Harmony and High Heels

Chapter 1

Harmony Wright was bored, and that was never a good thing. The last time she’d been bored, there had been a fire … a very big one. She’d like to say it was accidental, but that would be a damn lie. And she never lied to herself. The rest of the world was a different story, though. She’d spent most of her thirty years making sure everyone believed exactly what she wanted them to believe, when she wanted them to believe it. She might not have inherited much from her mother, the queen bee of San Angelo society, but she’d definitely inherited the ability to keep up appearances … and to make those appearances look like reality.

For example, all of her mother’s friends—and her enemies, for that matter—believed that Harmony was a perfect daughter. A chip off her mother’s hard-as-diamonds block. And while Harmony herself viewed this as the truth too, it wasn’t because she wore pastel sweater sets and pearls, just like Livinia Wright. It wasn’t because she taught Sunday school or was secretary of the garden club and treasurer of the Junior League. And it certainly wasn’t because she co-owned the Wright Way, which just happened to be the most successful bakery in San Angelo, Texas.

No, she wasn’t a good daughter because of any of those reasons, Harmony mused as she picked up a custom-made cannoli shell. She was a good daughter because she co-owned this damned bakery with her mother and, despite numerous opportunities and even more provocations, had yet to smother the woman with one of their Wright Way frilly aprons or slip rat poison into her morning Southern Comfort coffee. For that she figured she deserved the Motherfucking Daughter of the Year Award. Maybe even a Nobel Prize. Did they make one of those for children who survived impossible mothers? She picked up another cannoli shell shaped like a Glock nine millimeter. If they didn’t, they certainly should. In the very least she deserved some hazard pay.

She hummed a few bars of “Deep Six” by Marilyn Manson as she piped double-dark-chocolate ricotta filling into the barrel of the cannoli—which she called Take the Gun, Eat the Cannoli in honor of The Godfather—then set it down next to its fellow and picked up the next one. Gun cannoli might have seemed an unusual choice for a gentile, pearl-wearing baker, but this was Texas. Texans liked Jesus, guns, and football … not necessarily in that order.

Once she finished the cannoli, she moved on to a tray of her city-renowned donuts. It had taken years to perfect not only the recipe, but the various donut shapes as well. Each donut was a hand, with the fingers molded into a variety of different hand gestures, including the UT Hook ’em Horns and the Texas Aggie thumbs-up. She would have done a bear paw for Baylor, but come on, the bakery already had a bear claw, so it seemed redundant. Recently, she’d even designed a hand holding a lasso as an homage to her new brother-in-law, former quarterback and newly appointed offensive coordinator for the Fort Worth Wranglers. The fact that her personal favorite hand gesture—the stiff middle finger—was the only symbol she didn’t sell was yet another example of what a fine, upstanding daughter she was.

It was with that thought in mind that she picked up the first donut hand and refashioned it so that the middle finger pointed skyward. Then she carried it to the fryer and with a practiced hand, gently set it in and fried it up. When it was golden and lovely, she fished it out, plopped it on a drying rack, and smothered it with sugary glaze.

She poured herself a cappuccino, leaned against the stainless-steel work table, and gave herself ten minutes to enjoy her bird and ’cino. It was all of 5:18 a.m. Anyone who was anyone was just now dragging their sorry ass home from a night out. But she was here playing the good girl and stuffing cannoli. She bit into the middle finger.

Yep, she was bored, and it was making her antsy. Very, very antsy.

Thank God her annual vacation with her twin sister, Lyric, was in less than two weeks. They traded off planning and booking the vacations, and this year it was all Harmony. She’d put together a fun-filled two weeks that involved both BASE jumping and heli-skiing in Chile. The fact that volcanic eruptions were at an all-time high in the Andes only made her vacation choice more exciting.

