The Ache: The Baxters, #1

By Luella Rose

A small town enemies to lovers romance with a hint of mystery

♥ Cozy up with this swoon-worthy, funny and heartwarming read about love, family and friendship. ♥

Ava Archer is down on her luck. Her boyfriend dumps her the day she's fired from her job. A week later, an infuriatingly gorgeous Baxter rams his car into hers, and she lands in a ditch. Confirmed bachelor Benedict Baxter will stop at nothing to get what he wants. When Ava launches an investigation into his questionable business practices, Benedict gets her sacked from her job at a top newspaper and blocklists her from working for other publications. Days after getting her dismissed, Benedict is forced to seek shelter with Ava in a remote and secluded cabin in the woods when a blizzard hits Conwenna Cove––the home of the large and close-knit Baxter family. With nowhere to go––they must become roommates. With no power in the cabin––they must use their body heat to stay warm.

As the tension mounts to a crackling point, will Benedict and Ava kill each other or fall in love?

♥ If you love quaint and small towns, close-knit families and communities, curious and quirky characters, enemies to lovers romance, forced proximity romance, older brother's best friend romance and snowed in romance, you won't want to miss this heartfelt and swoon-worthy romance. ♥

THE BAXTERS SERIES
Each book in this feel-good, cozy small-town series is a swoon-worthy standalone read.
Book 1: The Ache (Benedict & Ava)
Book 2: A Very Baxter Love (Benedict & Ava)
Book 3: The Break (Callum & Bella)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Luella Christie
• Release date: Mar 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215270554

Book preview

The Ache

(The Baxters, #1: Benedict & Ava)

By Luella Rose

Copyright 2023 Luella Christie

To YHWH, the guarantor of my expectations

(If you’re waiting on love, it has your number

and will call when you least expect it.)

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Excerpt from A VERY BAXTER LOVE (Benedict & Ava’s story, Book 2)

More Books by Luella Rose

About Luella Rose

Acknowledgements

Copyright

Chapter 1

TWELVE YEARS AGO

Benedict

B enedict! Ava waved at me frantically as I strode towards her foster mother’s cottage.

I waved back.

Before she spotted me, she stood on the porch, gnawing her bottom lip and fidgeting with the helm of her top. Squinting, her hand curved over her forehead, she gazed at the horizon as if looking for someone. When her eyes rested on me, a smile exploded on her face. It mesmerised me, perhaps because Ava hardly smiled. But when she did, it was a thousand suns at once brightening the dullest of winters.

Happy birthday! She squealed like fifteen years old often did as if whatever they were excited about was the event to trump all events. I’ve baked your favourite cake. She bounded down the small steps, grabbed my hand and dragged me to the house.

You did not have to bake a cake for me, Ava, I said as we stepped inside the tiny but comfortable home, smelling of fresh baking. Peggy, Ava’s foster mother, was a baker who tried and tested her recipes in her kitchen with her foster children, of which she had many.

It’s not only the cake, Gage said, coming into the living room holding two cupcakes. He stuffed both in his mouth. She also baked pancakes, cupcakes and biscuits from scratch. Crumps of cupcake fell from his overfilled mouth to the carpet.

Gage snatched a pancake from the table laid with flowers, a cake overdecorated with candles, various biscuits, cupcakes and soft drinks. She’s crazy. He tried to squeeze the whole pancake in his already jammed mouth.

You pig! Ava balled a fist and hit Gage on the shoulder. Get away from my table. She shoved him when he took a bunch of biscuits and gave it the same treatment as the cupcakes and pancake.

Oink! Oink! Oink! Gage made the sounds of a pig while flapping his arms like a chicken as he chased Ava around the living room. Her giggles filled the chilled summer afternoon as I watched them, laughter escaping me. Being with my best friend and his foster sister was my happy place.

Nice cake, Gage said later, licking his fingers after Ava made me wear a birthday hat and blew out all seventeen candles on the cake she baked as they sang Happy Birthday out of tune. I got my sheets yesterday. He seized his violin case and removed the music sheets of the Spring Sonata, unceremoniously rammed under his violin, and threw them on the piano.

At seventeen, although being in a school band was cool, the same could not be said about being in a violin and piano duet. Thus, most afternoons after school, Gage and I would huddle in his foster mother’s garage and practice until she returned from the bakery. Even though Peggy bought Gage the violin at a garage sale for his seventeenth birthday a few months earlier, she hated the sound of it.

Two Christmases prior, my grandparents gifted me the baby piano. Peggy allowed me to tuck the large instrument behind sacks of flour and sugar in her garage as I spent most of my time at her home with Gage and Ava.

