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  Bun in Her Oven

  Sunrise Valley Book 3

  Simone Belarose

  Copyright © 2019 by Simone Belarose

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  To those that go the extra mile for love and still find the strength to smile.

  Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.

  Bertrand Russel, The Conquest of Happiness

  Other Books Written by Simone Belarose

  Sunrise Valley Series

  Kneading You: A Small Town Love Story (Book 1)

  Baking Up Love: A Small Town Love Story (Book 2)

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  Contents

  About This Book

  1. Claire

  2. Thomas

  3. Claire

  4. Thomas

  5. Claire

  6. Thomas

  7. Claire

  8. Thomas

  9. Claire

  10. Thomas

  11. Claire

  12. Thomas

  13. Claire

  14. Thomas

  15. Thomas

  16. Claire

  17. Thomas

  18. Claire

  19. Thomas

  20. Claire

  21. Thomas

  22. Claire

  23. Thomas

  24. Thomas

  25. Gavin

  26. Thomas

  27. Claire

  28. Sam

  29. Thomas

  30. Claire

  31. Thomas

  Epilogue

  More Sunrise Valley

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Other Books Written by Simone Belarose

  Come Say Hi!

  About This Book

  Claire and Thomas are back for one last adventure.

  With a wedding on the horizon and their bakery doing better than ever, Claire’s happily ever after is so close she can taste it like one of Thomas’ pumpkin spice scones.

  But before Claire can say, “I do,” she has to compete with the rising sentiment of a town intent on pushing out the tourism boom that their business relies on.

  All Thomas Weller wanted was to be a baker. When the town comes between him and Claire’s happy ending, he becomes anything he has to be to keep their dream alive. A businessman, politician, even a life-saving hero.

  A Halloween Romance with no cheating. And an adorably sweet HEA that concludes Claire and Thomas’ three-book story:

  Kneading You

  Baking Up Love

  Bun in Her Oven

  1

  Claire

  “This is ridiculous, Thomas.” I knocked on the door, frustrated. “Come on out so I can see!”

  “Nope,” came the reply from the locked guest bedroom - turned business office. “I was serious. I’m not letting you see my costume until the party, you’ve waited the last week. Why can’t you wait a few hours?”

  “Because I wanna see! You’ve been so secretive about it all this week.” No response. “Just a peek?” A little pleading leaked into my voice. “Come on, what if I don’t even recognize you at the party and I can’t find you and I get all panicky?”

  Not likely to happen. Still, maybe Thomas didn’t know that.

  “Nice try, Claire. Since when do you get panicky about anything?”

  The door wouldn’t budge against my constant doorknob jiggling. “How’re you getting to the party, huh? You gonna walk in that big heavy getup?”

  “Now you’re just stabbing in the dark.” Thomas chuckled and I could hear him shuffling around behind the door. “Sam’s going to give me a ride.”

  I fought down the surge of jealousy. I had nothing to worry about from Sam, Thomas’ best friend (and somehow she became mine in just a couple weeks) but I still wanted to see his costume first.

  Taking two steps back I leaned against the opposite wall in our apartment’s hallway staring holes into the door. “At least give me a hint, Thomas!”

  It wasn’t that I wanted to know because I was worried or nosy, exactly. Thomas had made such a big deal about the whole affair that it instantly piqued my curiosity.

  That was only inflamed by his stubborn refusal to tell me what his costume would be. Only that I would love it. I’d love anything he dressed up as because he’d be hot as hell.

  Thomas could dress up like a sandwich and it’d give me dirty thoughts.

  Was that it? Did his costume actually suck and he was scrambling last minute to find something?

  Doubtful. Halloween always was Thomas’ favorite holiday. There was something about it that always put him in a good mood. As soon as October rolled around he’d be all smiles, counting down the days to Halloween.

  With everything that had been going on recently, I was worried that part of him was gone.

  When he announced last week that he was not only going to dress up for Halloween but that we were cordially invited to the Sunrise Valley Halloween Bash, I saw a spark of that boyhood joy from so long ago.

  To be honest, I didn’t even know Sunrise Valley had a Halloween party. Apparently, it’s one of the few community events the town still did. It was not something us kids were allowed to attend, but I could not deny the thrill of excitement that ran through me at the prospect of attending.

  The Town Hall was always one of the more impressive structures of Sunrise Valley. There was a decidedly European slant to the architecture that was different from the typical colonial-inspired designs with their tall columns and large front steps.

  It was one of the few places in Sunrise Valley I couldn’t ever remember going into.

  As kids, we would ride our bikes by there on Halloween but we never went inside. While the adults were busy partying inside - something clearly visible by the large arched windows that marched down the two-story building - the teenagers had the run of the town.