And God knew she needed a little excitement after spending last year’s vacation in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. She and Lyric had spent two hellish weeks staring at stars through a telescope. While the place was beautiful, the fact that it was called “the birthplace of modern astrophysics” should have been a tip-off that the only person who’d be having fun was her astrophysicist sister. If Harmony hadn’t talked a local hot air balloonist into letting her do a little bungee jumping from his balloon, and a local cowboy into letting her hog-tie him up, the trip would have been a total bust.

That so wasn’t going to happen this year. With that thought in mind, Harmony finished up her donut, turned up the volume on her smartphone so that the walls shook with death metal, and got back to work.

An hour later, she turned off the death metal, zipped herself into a pink-and-black-striped sundress from Talbots, tied a starched, white lacy apron around her waist, and applied a respectable amount of respectable pink lipstick and just a hint of mascara.

As she checked herself out in the full-length mirror on the back of her office door—just to make sure that all remnants of early-morning Harmony were sublimated—the left corner of her mouth turned up in a crooked smile. She looked just like every other Livinia Wright disciple, which meant that no one but her twin—and a few one-night stands that all lived at least fifty miles outside of town—knew that underneath all of this Talbots Suburban Housewife were breast-to-thigh tattoos, nipple rings, a hood piercing, and a shit-ton of bad attitude.

Which was exactly how she wanted it.

Kenny G’s saxophone hummed out of the bakery’s speakers as she closed her office door, grabbed the last tray—cheesecake brownies—and went to open up for the day. She flicked on the light for the dining room and slipped the brownies into the glass refrigerated countertop display case.

Five of her “coffee club” stood waiting outside the door. Every single one of the men had fought in Vietnam, insisted on drinking rotgut Folgers, ate more sweets than they confessed to their wives, and downed bad coffee like it was water. Since she’d refused to buy them cheap coffee, they brought their own can, used their own Bunn coffeepot, and had their own table in the corner.

With a smile as sweet as her cream-cheese brownies, she unlocked the door and held it open for them. In seconds it was wrenched out of her hand. These men were real Texans, and they would rather eat nuclear waste direct from “Commie Russia” than have a door opened for them by a lady. It wasn’t a slight against women’s lib. Just a deep-seated fear that their mommas could see them from heaven and would know that they’d passed up an opportunity to be good Southern gentlemen.

“Good morning, Mr. Laramey.” She stepped back and smiled. After Vietnam, Stan Laramey had moved to Hollywood and become a stuntman for Harrison Ford. After Stan had broken both of his legs shooting The Fugitive, he’d moved back to San Angelo to run his daddy’s cattle ranch.

“Hey there, baby girl.” His West Texas drawl held onto each word, making them slow as molasses and twice as thick. “Did you make them pecan sticky buns I like?”

“I made a whole two dozen, with extra orange zest just for you.” She kissed his cheek.

“Today’s his birthday, and I’d hate to hear him whine about not getting sticky buns on his birthday.” It was Jeremiah Pearson. His polyester pants had swallowed a good two-thirds of his torso, and the tennis balls on his walker shushed on the tiled floor. “Nobody whines as much as Stan Laramey.”

“I think you’re right about that.” John Horner, retired Texas Ranger turned cattle rancher filed in next. “Whiney little girls got nothin’ on Stan.”

“Now let’s all just get along, gentlemen.” Reverend J. Cooley Sadek was next. Since he was a man of the cloth, everyone looked to him as the peacemaker. Of course, they also looked to him to hold the bets for all sporting events, to run the Tuesday night poker game, and to drive the River Valley Baptist Church van when the coffee club took their monthly trips to the casino in Eagle Pass.

“We’re getting along. No one’s murdered anyone lately.” Lucas McDonald, Civil War enthusiast and ex–history teacher at San Angelo High, hunched over his cane and shuffled into the bakery. He gave Jeremiah Pearson the stink eye. “Even though it ain’t for lack of trying.”

“What did I do?” Mr. Pearson was all innocence.

“Them trash cans of yours been down at the end of your driveway for going on a week.” Mr. McDonald took neighborhood beautification to a whole new level. He’d been known to take a yardstick and measure the length of his neighbors’ grass.

