the rest of his drink without any brain freeze. In all the years they’d lived together, Zane had never figured out how he did that. “Anyway,” Jesse said as he poured himself another glass. “I was telling Zane he needed to grab life by the horns and ride that bull down the middle of town.”

  Zane blinked at the glass in his hand and set it down on the table. “I don’t know what you’re put in these, but I don’t want what you’re drinking.”

  In typical Jesse fashion he rolled his eyes. “Please, like I need alcohol. We all know I’m like a web browser with nineteen tabs open, three are frozen, and I still can’t figure out where the music is coming from.”

  Zane laughed for the first time that day. But that was Jesse, always coming up with unusual ways to see life.

  Finishing his first daiquiri, Zane started to pour himself another when his phone rang. He glanced at the screen and nearly groaned. His mom. He loved her dearly, but there were times, like now, when he didn’t have it in him to listen to her gossip about his hometown.

  With a sigh, he hit accept and said, “Hey mom, how are things in Cedar Falls?”

  He’d expected her to instantly start with some story or another about his father, her friends or some scandal. Instead what he got was a moment of silence that for some reason put him on alert. Then she said, “Hi, honey. How are things in Florida?”

  Huh? Not that she didn’t usually ask, but rarely was that the first thing she asked about. “Um, good. Is something going on?”

  There was another long pause. Zane couldn’t explain it, but he was sure his mom’s voice had sounded weak when she finally spoke. “I had my annual physical a few months back,” she stated.

  Zane frowned, unsure what a doctor’s visit last fall could have anything to do with why she was calling. “I remember,” he told her. “You said your labs were normal but dad’s cholesterol was high and he was showing signs of a fatty liver so you were going to put him on a diet.”

  Sitting up straight, he asked, “Did the tests get worse? Is he in the hospital?”

  Ethan scooted across the couch to sit next to him and Jesse actually got up out of the chair and sat at his feet. Damn, but he loved these two men as if they were brothers.

  “No,” his mom assured him. “But I did have one abnormal test I didn’t tell you about.”

  Zane reached down and Jesse took his hand even though he had no clue what was going on. Ethan, seeing that he needed their strength, put an arm around his waist and leaned in.

  “What are you talking about? What test? How abnormal was it?” Zane prayed to a God he really hadn’t believed in for some time that his mother was okay.

  There was another long pause and Zane nearly shouted into the phone for his mother to just tell him. It took a lot to keep himself calm until she was ready to speak. Well, calm might have been overstating it, but at least he hadn’t yelled at his mom.

  “It’s not uncommon to get abnormal tests back on a mammogram.” The moment his mother said the last word it was as if Zane’s world had turned upside down. “But, when I had it retaken, it was still…”

  Her voice had started shaking halfway through that last sentence and suddenly his father was on the phone. “Son, your mom has breast cancer.”

  Zane closed his eyes and started to shake. Both Jesse and Ethan held him tightly. “What?” he asked, unsure what he was supposed to ask or even say in that moment.

  Cancer.

  He’d known lots of people who had loved ones who had it. There were even a few he’d worked with who’d had it and beaten it, but it was still a very scary word. Too often it still meant death.

  “The doctors are hopeful because it was caught fairly early,” his father told him. “But she will need to go through treatment.”

  “When?” He didn’t care if he had to quit his job. Zane would be there for his mom, just as she’d been there his whole life for him.

  CHAPTER 1

  Cedar Falls, North Carolina

  The bell over the door rang as Jesse Grant came rushing into the bakery. “I have news.”

  There were times, like now, when Zane Fisher’s best friend reminded him of a puppy who runs round and round in circles while yapping excitedly. Zane gave Jesse a smile as he finished wiping down all the tables and setting the chairs back in position. “What’s the news?” Not that he really needed to have asked. Like a puppy, Jesse wouldn’t be able to hold it in, but Zane hadn’t wanted to disappoint his best friend by leaving him hanging.

  Jesse was practically vibrating in anticipation. His dark eyes, made more piercing with black eyeliner and mascara, widened for affect. “Your enemy is in town, and according to Mary Fuller, he is ‘sex on a stick’.” Jesse even used air quotes for more effect. As soon as the words were out of Jesse’s mouth, he collapsed onto a stool at the counter, exhausted.

  It took effort not to laugh at his friend’s flare for drama. It wasn’t like the man had to go far to tell him. Jesse’s flower shop was just across the street. Of course, wearing boots with three-inch platform heels could have something to do with it. “Just who do you think is my enemy, Jess, and how does Mary Fuller know what he looks like?”

  For the most part Zane got along with everyone, which wasn’t always easy being gay in a small town. When he came out to his parents at the age of fifteen, they had taken it without too much fuss. In high school he’d wished they would have had more difficulty accepting it. Not that he wanted to be thrown out or anything, but his mom had turned into a gay pride fanatic, which, to be honest, was at times more embarrassing than when she’d walked him into school still in her curlers and muumuu.

  The older he got, the more he appreciated that his mom and even his dad were willing to fight for him. Oh, his mom still embarrassed the crap out of him with some of her outlandish stands on gay rights. Anytime there was a LGBT rally, protest, or parade, she was there front and center, shouting at the top of her lungs that her son was gay. Secretly he was proud of her, but it didn’t change the fact that he’d prefer to live a fairly quiet life, not shouting his sexual orientation from the rooftops.

  Jesse slumped over the counter, putting his chin in his hands. With a heavy sigh he said, “Aidan Dempsey.” When his friend saw Zane’s blank face at the name, he shook his head in exasperation. “I’m gonna nee
d something to drink if you’re going to make me work this hard so early in the morning.”

  Chuckling, Zane went behind the counter and made Jess his favorite fall drink, a caramel macchiato. When he put the cup on the counter, Jesse leaned down and inhaled deeply before picking it up to take a careful sip. “Ahhh, much better.”

  His friend’s over-the-top antics were always amusing, at least when they weren’t getting them in trouble. Zane couldn’t count the amount of times Jesse stepped over the line with others who had no trouble hitting the five-foot-five man. Zane, being Jesse’s friend, would jump in to help and usually ended up getting his ass handed to him.

  Still he wouldn’t trade all those bruises, cuts, broken ribs, hospital visits, and even time in jail for anything. “Now, who is Aidan Dempsey, and why is he my enemy?”

  It wasn’t until Jess had taken another sip that he put down his drink. Leaning over the counter he lowered his voice to a whisper. “The project manager for the casino.”

  Zane stopped wiping down the already clean counter. Even though construction crews had been moving dirt for several months to clear the land for the new casino that was being built, Zane had still hoped it wouldn’t happen. He didn’t have a problem with casinos in general, but that didn’t mean he wanted one in his town.

  He feared they would bring corruption and greed into this struggling town. He’d watched Vegas, he knew mobs ran casinos and he wasn’t about to let that happen to his hometown.

  But because the land was a part of the Cherokee Nation, there was little Zane could do to stop the casino. That didn’t mean he had to like it.