  That was always one of the best parts of Halloween. As we grew up and our parents deemed us mature enough (even though we totally weren’t) to take care of ourselves while they went off and partied, we snuck out and had a party of our own.

  Thomas used to let me sit on the handlebars of his bike while he rode out to the woods for a spooky Halloween bonfire with a bunch of other kids. We all felt like badasses.

  But now we were going to the grown-up party. Costumes, dancing, games, and legal alcohol. Not that I ever drank back then. I was way too much of a stickler for the rules.

  Maybe if I had, Thomas and I would’ve gotten together sooner. Something would have happened. That’s for sure.

  “You still want a hint?” asked Thomas from beyond the door, interrupting my stroll down memory lane.

  “I’m still standing here, aren’t I?” I said with a little more heat than I intended.

  Really, I wasn’t mad at him. But this was the first thing in the history of forever that he didn’t share with me. It drove me insane.

  “Greek is the theme,” he said.

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Thomas?”

  “Yeah, Claire?”

  “You suck.”

  “Duly noted.”

  I spun on my heels and went to our bedroom. While I hadn’t kept my costume from him
necessarily, he hadn’t bothered to ask. No doubt he knew I would turn the game on him and wanted to avoid it.

  Can’t say I wasn’t looking forward to giving him a little payback.

  Greek, that’s such a broad subject. The obvious would be that he’s going as some sort of mythological hero. And he’s always loved a good pun, which leaves only one possible choice.

  He was going as Pan. Which meant bread in Spanish and was also a Greek mythological figure. A Satyr if I was remembering correctly.

  On the off chance that I could find a costume that matched his, I had ordered half a dozen different outfits online. Aside from the common ones like slutty nurse, slutty zombie, slutty maid, I picked some more classical choices like witch, goddess, princess, and vampire queen.

  That last one skirted the slutty line a little. It was an Elvira costume and while I didn’t have the massive breasts to pull off her look, I wasn’t too far off in the hips and ass department.

  And I knew for a fact that Thomas was definitely a fan of my ass.

  Still, if he was going to go as something Greek, that meant the goddess costume would definitely work.

  I shut the door to the bedroom and slipped the long box out from under the bed. A few minutes later I had the flowing white gown with gold trim laid out on the bed.

  The costume looked suspiciously like a bridal gown in some ways. It was gorgeous. I had bought it off a high-end costume boutique. This was my opportunity to stand out. There was no way I was going to do it half-assed with some off-the-rack thing from Amazon.

  With the thought of bridal gowns came the warm fuzzy memory of Thomas proposing to me at the picnic table my parents had carved their names into so long ago. We joined our names to theirs, and many others besides on that table afterward.

  I blushed at the memory of how much more we added.

  It took me a solid five minutes to reign my thoughts back under control. Away from the memories of Thomas’ shirtless body atop of mine. His heat and chiseled muscles pressing into me. The beautifully set picnic table swept aside to make room for us atop.

  With a few swipes on my phone, I was able to pull up an image of Aphrodite and with a couple of modifications I thought I could pull it off. The hair would be the hardest, but I could ask Jemma for some help with that.

  There were still a few hours until the party, which gave me plenty of time.

  Costume folded back up and put into a separate box, I left the room and was about to knock on the office door when it pulled open.

  Thomas stood there in his fitted gray-blue Henley and jeans. He gave me his best lopsided grin. He wasn’t even shirtless and the thoughts were emptied from my head.

  I had it bad for him. And he knew it.

  Once upon a time, it would have terrified me. Now, I was ecstatic.

  There was nobody who deserved my entire heart more than Thomas Weller. He was the man that would be my husband. A thought that still made me delirious with giddiness.

  Thomas swept me up in his powerful arms and I looped my arms over his neck to bring me closer. This was familiar. Comfortable. The ease by which he carried me never ceased to impress me.

  It also sparked a tiny flame of desire deep in my belly that I did my best to ignore for now.

  There’d be time after the party.

  “I’m going to go over to Jemma and Sam’s before the party to get some help with my hair and outfit,” I announced once he set me down onto the couch.

  “Finally figured out which costume you’re going to wear?” Thomas continued on into the kitchen, rooting around in the fridge for something.

  “You looked!”

  “No,” he said with a chuckle, carrying two gourmet candied apples he had started selling at A Game of Scones recently. We couldn’t keep them in stock.

  Ever since Dad’s Caprice was finally out of the shop a bit over a week ago, Thomas had been using it almost daily to drive out to Rick and Jill’s orchard to pick up as many bushels of apples as the spacious car would allow.

  It didn’t have the size of the Suburban I once had, but I appreciated the sensible hybrid I drove now. In the weeks since returning the Suburban and leasing my hybrid, I haven’t had to fill up the tank once.