“I just had both of my knees replaced. Walking is kinda painful, especially if I’m dragging a trash can behind me.” Mr. Pearson popped the top on the Folgers, stuffed a coffee filter into the Bunn, measured out the coffee, and hit the brew button.

“You’re here, ain’t ya?” According to the town in general, Mr. McDonald had always been an ass. The only reason anyone put up with him was because twice a year he ran the best Civil War reenactment in Texas—maybe even in the whole South.

Harmony mashed her lips together to keep from grinning. She kinda liked that about him. No one ran over Lucas McDonald, and God knew many had thought about it when they were behind the wheel and he was crossing the road.

“Life’s too short for you to act like a snapping turtle.” Reverend Sadek was a terminally cheerful person. More than once, Harmony had wanted to choke him with the chain holding the cross around his neck. It was only the fear of the wrath of Livinia Wright that had held her back.

She could see in his eyes that Mr. McDonald wanted to punch Reverend Sadek. The chocolate macadamia nut cookies he favored were totally on the house today.

She closed the door after them. “I’m guessing y’all are ordering the usual?”

Harmony didn’t know why she even bothered to ask. They always ordered the same things.

They all “yes ma’am”-ed in unison.

“Are we really celebrating your birthday, Stan?” Mr. McDonald eased down into his chair at their table. “You’re two hundred years old. Why are we celebrating your birthday?”

“You’re seventeen days older than I am and we celebrated your birthday,” Stan Laramey said around the toothpick that was always sticking out of the left side of his mouth.

“Yeah, but people like me. Nobody likes you.” Besides harassing humanity at large, Mr. McDonald’s favorite hobby was being cheap. He didn’t want to have to pick up Laramey’s tab because it was his birthday. Everyone knew not to use the bathroom at McDonald’s house, because he actually divided the two-ply toilet paper into two rolls. Of course, he was living on a teacher’s pension …

Harmony smiled to herself as she gathered their usual order. Cannoli for Reverend Sadek, eclairs for Pearson, sand tarts for Horner, and one pan of piping-hot sticky buns complete with a birthday candle for the table.

She walked through the doorway that led to the kitchen. She grabbed a pot holder and pulled the sticky buns out of the warm oven. Their orangey, cinnamon scent filled the air. Harmony picked up the blue birthday candle she’d set out on the counter, lit it, and carried the pan out front. She drew the line at singing.

“Happy Birthday, Mr. Laramey.” She set the pan in front of him. “Make a wish.”

“How come I didn’t get no candle for my birthday?” McDonald folded his thin arms and stuck out his bottom lip.

These men might have the combined age of half a millennium, but they were still little boys. Men, no matter how old they grow, are all still little boys.

“She likes him more than she likes you.” John Horner grinned. “She has great taste.”

“That’s not very nice.” McDonald continued to pout.

Harmony set their favorites in front of each man as Laramey blew out his candle. When she got to Mr. McDonald, she set his plate of chocolate macadamia nut cookies down in front of him and leaned over and whispered, “You didn’t get a candle because you’re not as needy as Mr. Laramey. I hate to see a grown man cry, and we both know he’s a crier.”

“You’re a good girl.” McDonald patted her hand. “Must have gotten that from your daddy, ’cause your momma is a menace.”

Mr. McDonald certainly knew how to hold a grudge. A million years ago, back when he’d taught her mother history in high school, something bad had happened in his class. He blamed Momma and had hated her ever since. Maybe that was why Harmony loved the old man.

“You’re such a good girl.” Reverend Sadek put his liver-spotted hand on her forearm.

“Thank you.” She smiled. Every time he said it, it was a stroke to the old ego. If they only knew she regularly drove to the next county over to raise hell, they wouldn’t be so quick to call her a good girl.

