Page 2 of One Sweet Match Up

The thought of opening the same type of restaurant, doing the same thing, made his stomach ache.

He’d begun to face the facts: he’d lost the spark that had always ignited his drive and guided his entire culinary career.

And then there was the plan to settle down . . . Well, it only took a week back to realize most of the women he’d crushed on—Abby, Caitlin, Bethany, to name a few—were all taken. His prospects for finding a wife were about as slim as finding a vacant spot to open a new eating establishment.

So, here he was two months later with no restaurant and no woman.

He glanced down at his discarded apron. At least he had a job to keep him busy. Last month, he stopped into the Sugar Spoon bakery for a sweet treat, where an exasperated Abby offered him work right on the spot. She’d been running the place while her cousin and owner, Emma Stevens, was out of town.

He’d gotten his start as a pastry chef, so whipping up dessert at the Sugar Spoon wasn’t a bad gig while he was in limbo. Not to mention, it got him back in the kitchen.

His gaze moved over to Abby, still stirring her cake batter with the shimmering pink wooden spoon—or plastic, he really couldn’t tell. What he was one hundred percent sure of was that pink glitter wouldn’t add any flavor to the cake mix and, if swallowed, could provide some serious indigestion.

Although no one seemed to complain, and that didn’t really surprise him. Even before working here, he’d grown up knowing that the Stevens clan had a little magic running through their fingertips and the glittery spoon did more than mixing.

The whole town knew that Emma took after her mother, Sheila Stevens, and was the experienced Buttermilk Falls witch who, each Monday night, held Batter Up, in which she predicted the soul mate of one lucky bachelor by mixing her name up in cake batter with the glittered pink spoon.

Totally nuts and wasn’t something he readily shared with any of his buddies in Colorado. Still, he knew it was all legit, having seen Bridget Dobson’s name appear in his buddy Tom Reed’s batter nearly two years ago when he’d been home visiting his family. The couple were now happily married.

Since Emma was in Texas for the unforeseeable future trying to find her estranged father, Abby stepped in for tonight’s Batter Up spell, deciding Donovan would be her guinea pig.

“Okay.” Abby’s eyelids flew open. “Let’s see who we’ve got.”

“Is this the part where the woman appears?” Donovan snickered. “Because I wouldn’t mind riding out the storm tonight with a pretty lady not related to me by blood.”

“No.” She nodded down to the bowl. “With any luck, though, you’ll get a name.” She winked. “How quickly you act on that information to cement your evening plans is entirely up to you.”

Donovan shifted, his lower region now more than a little curious as to whose name was inside the bowl.

Brandon leaned over and took a peek. “And it looks like your streak continues, my love.”

Abby slammed her palm on the counter. “Man, just once I’d like to get a full name.”

“What do you mean?” Donovan asked.

She tilted the bowl in his direction. “For some reason, I can only conjure up the first letter, but since Emma and her mom aren’t here to do the spell, you’re stuck with me. Here you go.”

Donovan glanced into the bowl, a flash of exhilaration running through him in seeing magic up close. Sure enough, there was a letter “Z” in pink cursive swirl. “Z . . .”

“Know anyone whose name begins with a Z?” Abby asked.

“No.” He wracked his brain for a name but drew a blank. He’d slept with a Zada last summer, a new waitress with a large rack. It’d happened after one too many drinks at the restaurant’s bar after hours. He smiled remembering Zada’s horizontal flexibility.

A pang of guilt jabbed him. They’d only been together the one time. Casual hookups were his norm back then.

He let her down easy the next day, saying that he’d had a lot to drink and that it was a mistake. That he had a rule of not sleeping with his staff, which wasn’t exactly true, but maybe she hadn’t learned about his past indiscretions.

Nevertheless, she’d quit that same night, giving him the finger as she peeled out of the parking lot.

Abby snapped her fingers, jarring him out of that bad memory. “Zoe!”

Well, that was a pretty name, but he didn’t know a Zoe.

“I bet it’s Zoe Mathews.”

Adam jumped off his barstool, putting on his blue winter jacket and zipping it all the way up. “Negative. I already predicted that one.”

Donovan raised his eyebrow at his friend. Rachel had filled him in that Adam had been given a blue mixing spoon recently by the bakery gang and was now predicting love for bachelorettes. Something about a distant cousin enchanting it and wanting Adam to carry on its legacy.

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