  I was in love with the little thing.

  “Then what?” I asked, taking a caramel drizzled apple from him. It was dusted with nuts, crumbly cookie bits, and decorative swirls of chocolate. They were heavenly.

  “I know you,” he said with that same hooked grin. His coffee-dark eyes twinkling mischief at me. Thomas took a bite out of his apple, prompting me to do the same. So good. “You probably ordered a dozen different outfits. Each a different theme so that you could pick the one you thought would be best for the occasion.”

  I snorted at him and tilted my chin up victoriously. The hungry look in his soulful eyes instantly made me color. As much as I loved his muscles and the new physique of his, it would always be his eyes that I adored most. They were my weakness.

  After swallowing once or twice, I managed to say, “For your information, I only ordered half a dozen outfits.” It sounded a lot better in my head.

  Thomas chuckled. A rich throaty sound that made my insides quiver like jelly. He plopped down right next to me and turned on the TV.

  His collection of B horror movies was massive. Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney, they were all his favorites. We had begun watching them almost nightly now.

  More often than not we’d fall asleep watching them after a long day of work, curled up on the couch under my favorite blanket.

  I added my own favorite Abbot & Costello spooky movies to that list. Technically they still counted, and I loved them. Dad had been a big fan of theirs and had all the VHS growing up. Later on, I got him the DVDs and the digitally remastered copies as well.

  Thomas draped a thick arm over my shoulders and pulled me close. We ate our candied apples and watched The Raven for a little while until I had to go get ready at Jemma’s.

  One of the benefits of living next door to my sister and best friend was that we were always dropping by. I didn’t need to call ahead. There was no organizing schedules like with the people I knew in New York. Everything was so much nicer in Sunrise Valley and I wondered why I ever left.

  Oh right. Well aside from that.

  It also meant that family nights were a cinch to plan around. If they were late I could pop over across the hall and see what was taking so long.

  Less than a minute after I kissed Thomas goodbye and gathered up my boxed outfit, I was knocking on Jemma’s door.

  Sam answered the door, her soft blue eyes alight with mischief. She was already dressed. Her hair was dyed a garish orange and stood teased out into two large puffs of curled hair on the back of her head.

  She cackled delightfully at my expression. At first, she startled me. I hadn’t counted on Sam being a big Halloween person.

  The way she constantly derided what she called ‘basic pumpkin bitches’ - of which I was suspiciously exempt, despite firmly belonging to the cliché - made me think she hated all things fall. Halloween being no exception.

  “What’re you supposed to be?” I asked, stepping inside.

  “Winnie Sanderson!”

  The name was familiar but only just. My look of confusion made her slam the door behind me and push me into the living room.

  “You know, from Hocus Pocus! She’s the main villain. I loved that movie growing up, and I figured it’d be great if all of us girls dressed up as the three Sanderson sisters.” Sam hurried past me and ushered me into the dining room where Jemma, in similar crushed velvet robes and a blonde wig, sat waiting for me.

  Their apartment was like a mirror of ours. Instead of the kitchen and dining room being on the left after the foyer, it was on the right. It threw me off more than it should have.

  “That was, until you and Thomas started doing your own costume thing. Then we thought maybe it wouldn’t be a great idea to break up the love
birds and their first Halloween together,” continued Sam, pushing me down into a chair. “So, Jo has come to the rescue as the third Sanderson sister. She’ll be here in a few.”

  With a pat on my shoulder, Sam vanished into the kitchen leaving me alone with Jemma. The kitchen table here was smaller since Dad had lived alone in this apartment and neither Jemma nor Sam had any reason for a large table like Thomas’.

  “Are you doing okay?” Jemma asked. I tried not to burst out laughing. She had a fake nose on to make it larger than usual and so much eye shadow she looked a bit like a raccoon. The skinny bodice beneath the robes fit her well though.

  “Yeah, of course!” I dropped the box onto the table. “Everything’s great. I mean aside from the whole costume secrecy thing but that’s kinda cute too. Just don’t tell Thomas.”

  Jemma smirked and popped open the box. Her long fake fingernails tapping on the tabletop while she looked over the contents. “I think it’s adorable. You should see how excited he is about this Halloween bash thing. Sam says he won’t shut up about it at work.”

  “Yeah, the dude is going fucking bonkers over this,” said Sam, setting down a mug of hot cocoa in front of me. Another two clutched in her left hand. “This is a really big deal to him, Claire. Don’t fuck this up.”

  I rolled my eyes at them. It was sweet that Sam was so protective of Thomas. Sometimes we purposely make it seem like we are about to fight and watch Sam’s brain short circuit as she tries to determine which of us she should give a tongue lashing to and which she should defend.