It wasn’t that she was afraid of telling the world the truth, it was more that she enjoyed the dual life. San Angelo was a small town. Airing her dirty lingerie here wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as secretly wearing it under all of this good girl. Or so she liked to tell herself …

Three hours later, just as she’d hit the late-morning lull before the lunch rush, Neil Diamond’s “Cherry Cherry” buzzed out of her phone. Harmony rolled her eyes. It was her sister’s new ringtone. God, she hated that damn song.

She pulled the phone out of her pocket and hit answer. “Are you packing your ski parka?”

“Ummm.” Lyric took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Harm, I … um, kind of can’t go.”

“What’s wrong?” Harm leaned against the front counter and watched Clara Nutter, her assistant, wipe down tables. “Are you sick? Or pregnant?”

“Neither.” Lyric sounded embarrassed, and rightly so, as she continued, “Heath won’t let me go.”

“Excuse me? Tell me I heard you wrong. Tell me you didn’t just say that your husband forbade you from doing something. Gloria Steinem would be rolling in her grave if she heard you say that.” God knew, subservience pissed Harmony off—well, unless she was the one demanding subservience.

“Gloria Steinem isn’t dead.”

“Not yet, but if she hears that you let your husband order you around she just might keel over.” Harmony was pretty sure she was going to keel over herself. That or her head was going to spin around and she was going to spit pea soup all over everything. She ducked back into the kitchen for some privacy. “Women haven’t fought for equality since the beginning of time so that you can wimp out on our vacation at the last minute. What the hell is wrong with your husband?”

Heath had just made the top of her shit list. Which wasn’t exactly a change, since he’d been there since high school. But after seeing how happy he made Lyric these days, she’d been just about ready to forgive him for being such an ass when they were eighteen.

“Gloria Steinem doesn’t care about me.” Lyric sounded resigned, like her fate was always going to be at the hands of someone else.

That wasn’t okay.

“Gloria Steinem cares about all womankind, no men, they can kiss her ass … Your husband forbidding you to go on vacation so he can keep you barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen—”

“I am not pregnant.” Lyric enunciated every word like Harmony was hard of hearing. “He didn’t forbid us from going on vacation. In fact, he wants to pay for us to go to Paris or London or the Caribbean. Whatever you want.”

Paris, London, and the Caribbean were lame. “Where I want is to go is BASE jumping in—“

“That’s what Heath isn’t sure about.”

“What?” Harmony all but spit the word out of her mouth. “Why?”

“When I mentioned how I broke my leg that time we were skiing in New Zealand—”

“That was a freak accident. Your ski got caught in the lift chair. If that tree hadn’t broken your fall, it could have been a lot worse.” She propped one fist on her hip as she contemplated the best way to murder a six-foot-five, nearly three-hundred-pound man. “Did you tell him that?”

“I don’t think that would have helped our case.” Lyric was always the voice of reason—a.k.a. a total pain in the ass.

“Heath Montgomery is not going to push us around. We are going on this vacation.” She needed this vacation. Pretending to be her mother’s younger clone was one thing, but doing it all the time—with only the occasional trip to the next county over to be herself—was not okay. She counted on these trips to let her hair down, to show the world—and herself—that she hadn’t gotten lost no matter how many years she’d spent kissing Livinia Angleton Wright’s pasty, white, upper-class ass.

“We are,” Lyric agreed. “I swear. We just need to pick a different spot, someplace where there’s a much lower chance of me dying.”

“Your chance of dying is just as great at home, or have you forgotten about the planetarium bouncy house disaster?” Her sister had almost suffocated when a blow-up planetarium had collapsed at her neighbor’s kid’s birthday party.

“When they said they’d rented a planetarium for Billy’s birthday, how was I supposed to know that it was a converted bouncy house? Who’s ever heard of a bouncy house planetarium?” Lyric took a deep breath. “Anyway, that’s exactly my point. If I can almost die just doing normal things, how can I be expected to survive BASE jumping?”

Lyric was in logical PhD mode. It really pissed Harmony off.

