Act Like You Love Me (An Accidentally in Love Novel) (Entangled: Bliss) by Cindi Madsen

the perfect escape. So when Dad died a few months later, Sawyer jumped at the chance to get away from this place. He’d moved to New York and worked at odd jobs until he finally got accepted to the New York Film Academy. And he’d never looked back.
    He didn’t have the desire to get married and have kids, and he wanted it even less after his last relationship.
    But none of that would make Mom feel better—in fact, it’d crush her. So he set down his mug and tried to sound as though having a family might be in his future someday. “I’m only twenty-five, Mom. Don’t worry; I’ve got time for all that other stuff later.”
    “You never know how much time you have,” she said.
    There was nothing he could really say to that. But it did make him realize Mom was right about limited time. So screw playing it cool. Sawyer wanted to spend every second he could with the girl who’d made him fall asleep with a smile on his face.
    …
    On Sundays, the bait and tackle shop opened an hour early—at seven instead of eight—and closed at four instead of six. Since her family’s only religion was fishing, Brynn used to think that was why. But now she suspected Mom was just that serious about everyone sitting down for Sunday dinner. In the past hour alone, she had sent no less than ten texts, everything from asking about wine choices, to salad dressings, to what exact time Brynn was getting there, and did Paul know that dinner was starting at five sharp?
    “I’m sure you’ve texted him a hundred times to remind him,” Brynn muttered. She wasn’t sure what was going on with Mom, but she was taking stressing over dinner to a whole new level. Apparently she wanted to make a really good impression on Paul’s new girlfriend.
    I still can’t believe I haven’t gotten any of the info on this girl. She would’ve bugged Paul about her this morning, but he’d called in, asking if she and Travis could handle the store without him today.
    He hadn’t taken a day off in weeks, so of course she’d told him it was no problem. And it wasn’t. It’d been slow, and they’d done most of the closing jobs already.
    “Should I flip the sign to closed?” Travis asked.
    Brynn glanced at the clock. Four on the dot. “Yeah, and the place is clean already, so you can go ahead and leave. I’ll take care of everything else.”
    Travis grabbed the bag of lures he’d bought at a deep discount and his fishing pole from the back and headed out the back door, on his way to the lake, no doubt. Brynn changed the channel on the TV to a music station, ejected the cash register drawer, and got to work closing out for the day.
    Like the theater, the empty fishing store held a hint of magic. But instead of stories to be told about love and tragedy, there were possibilities of record-breaking fish and tales of the one that got away.
    A package with a Scum Frog popper caught her eye, and Brynn picked it up and smiled. Maybe there were possibilities of love stories behind some of the lures here.
    Only I’m just supposed to be practicing how to fall in love. A knot formed in her gut. She tossed the lure aside and tried to focus on numbers, but she ended up having to recount the credit card receipts twice.
    Finally, she got everything closed down and then headed to her car, thinking she’d get to Mom and Dad’s with five minutes to spare.
    Her phone chirped and she groaned. When she read the message, though, her stomach sank.
    You did get the dessert, right?
    She’d meant to pick up the cake from the bakery first thing that morning, but she’d gotten distracted thinking about the cute guy she went fishing with yesterday and automatically drove to the store.
    Mom’s going to kill me. Brynn glanced at her car and then down the street, where the bakery sat. It was at that three-block-away mark where it was almost silly to drive and almost silly not to. The street looked pretty crowded, though—apparently there were lots of people out and about this