Ava must have gone through a lot of trouble to do all that, I said, ridding the piano of its black keyboard cover.

I’m not surprised. Gage blew dust from his violin, and the sugar on his face sprinkled down to it. He grunted in irritation and wiped his instrument on his t-shirt. She has a massive crush on you.

I grinned, sitting on the piano stool, even though Ava was forbidden fruit as she was still fifteen and I had just turned seventeen. I am too old for her. I flipped my music sheets, feeling suddenly on top of the world.

That’s what Peggy keeps telling her, but she still talks about you all the time to everyone, especially me. She’s always asking me stupid questions about you. Gage stood next to me, placing his violin on his shoulder and leaning towards it as he stroked a bow.

What stupid questions? I asked as something akin to a thrill dripped into my heart. Ava was a book boffin, the type of girl who preferred books to boys and always had her head buried in one.

Oh, I don’t know. Gage sounded disinterested in the conversation. When is Benedict coming for practice? Is he still going out with Madison? Don’t you think his wavy hair looks better when the sun bleaches it? Those sorts of stupid questions. Are we going to practice or what? Gage tilted over the piano to peruse his music sheets.

A small smile played on my lips as I thought of Ava. She was everything I wanted in a girl, beautiful and exceedingly loyal. Perhaps a bit too loyal where I was concerned. No matter my actions, whether good or bad, Ava would stand up and defend me against all.

I do not do book boffins, I started. They have bad glasses and are seriously argumentative, borderline unattractive–

Ava, darling, Peggy called out from the other side of the garage’s door. Come and see what I got you from the shops.

No reply came, as Gage and I stopped talking. Furious footsteps retreated from outside the garage, and a minute later, a door banged somewhere in the cottage.

Ava doesn’t wear glasses, Gage resumed our conversation. And she’s not ugly.

She is very beautiful. I acquiesced. But she is your foster kid sister. Even if there were no age gap between us, I still would not date her as things might get weird between you and me if Ava and I broke up.

No, things wouldn’t get weird, Gage deadpanned every trace of a smile out of his eyes. I’d just kill you and bury you in the woods if you hurt her. Problem solved.

Ava

I tumbled to my bed and burst into tears after hearing what Benedict said about me. He called me an unattractive, argumentative book boffin. The tears morphed into sobs as his words shredded my heart into tiny pieces. I was in love with a boy who thought I was an unattractive, ugly book boffin.

Why did I have to have this stupid crush on the most handsome boy at school? Benedict was at the top of every girl’s wish list in Conwenna High with his navy blue eyes and wavy light-brown hair that turned blond in summer. So, how stupid was I to think he could ever like someone like me? Especially since I knew he wouldn't have looked at me twice if he weren’t Gage’s best friend. How could I let myself love him so much?

As I lay on my bed face down, tears pouring out of me, I thought my heart would stop from the pain crushing it. The sting was intense, so raw, I didn’t think I’d ever experience such hurt in my life again.

It was all my fault for always doing stuff for Benedict. When I returned from school most afternoons, I’d wash his keyboard’s covers or bake for him. I even woke up at five a.m. today to bake his birthday cake and the other stuff. And it all cost me so much, four months of babysitting money. Sixty pounds wasted over someone who thought I was an ugly book boffin! Even worse, I did the one thing I vowed I’d never do when I was nine—get attached.

I was born in The Cotswolds. Maybe my birth mother was from there. Maybe she was passing through while heavily pregnant. I never found out. I didn’t understand anything as I got reshuffled from foster home to foster home. People didn’t make sense to me. They were like my toys, here today, gone tomorrow when I moved to yet another house on short notice.

That was until I was transferred to Leila Ivy Lee’s foster home. She was nine like me and looked like me, but unlike me, she always smiled. I didn’t understand how Leila could smile when everything could be taken away from her instantly.

But Leila always smiled. She always sat next to me. She always talked to me even when I didn’t answer her questions. She always shared her food, clothes and toys with me. As she was the only person who had constantly been kind to me over time, I got attached to her. Leila became my best friend. We did everything together, even sleeping in the same bed. Wherever she went, there was I.

Barely five weeks after moving into Leila’s foster home, she was displaced into another house without warning, gone from me, and I never saw her again. Since Leila, I never got attached, not even with Peggy and Gage. I was one foot in, one foot out, continually hedging my bets where my heart was concerned.

But I got attached to Benedict. I got attached to the point that I handed him my heart, and he carelessly trampled over it. He thought I was an unattractive, ugly book boffin.

Soon after, while Benedict and Gage were practising in the garage, Peggy came to my room with shopping bags to show me what she got me. She stayed with me for a long time, comforting me as I snuggled up in her arms and cried until no more tears were left. Then, she persuaded me to try the new clothes she had bought.