“Is that your point or Heath’s point?” Harmony’s annoyance was turning to anger—and to hurt—deep inside of her.

There was a long silence. “Heath’s,” Lyric reluctantly admitted.

“Wow. Married three months and already he’s got you whipped.” Harmony was never getting married. Marriage seemed to be a license for men to push women around.

“That’s not fair, Harm, and you know it.” Her sister sounded resigned. Another point against marriage.

“What I know is that you’re my sister. My twin sister. You know more than anyone how much I need this trip—”

Call-waiting beeped, interrupting Harmony before she could work herself up to full steam. Which was probably a good thing, considering she didn’t want to say anything she might regret. After all, it wasn’t Lyric’s fault she was married to an ass. Or, at least, not completely Lyric’s fault.

Harmony knew what she needed to do. “I’m coming to visit. I’ll be there this afternoon. Heath and I need to nail down some boundaries. He may be your husband, but I’m your sister. Sister’s before misters.”

She’d been blinded by his love for her sister, but this macho madness ended today. Men didn’t dictate anything to the Wright sisters.

“Look, I’ve got to go. Someone is calling on the other line. It’s probably a customer.” Harmony was running a bakery. She didn’t have time for her sister to be wimpy.

“Harm, wait—“

“I’ll call you back when I’m done taking the order.” More like when she finally had her mouth under control—which, come to think of it, might be never. Still, she had to give it a shot. The last thing she wanted to do was alienate her sister and best friend.

Clicking off without bothering to say good-bye, she moved right into her usual spiel on the other line. “Thank you for calling the Wright Way. This is Harmony speaking. How may I make your day a little sweeter?” She tried not to gag as she said the last line—it was totally her mother’s brainstorm, and though Livinia wasn’t here, she had ways of finding out if Harmony was doing things her way. FBI interrogators could learn a thing or two from Livinia Wright.

“Is this Harmony Wright?” the slightly nasally voice on the other end said.

“It is.” She narrowed her eyes, preparing to unload her bad mood on whatever unfortunate telemarketer had chosen the worst moment to call. Bitch-slapping telemarketers was so much fun.

“Please hold for Holly Braeburn.”

Nasally woman was getting on Harm’s nerves. “You called me. I’m not holding for anyone—” She broke off as the name registered. Holly was the woman who had run Cupcake Cage Match, the Las Vegas cupcake war competition she’d secretly participated in last fall. It was part mixed martial arts and part Cupcake Wars.

Harmony had won the competition—of course she had, her cupcake recipes and her cage-fighting skills were unparalleled in the baking world. The ten thousand in prize money she had won was what she was using to finance the trip to Chile.

She barely had time to wonder what Holly could possibly be calling about, when the woman herself came on the line. “Harmony, how are you?”

“I’m good, thanks.” She knew she sounded cautious, but she really hoped Holly wasn’t calling because she needed the money back. Then again, with the way her day was going … anything was possible.

“I’m so glad to hear that. We need you in tip-top shape for the show we want to do.” Holly was all business. Harm really liked that about Holly.

“The show?” More cupcake MMA fighting sounded good to her.

“Yes. We’re looking to liven things up over here at Food Network, and when I started thinking about a new baking show, you were the first person who came to mind.” It sounded like Holly was shuffling paper on the other end of the phone.

“A new baking show?” Harmony knew she sounded like a parrot, but she was having a hard time keeping up.

“Yes, we want to call it Badass Baker, and we want you to be our resident badass. Kind of like Ace of Cakes, but with more sex appeal and more accessible recipes that the average baker can pull off. Kind of a Kat Von D meets Betty Crocker kind of thing.”

Chapter 2

“Badass Baker?” Harmony repeated. Damn it, she really had to stop repeating everything that came out of Holly’s mouth. But seriously? “My own show?”

She loved Kat Von D. Personal hero and style inspiration.

