When Sera drank, she just felt… normal.

Until she’d needed to drink to feel normal.

She’d started getting scared about a year ago. The pressure of working under Blake’s exacting standards and famously hot temper had had her reaching for the bottle more often than ever. Part of her had known their relationship was a disaster, but she’d been too caught up in the whirl to really take a long look at her life. It was easier to drink away her shame and hurt than to stand up for herself and walk away—from her high-flying career and her high-handed boyfriend.

After a few particularly hazy, horrible nights, she’d pulled back on the reins, stopped hanging out after hours with the crew. She’d gone as much as a couple months at a time without a drink, ignoring how the sight of it in her restaurant kitchen made her sweat; how the champagne flutes at the parties they catered seemed to be filled with cool, crisp elixir, begging her for a taste. How her mouth would go dry when she’d pour Kahlua over the thirsty ladyfingers in a dish of tiramisu, and how the mere sight of her boyfriend’s signature sneer made visions of vodka dance before her eyes.

She’d been trying, damn it. But then came Blake’s betrayal. And it was exactly the excuse she’d needed to let go and fuck up royally.

Sera laid her burning cheek against the cold porcelain of the tub, awash with shame.

“So is it Awful Austin?” Pauline prompted.

“Well… it is kind of about Blake, but…” Sera didn’t know quite how to describe the nuclear meltdown that had just incinerated her life.

Pauline harrumphed. “Spill it, kid.”

Where do I start? The booze was way out of control. Her career had just died a violent death. And she was so alone. Sera opened her mouth to try to explain, to justify, to deflect. What came out instead was a simple admission, born of grace.

“I think… I think I need help.”

Pauline didn't chide her, question her, or tell her she was being dramatic. Instead, she said the six simple words Serafina most needed to hear.

“Help’s coming, baby. Just hang on.”

Chapter Three

Santa Fe, New Mexico


Right about now

Dry and crumbly.”

Serafina delivered the verdict dolefully into the cell phone cradled between her shoulder and cheek as she let the rest of the batch of red velvet cupcakes tumble like little boulders from the pan into the waiting trash bin in her aunt’s capacious kitchen. She’d frosted only one; now she had enough cream cheese icing left over to… well, try again, she supposed. Once she figured out exactly what had made one of her most tried-and-true recipes fall flat.

“Aw, hon.” Margaret’s sympathy came through two thousand miles a little tinny, but just as warm and honest as ever. “I’m sure they’re not all that bad. I mean, c’mon: When was the last time you made a dessert that wasn’t mind-bogglingly delicious?”

In Sera’s opinion, there was delicious, and there was delicious. She’d been born with olfactory bulbs that could sniff out the faintest subtleties of anything edible. (In her wine-drinking days, she’d amused people at parties by allowing herself to be blindfolded, then identifying—by smell alone—the origin of any vintage placed before her. That was, until she’d passed out after guzzling too many of her test subjects.) And if anything, her taste buds were even more discerning. When it came to chocolate, for instance, she could instantly parse the difference between a single-source Peruvian and an Ecuadorian free-trade blend, then tell you the precise percentage of cocoa in each. Texture and flavor captivated her the way a dicey derivatives market enthralls an investment banker, and she’d known from early childhood that she was destined to work with food.

Determined not to rely solely on her innate gifts, Sera had trailed some of the best pastry chefs in New York while still in cooking school, even taking a semester in France to apprentice herself under one of the most legendary chefs in Paris. She’d worked hard to hone her baking skills, studying the alchemy that turned simple yeast, flour, salt, and water into heavenly bread. She could have written a dissertation on the effects of gluten on those lovely bubbles that characterized the crumb of her tender, crusty loaves. But it was in her confectionery creations that Sera’s perfectionism truly came to the fore. She’d spent hour upon hour training herself to pipe precise lines with a pastry bag, until she could have written a perfect “Happy Birthday” on any cake with her arms behind her back. In fact, Sera was so adept at shaping lifelike sugar sculptures that the couples who’d ordered her wedding cakes had often refused to believe they could actually eat the flowers that adorned them.

Of course, all that was before booze and Blake Austin had done a double whammy on her. But she’d promised herself she wouldn't dwell on the bad old days. Instead, she focused on her sponsor's encouragement.