That’d make you feel so much better, darling, she said.

I put on the first dress and headed to the living room to see how it fitted me in the free-standing mirror in the alcove by the entrance. As I listlessly stared at myself, the food I’d baked for Benedict’s birthday glared at me in the background. Anger descended on me. I bundled the cake, cupcakes, biscuits, pancakes and drinks in the floral tablecloth, marched out of the cottage and chucked it in the bin next to the garage. Benedict and Gage paused their playing to look at me with puzzlement in their eyes.

Why are you binning the tablecloth? Gage asked as he rushed out of the garage with his violin and bow to check the bin.

I glowered at Benedict without replying to Gage as I stomped back inside the cottage.

Huh? Gage placed a hand on his head as he peered inside the bin, appalled. She threw all the cakes she baked in the bin, he said to Benedict, who had not budged from the piano stool. What am I going to eat now? You’re crazy, Ava! He yelped in the direction of the cottage. Too crazy! He hurled his bow at the cottage door.

A week later, after successfully avoiding Benedict, I bumped into him fighting with Madison, his pneumatic girlfriend, at school. He had his books gripped in one hand as he tried to stop her from hitting him with his other hand. They stood behind the canteen, his back to the wall, next to the fire alarm, while she faced him.

Why aren’t you answering my messages? Madison said in her whining nasal voice as she jabbed a manicured finger into Benedict’s chest.

Because we are over, Benedict said. I have already told you that.

We can’t be over when I don’t get it! Madison pushed Benedict as her hair, always perfect with no bare split ends, flew about her. She was such a witch. Benedict staggered but didn’t fall. We’ve been together for five months now. You can’t break up with me.

We are done, Madison, Benedict repeated and turned to the side to leave when she shoved him so hard he hit the fire alarm, broke the glass, and the siren went off.

We can’t be done when I still like you! Madison shouted before tramping off.

As students and teachers exited the buildings, Benedict saw me.

Ringing the fire alarm without there being a fire was a big deal that could get a student expelled, as the fire brigade had to do a full inspection of the whole school before letting everyone back in.

The next day, the principal pulled me into her office about the incident. CCTV footage showed that I was the only witness during the fight between Benedict and Madison. The cameras where Benedict and Madison directly stood were being repaired. Therefore, the principal couldn’t get any footage from them. I told the principal what I saw when she asked me what had happened. Benedict and Madison were fighting, and Madison shoved Benedict against the wall. He hit the fire alarm inadvertently, broke it, and the siren went off.

Within three days, things went from bad to worse.

You lied about me! Benedict accused, marching into the kitchen as I baked cupcakes for Gage to shut him up as he kept moaning about the ones I tossed in the bin.

What’s going on? I put the spatula in the batter to squint at him.

You told the principal I was the one who pushed the alarm, Benedict thundered.

No, I didn’t–

Then why did I get expelled and not Madison?

The principal expelled you?

Is this not your payback?

For what? I was horrified that he could think I was capable of such betrayal. No! I swear I told the principal exactly what happened. I told her that Madison was the one who pushed you against the fire alarm.

I do not believe a word you say, Ava. Benedict advanced towards me, halting mere inches from my body. His warmth tugged me closer, and I drew nearer without realising it. You are vindictive and spiteful, he bit out. I know you heard my conversation with Gage on my birthday and threw away the cakes you baked for me because of it. This is your payback.

No– I started, but he cut me off.

After what you have done, I never want to see you again. He flung in my face. You are dead to me, Ava. He walked out, slamming the door behind him.

Benedict never came back to Peggy’s cottage. Then, a few months later, Gage told me he’d move out of Conwenna Cove for good. Benedict was true to his word. I never saw him again. I cried all summer, wishing to prove to him I had never lied about him.

Chapter 2

PRESENT TIME

Benedict

The last embers of winter weave around Conwenna Cove when I alight outside Bliss Lodge, my cabin in the woods. The shining sun bellies nothing of the biting cold that seizes my bare hands as I leave the car and march towards the cabin. Bliss Lodge was built for the warmer months. As a result, I hardly use it except in extreme circumstances. And it would not be amiss to say I am facing the most challenging situation.

My reputation hangs on the thin line. Everything I have worked hard to bury as deep as I could in Bliss Lodge’s basement is about to be uncovered. I slam the door with unnecessary force as I step inside. The grimness on Adam’s and Denise’s faces indicate that we never prepared for what might happen if a journalist with an axe to grind decided to delve deeper into our dealings.