But her own show? These things didn’t happen in real life. TV producers didn’t just call you up when you lived the most boring life possible in itty-bitty San Angelo and tell you they wanted to give you your own show.

“Absolutely your own show.” There was a smile in Holly’s voice. “This can’t be that much of a surprise, can it? You dominated Cupcake Cage Match, and not just because of your baking and fighting skills. You have to know how much charisma you have. You’re sexy and beautiful and have a wicked sense of humor. The camera loves you—and so does the audience.”

Harmony glanced down at her pink-and-black Talbots dress and sensible pumps. Not much sex appeal or charisma in this getup, that was for sure. And absolutely no sense of humor. “I don’t know that I fully understand the show concept.”

“We want something edgy. All you have to do is just be your charmingly badass self.” Holly sounded so sure.

She thought about the middle finger donut she’d eaten for breakfast that morning, and again looked down at her soccer mom dress. “I don’t know about the charm, but I have plenty of bad attitude.” A terrible thought struck. “I wouldn’t have to go on Chopped as a judge, would I?”

Holly laughed. “Not unless you wanted to.”

“Good. I’m not eating things made out of Skittles and lamb hearts.” This was a dream that she hadn’t even known she’d wanted coming true. “Will I have complete creative control? I refuse to bake complicated, weird things that no one has ingredients for and wouldn’t want to eat anyway. And there will be no kale.” There were some things a woman couldn’t compromise on, and kale was one of them. Just because everyone in California thought it was manna from heaven didn’t mean that the rest of the world wanted a thousand kale recipes. “And rose water. Where the hell do you even buy rose water. If you can’t get the ingredients at your local IGA, I don’t make it on my show.”

Damn—her show? She was starting to sound like a diva.

The bitchy comments just kind of came out without her permission. Like being on the phone with someone who knew the real her—and liked her enough to offer Harmony her own show—had totally ruined the years and years she’d spent hiding her thoughts behind a mask.

Holly didn’t seem to mind, though. She was laughing like Harmony was the funniest thing since cat videos. “That’s the kind of comment we want on the show. We love that you don’t take any shit from anyone and do things your way. Also, we love that you run a small-town bakery—it’s one more dichotomy that the audience will just eat up.”

Harmony loved the word dichotomy. More people should use it in conversation.

“In fact, we want to film in San Angelo—partly in your bakery and partly in a studio we set up for you. To your specifications, of course—although we do have some design ideas already. We want it to look as badass as you are, so we’re thinking black and chrome with red accents. Everything will be sleek and sexy—including your appliances and bakeware. If we do this right—and we will—we’ll be able to launch a whole Badass Baker product line. Everything from baking pans to temporary tattoos.”

“Temporary tattoos?” She wasn’t sure why, but of everything Holly had just said, that was what Harmony’s mind latched onto. How could the secretary of the San Angelo garden club get on TV and hock temporary tattoos? Livinia would have apoplexy.

Damn, that was reason enough to do it.

“Absolutely.” Holly was very excited. “We’ll design them to mimic your own tattoos, so women can feel as badass as you are when they put them on. I’m telling you, Harmony, this show is going to be big. Huge, even. Between the money you make from it and what it does to drive traffic to the Wright Way … you’re going to be richer and more famous than you ever dreamed.”

But she’d never dreamed of being rich or famous. All she’d ever wanted was to be herself … and to have her family love her anyway. But she’d never had that option. Lyric had taken up all the zany in the family, just like she’d taken up all the chances to make mistakes.

With her tranquilizers and her Southern Comfort and her miles upon miles of ridiculous rules for women, Momma was already close enough to the edge without both of her daughters going hog wild. Harmony had stepped in sometime in junior high and towed the Livinia Angleton Wright line. It had kept Momma happy, which had kept Daddy happy, which had kept the heat off of Lyric, with her too big brain and her too sensitive soul.

“Harmony? Are you still there?”

“I am. I need to think about this …” Yes, she wanted it, but how was she supposed to be a badass baker in a town that thought of her as the good girl?

