Page 1 of Grizzly's Grump
PROLOGUE
CILLA
Ialmost threw up—which says a lot, considering I’ve never had a weak stomach, but the sight that greeted me was almost my undoing.
Not from the smell—though the food truck reeked of sweat and sex and the vanilla-sugar perfume Lola always drowned herself in—but from the sheer whiplash of it. One minute I was walking back early with a box of tacos for lunch. It was Tuesday after all. One minute I have a big surprised smile pasted on my face, and the next, I’m frozen in the doorway as I watched Troy’s golden head buried between Barbie-pink thighs.
Not from the sight. They didn’t see me at first. Of course they didn’t. They wrapped themselves up in each other and were too smug in their little betrayal. My best friend, Lola. My fiancé, Troy. In my food truck. On my prep counter.
When they finally noticed me, Lola shrieked and scrambled as if she were the victim. Troy had the nerve to look caught, not ashamed—just inconvenienced. I backed out before I did something I couldn’t take back. I didn’t throw the tacos. I didn’t scream.
But something deep in me buckled—and once it did, it just kept unraveling.
At least Troy had never deigned to live in my food truck with me. I suppose it was as convenient a place for him to fuck Lola as it had been to fuck me.
I don’t cry when I drive away. Not when I slam the door. Not even when I see the crumpled snapshot still taped to the glove box.
But I do grip the steering wheel so tight my knuckles go white. And when the transmission groans like it’s got one foot in the graveyard and it barely ascends the rise for which Redwood Rise was named, I mutter a prayer under my breath. To the truck. To the road. Maybe to something older, something quieter, something that still believes in second chances. Maybe even to whatever invisible thread tugged me toward this place—like the ground itself whispered a direction when I needed one most.
The food truck rattles around me, every squeaky hinge and chipped tile a reminder of what I’ve lost.Sweet On Youwas supposed to be our dream—mine and Troy’s. Cupcakes and cinnamon rolls in the morning, long drives between festivals, laughing until we were too tired to remember why we ever fought. We were going to make it.
Right up until he slept with my best friend and I found the loan agreement in the glove box—my name forged at the bottom in his handwriting, bold and unforgiving, with the proceeds going to a bank I'd never heard of.
I should’ve seen it coming.
Troy always looked like he’d stepped off a beachside billboard—sun-kissed blond hair, a jaw you could slice bread with, and that all-American smile that made old ladies coo and festival vendors offer us freebies. He could charm a room without trying. And he never had to try very hard, especially with me. But I’d been too wrapped up in the dream to notice the cracks.
He’d wink at strangers like it was part of his brand. Told me I worried too much, that he was just 'keeping the vibe alive.' I chalked it up to charisma. Until the day I walked into the food truck early and heard two voices where there should’ve been one—and one of them was Lola, laughing in that breathy way she always used when she wanted attention.
Lola, with her long legs, perfect waist, and platinum blonde hair that always fell in waves like she’d just stepped out of a shampoo commercial. She looked like Barbie—cheer captain edition—and she knew it. The kind of girl people expected to see smiling from a billboard, holding a tray of cupcakes beside my fiancé on Instagram.
I used to tease Troy that if we ever took real promo shots forSweet On You, Lola should be the one holding the tray. "She photographs better," I’d joke, brushing powdered sugar off my apron, "unless 'sugar-dusted and plus-size' is suddenly trending." He always said he liked my curves, but his eyes wandered every time Lola wore something tight. And now I knew why.
And then she said my name like it was a punchline.
I don’t cry. But I do slam my palm against the wheel and let out one ragged scream. Just to release the fury clawing at my chest—the moment I saw that loan agreement, thousands of dollars in my name, co-signed without a word. That betrayal cut deeper than any kiss he ever gave to someone else. Because it meant he never really saw me—not as a partner, not as a person. Just a tool. A signature. A safety net.
He said it wasn’t what it looked like. That he—no, we—needed the money, and that I didn’t understand. It had nothing to do with Lola, even though I could still smell her on him. But he wouldn’t meet my eyes. Not even when I hurled my engagement ring at his chest and told him, clear as a bell, to get the hell out of my truck and out of my life. The look on his facewasn’t guilt. It was an inconvenience—like I’d just ruined his weekend plans.
I’m still paying off what he stole. In more ways than one.
It’s dusk now, and the trees are starting to change—taller, older, hung with moss like they’ve been watching for centuries. The road narrows, winding deeper into the woods, the mist growing thicker with every mile. It clings to the windshield like a secret trying to speak.
I don’t know exactly where I’m going. Only that I’m heading north, chasing a name that surfaced in my mind like a whisper when everything else fell apart.
Redwood Rise.
I found it years ago, tucked between the pages of a vintage cookbook at a garage sale. A sun-faded postcard with fog-wreathed trees and a crooked sign that simply readWelcome to Redwood Rise. I kept it because it felt like magic. A secret wrapped in flour dust and old stories.
I didn’t know I’d need that magic one day.
The truck coughs as I ease it around a bend, and I spot it—barely there through the mist. A wooden marker off the side of the road. Weather-worn but still standing.Redwood Rise. Est. 1834.
For a split second, something hums through the wheel—like static, or soundless vibration in the metal. It’s gone before I can name it.
I pull over. The engine wheezes like it’s relieved. Maybe it is.
I sit there a minute, fingers loose on the wheel, heart ticking like a broken metronome. This truck contains my life—baking trays, old recipes, and a battered blue and white striped awning that smells faintly of sugar and long hours on the road. There’s a cushy bed tucked above the cab, with string lights taped across the ceiling and a patchwork quilt I’ve hauled from one state to the next.
