If I Win

Katherine Sweet didn't come home to fall for anyone. She came home to babysit her family's pasta factory, up to her elbows in flour while her cake-decorating business sits on hold and her pastry chef career sits on pause. Her life is one long simmer.

Then a charity auction goes sideways, and she accidentally buys one night with the guy who starred in her high school daydreams. And wouldn't you know, Mark Drysdale matured into a walking, talking dessert tray. Smart. Kind. Strong.

And he has a puppy. Honestly, rude.

Katherine doesn't have time for kisses in the apple orchard or flirty smiles across the pasta machines. She has a cake empire to build and a big city to get back to. So she'll keep it light, enjoy the fantasy for one night, then pretend none of it happened.

But Mark has other ideas. The volunteer firefighter and horse-rescue hero is still the same sweet guy who made her teenage heart do cartwheels. One failed date turns into a cascade of tiny disasters that keeps putting them in each other's path. The more he shows up, the harder he is to leave behind.

Katherine is being pulled in too many directions. Her dreams. Her duty. Him. The one hometown hero who might be worth staying for.