“Thanks, Maggie, but they really are pretty inedible. Don’t worry, I’m not getting down on myself.” Sera wouldn’t dare, after all Maggie’s hard work helping build up her self-esteem this past year. “It’s not that I’ve lost my touch, it’s just the altitude.” She sighed, tucking a lock of chin-length black hair behind her ear. “That and the dry air. They screw up the rise and mess with the proportions of wet and dry ingredients. Not to mention, play absolute hell with my head.” Sera rubbed her temples. The headache had started soon after she’d touched down at the Albuquerque airport, and had only worsened as she and Pauline made their way north to her aunt's home in the mountains of northern New Mexico. Seven thousand feet above sea level was no joke.

“I've heard altitude headaches usually go away within a week, especially if you keep hydrated,” Margaret offered kindly. “And hey, they’re nothing compared with your average hangover, so you’re still ahead of the game, right?” She paused, then said delicately, “I know you always bake when you’re flustered, or when you’re trying to feel more at home. I assume that’s what tonight’s test cupcakes were about. So tell me: How are things out there, really?”

Serafina had to smile, both because Maggie had pegged her nervous baking habit so accurately, and because her introduction to “The City Different” had been a source of unexpected delight.

Heading north from the Albuquerque Sunport that afternoon, she and Pauline had driven Pauline’s old Subaru shitheap along the sixty-mile stretch of Highway I-25 that led from the state’s biggest city to its most enchanting.

Santa Fe.

Before they were halfway there, she’d been so dumbstruck she’d almost asked her aunt to pull over just so she could gape. The landscape was like nothing she’d ever experienced. As the miles slipped by, her eyes had grown wider and her heart had lifted with the sort of elation she’d once only associated with a night out drinking. She’d even checked the Subaru’s dashboard, feeling as if she were being swept along on the strains of one of her favorite songs, but the car stereo was silent. Even her normally voluble aunt had grown quiet, though Sera suspected her silence had more to do with her recent loss than appreciating scenery she must have been intimately familiar with after years in the area. But for Sera… it was all so magically new.

There, big as life, and big with life, loomed the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, their rounded, wrinkled peaks stained shades of rich, variegated brown by layer upon layer of dense mineral deposits, dotted all over with neat puffs of fragrant green sagebrush. Almost like sprinkles, Serafina had thought, smiling to herself. There arched the achingly blue sky and the endless horizon. Discrete, meringue-like swirls of cloud only served to accent the vast cerulean dome—a ludicrous wealth of sky for a woman from a city whose idea of a decent view was a gap between brick walls. In her mind, Sera was already whipping up batches of sky blue buttercream, picturing herself crafting a confection that captured all the airiness, the lightness and intensity of what she was witnessing. Perhaps a lemon curd or passion fruit layer at the center, with just a hint of crisp wafer for balance… or maybe something with cinnamon, an earthier note…

She hadn’t felt this inspired in ages.

Serafina had laughed aloud in tickled disbelief as swaths of flat, undeveloped high desert whizzed past the windshield, the wind restlessly sifting what grass and scrub managed to cling to the rocky terrain. Then came a momentary disappointment—a long, commercial strip of big-box stores and auto dealerships, motels and cheap eateries as they approached the outskirts of town. But as the little car eased through the congested artery that was Cerrillos Road and into historic Santa Fe proper, she’d been enchanted all over again by the low-slung, sun-baked adobe shops and residences with their rough-hewn, weathered wooden beams and the gnarled yet noble piñon trees they nestled among. Other trees Pauline identified for her as larch, willow, and cottonwood lined the riverbanks of the narrow Santa Fe River, while juniper and ponderosa pine proliferated in the drier side streets Sera glimpsed along the way. And as they neared the end of the journey, wildflowers and hardy grasses were overshadowed at last by the aspens blazing bold yellow with autumn color on the mountains above winding Artist Road, where her aunt’s home stood.

“Santa Fe is every bit as beautiful as Aunt Pauline always said,” Serafina told Margaret, a wistful smile in her voice. “I just wish I’d taken her up on her offer to come out here and visit sooner, while I still had a chance to meet Hortencia. Now, instead of the three of us eating green chile cheeseburgers and shopping for souvenirs like we always talked about, we’ll probably be busy planning Hortencia’s memorial service and tying up her affairs. I hate seeing my aunt this way—it’s like she can’t even focus on next steps, she’s so devastated. One minute she’s her old self, brash and ballsy as ever, the next she’s gone all subdued. She’s having a hard time even speaking of her life partner in the past tense, let alone wrapping up her estate. Whenever I bring up anything related to the issue, she just goes silent or changes the subject. Poor dear.”