What do we know? I growl, gazing at Denise Denham, Baxter Inc’s chief operating officer and my righthand woman.

Ava Archer has spent the last seven months researching Baxter Inc. My sources tell me that her editor has approved her request to write a report against the company, Denise says.

On what grounds? I frown, pocketing my hands to stop them from hitting the table.

Public interest, Denise answers. The Herald is claiming corporate wrongdoing from Baxter Inc on a large scale regarding our contracts with the farmers. If she keeps digging into the farmers, she’ll unearth Operation Leonora. We need to shut down Bliss Lodge for now.

It stays open. My voice brooks no argument.

I agree with Denise, Adam says, his blanched face perhaps mirroring mine. Ava is an aggressive investigative journalist. If she gets a whiff of Operation Leonora, she won’t back off until she finds out why Operation Leonora’s women end up in your basement. He points his hand to the floor. If that ever happens, we’re screwed. Adam’s hand encompasses Denise and me. I’ve never told anyone, even Zara, about the women. This can destroy my marriage.

Adam Ackroyd, one of Baxter Inc’s lawyers, is dubbed The Rottweiler with a Briefcase. Hence, his despondent expression does not bode well with the storm brewing in my mind.

Damn it! I ram a hand over my hair. I loathe sudden occurrences, for I did not see Ava coming as we have not spoken in twelve years. This unexpected blow can bring Baxter Inc to its knees.

If you don’t want to shut down Bliss Lodge, can we at least move Sophia to another location? Adam asks as Denise nods in agreement.

I need Sophia hidden, concealed in that basement.

That will not work. I release as my jaw throbs. Moving Sophia to another location right now will risk everything blowing to the surface.

Everything is already blowing to the surface, Denise says, a tinge of worry in her voice and eyes. My sources tell me Ava’s been asking about the houses we reserve for you in our developments.

It is nothing new. Other journalists have asked the same questions whenever we finish a project. Let Ava assume whatever she wants. I march to the open-plan kitchen, pull a bottle of whisky from a cupboard, grab a glass, pour a shot, and down it in one go.

Had I been told twelve years ago that Ava would become the thorn in my side, I would have sworn to all the names of God available that it was impossible. Ava followed me around like a puppy whenever I went to her foster home for music practice with Gage. As my gaze roams over the woods enclosing the cabin, I cannot consider that Ava is all guns blazing to destroy my reputation because of a childhood slight. She cannot be that vindictive, surely?

Mr Baxter, I think you should take Ava seriously, Denise’s words filter through the fog of my memories. She has Farmer Ellingham in her pocket. Ava might persuade him not to sell his farm to Baxter Inc if she sees his contract. From what I’ve heard about her, she won’t stop until she unearths the full scale of Operation Leonora and exposes it to the public.

A splash of unease descends over me for the first time since I stepped into Bliss Lodge.

Can she? I ask, my temples pulsing as rage fights to bubble to the surface.

She’s already unearthed our sealed contracts with five farmers, not including the one with Farmer Ellingham. I’m your lawyer, so I know how sealed those contracts are. Adam rubs his nose. I’d say it’s just a matter of weeks before she unearths Operation Leonora.

Damn it! I swipe the bottle of whisky and the tumbler from the table, and they crash on the floorboards in a fracas. Adam and Denise, used to my bouts of anger, don’t jump in fright or react in any way to my temper. Operation Leonora must never become known, and if that means crushing Ava to keep it buried, then that is what I will do.

Sophia must be gridlocked.

I stride to the window, opening to the woods, and glare at the clear day while berating myself for not anticipating this when Ava started poking around. She seems spiteful and will stop at nothing to exact revenge, even from a twelve-year-old bruised pride. Ava must be halted, I say, my back to Adam and Denise. I want her fired from her job and blocked from working for other publications.

That might be a problem, Denise says.

How so? I pivot from the window, arms crossed over my chest, to face her.

Some editors still have principles and can’t be bought, she says.

That is until they get a sum of money that will invalidate their principles. Find her editor’s weakness and throw cash at it. Sophia must never come to light.

I believe we should have other options. Adam pockets his hands. As Denise said, money does not mean anything to editors that hunt for the truth.

I frown at Adam’s flawed reasoning. Money always means something to people. Always. Everyone has a price if it is right and can justify their motives for destroying their principles.

I cannot afford any stalling where Ava is concerned. If Operation Leonora gets out, all our developments will stall, and Baxter Inc will suffer a massive blow on the stock market.

It took me less than a month to get members of parish councils around Cornwall to agree to my sustainable homes’ developments, which are all smokescreens for Operation Leonora. I will not allow Ava to tumble them like a house of cards. Besides, it