“What’s there to think about? We’ll pay you ten thousand dollars an episode, we’ll come to you so your life won’t even be disrupted during the first season, we’ll put your bakery on the map and turn you into a star. Just say yes. You know you want to.” Holly knew she was handing Harmony the brass ring.

Of course she wanted this. Who wouldn’t? She’d never thought about having her own show before, had only gone on Cupcake Cage Match because she’d wanted to blow off some steam and it had looked like a fun way to earn some traveling money. No more Talbots dresses and no more Junior League meetings—that was reason enough to say yes. But how would that work?

“I know that you’re only co-owner of the bakery, so we’ll have to get the other owner—your mother, isn’t it?—to sign the filming waiver.”

Harmony could practically hear all of the wind being sucked out of her sails. Momma would never sign off on Badass Baker. Maybe Prim and Proper Baker, but who wanted to watch that?

“Oh, and we’re thinking of trademarking your catchphrase, ‘the Wright Way,’ so we’ll need her to sign off on that too, since it’s the name of the bakery. But that won’t be a problem.” Holly sounded so sure. If she only knew.

It was going to be a huge problem. A gigantic problem. One of infinite proportions. There was about as much of a chance of her mother signing off on Badass Baker as her mother joining an outlaw biker gang. The mental image was pretty funny, but hell wouldn’t only have to freeze over, Jesus was going to have to change his forwarding address to 666 Satan Avenue for that to happen. Nope, Momma wouldn’t be on board with this.

Not in a million years.

Even if Harmony decided she wanted to blow her whole family dynamic straight to hell—which she wasn’t sure she did, no matter how she felt about Momma—there was no way in hell Livinia would ever agree to let a show like Badass Baker film in her bakery. And in her mother’s mind, the Wright Way was very much her bakery, no matter that Harmony was the one who showed up there every morning at 3:00 a.m. to do the actual baking—and created all of the recipes and did all of the work.

Just the idea of her youngest daughter showing up on a TV show in leather hot pants, all tatted up, and with attitude to spare, would be enough to send her mother spiraling straight to the bottom of her bottle of Southern Comfort. Not to mention, the world’s Xanax supply would take a huge hit. With Thanksgiving and Christmas just around the corner, Xanax was the one thing keeping in-laws around the country from serious bodily harm.

Holly had obviously taken her continued silence as encouragement, because she continued, “Why don’t you let us come down there? We’ll set up at the bakery, put together a mock show just so you can see what we’re thinking of doing, let you see how much the camera loves you. Maybe film part of the pilot. Then, if you don’t like what we’re doing or the direction we’re going, I promise I won’t push you. You can stay a secret in San Angelo and we will look elsewhere for our Badass Baker.”

“You’re willing to do that?” Harmony massaged the tension at the back of her neck. She wanted this, but convincing her mother was going to be difficult. “Doesn’t it cost a lot of money to come down here and film a show?”

Holly laughed. “Well, it isn’t cheap, that’s for sure. But that’s how much I believe in you, Harmony. I’ll set everything up, get my bosses to sign off on it, and see you in three weeks. All you have to do is say yes.”

“Yes.” It was out before she could stop it.

Butterflies started fluttering in her stomach … and she never got butterflies. She never got nervous. What the hell was there to get nervous about, after all, when you had nothing to lose—and nothing to look forward to beyond a two-week vacation every other year?

And that was the problem, wasn’t it? It was why she felt so testy all the time—and why her stomach was flipping all over the place now. Because for the first time in longer than she could remember, she actually wanted something for herself. And it was within her reach—all she had to do was reach out and grab it.

But could she do it? Could she really throw away a lifetime of pretense and show the world—and her mother—who she really was?

Damn right she could. The Badass Baker wouldn’t hesitate in a situation like this, and neither would Harmony. Livinia and her Xanax were just going to have to get on board. Because the Wright Way was about to become one Badass Bakery.