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Nearly three hours later the sun had risen, and the store was set to open in minutes.

We’d baked extra yesterday, knowing Saturday would be our last sales day for a couple of weeks.

We’d carefully carried all the baked goods upstairs and kept them in covered bins for freshness.

We’d intentionally finished the breads and dozens of cookies this morning, so the bakery smelled sweet and inviting.

Jean Paul finished removing his bricks and had spent the next hours mixing mortar and replacing bricks.

While visions of surprise inspections had plagued me all morning, he’d not been the least bit worried.

And as it turned out, I’d worried over nothing.

By six, Jean Paul had completed the job.

His smile had been smug and self-assured, and I’d wondered what other rules would get bent or broken over the next week and a half.

My stomach had settled by the time we opened, and I was really feeling sure I had gotten a hold of a bug. Give it a day or two and I’d be my old self. The pregnancy test could be chalked up to a moment of hysteria.

As Rachel arranged chocolate chip cookies on a tray, I hefted a tray of pies destined for the front display case. We were putting out six today, though we normally did ten.

“Is Margaret here yet?” I asked. Our third sister, Margaret, was the oldest. She worked part time at the bakery.

On cue, I heard the front doorbells jangle and the door close. I glanced at the clock. Ten minutes to seven. Early. She was never early. “Margaret?”

“That would be me,” she called back.

Rachel met my surprised gaze. “Sounded like her.”

“How can it be her? She’s early.”

Rachel shook her head. “You were smiling this morning, and she’s early. This is all so wrong.”

I pushed through the double saloon doors separating the work area from the sales area and found Margaret putting her purse away.

“Everything all right?” I asked, raising the back of the display case and sliding the pies inside.

Margaret, like Rachel, had blond hair, though hers was curly and wild and had to be tamed daily with a rubber band and bobby pins. “Life is great!”

I paused and glanced up at Margaret. Life was never good with my oldest sister. The glass always tipped at the half-empty mark.

Gold ringlets framed her round face. Freckles peppered skin looking flushed with excitement. She wore a loose pale-blue peasant top and a full black skirt skimming her calves. Birkenstocks .

Margaret was still studying for a PhD in forensic archaeology.

If there was one industry that was tougher than the bakery business, it was forensic archaeology.

Last year she’d had an opportunity to take a job out west, but she had refused it so she could stay close to Rachel.

Family loyalty had her helping in the bakery, but she didn’t love it.

The customers never saw her frustration. She reserved those gems for me.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

She laughed. “Why does anything have to be wrong, Daisy? Do you have to be such a downer?”

My stomach tightened, and for a moment I mentally traced the steps to the bathroom. “I’m a happy person.”

She laughed again. “Right.”

“I’m happy.” Carefully I rearranged the pies in the case. I was happy. I had a lot to be thankful for.

Bracelets jangled on her wrists. “You’re as bad as I am. We’re soul sisters when it comes to our innate unhappiness.”

I’d always known I had a bitter edge but wasn’t comfortable with having a reputation as perpetually sour. Suddenly, unsettling images of me as an old, wizened bakery woman flashed. “So why are you in such a good mood today?”

She flicked a lock of hair away from her eyes. “It’s summer. Today the air is warm, but still not hot.”

I rose, stretching the tight muscles in my back. “If you say ‘the birds are singing,’ I’ll hit you.”

“But they are!”

“Rachel,” I shouted. “Come here quick!”

Rachel quickly appeared above the saloon doors, a look of alarm on her face. “What’s wrong?”

I jabbed my thumb toward Margaret. “Margaret has been kidnapped. I don’t know who this is, but it’s not Margaret. She says the birds are freaking singing.”

Rachel’s confused gaze danced between Margaret’s smiling face and mine. “She looks like Margaret.”

I shook my head. “Look closer. There’s a twinkle in her eye, and there’s a grin on her face.”

Rachel’s brow knotted. “You were smiling when I first saw you this morning.”

I shook my head. “Mine was fake. Hers is real.”

Rachel studied Margaret’s face and, when our sister grinned, retreated a step. “Should I call the cops?”

Margaret laughed and shook her head.

“You two. You act like I’m never happy.”

“You aren’t,” Rachel said.

“I can’t argue,” I said.

“We match each other foul mood for foul mood,” Margaret said.

“Not today.” I folded my arms over my chest. “What gives? You meet a guy? This sexual euphoria?”

“No,” Margaret said. She didn’t laugh again, but her eyes still danced.

“Really, Margaret,” Rachel said, all humor gone. “What gives?”

Rachel, our cheerleader, could find a rainbow in a room full of manure. But since Jean Paul’s arrival, her temper had shortened, and her smile had grown a tad brittle.

Margaret reached for her green Union Street Bakery apron and carefully pulled it over her head. We both watched and waited as she crisscrossed the apron strings in the back and tied them in a bow in the front. “I’ve kind of been offered a dream job.”

My heart skipped a beat. With the three of us, the bakery had run well. Rachel baked. I managed the money, and Margaret handled customers. We were a three-legged stool.

I summoned a smile, swearing I’d not let my mind go to the disaster place it liked to scurry when change occurred. “Where’s the job?”

Her eyes brightened. “It’s an archaeology dig up on the Chesapeake Bay in Saint Mary’s County, Maryland.”

“That’s about an hour south of here.” I calculated the miles, the traffic, and the lost hours behind the counter.

An hour away wasn’t the end of the earth, and I was thinking this gig, like many of the other archaeology jobs, would be part time.

Good archaeology positions were so rare.

Basically, someone had to die for a slot to open.

“What would you do?” Rachel asked.

Margaret rubbed nervous hands over her apron. “An old pre–Revolutionary War community has been discovered. The dig has already started, but they need extra hands.”

“Is this a volunteer job?” I asked.

“Not exactly. The gal heading it up is taking leave. She’s pregnant and must go on bed rest.” She shook her head. “Who in their right mind would get pregnant during the dig season? God, contraception anyone?”

I folded my arms over my chest. “You’d be there for the dig season.”

“Or maybe longer.”

I knew enough about archaeology digs to know the season had started in March and would extend to early December. “You would leave when?”

“Today would be my last day.”

A rush of air escaped from Rachel’s lips.

“I know this is very short notice.” Doubt mingled with Margaret’s euphoria. “I know I’m leaving you in a lurch. I know that. But I swear this is the best job ever.”

I shoved back a pang of jealousy. I’d had a great job until the financial company I’d worked for had blown up.

I’d made great money. Worn designer suits.

People sat a little straighter when I entered a room.

Now I worked eighty-hour weeks either covered in flour and icing in a hot kitchen, ringing a register, or balancing a lopsided budget.

Sarcastic comments danced in my head, but I refused to unleash them. As much as I wanted to bust Margaret for her lack of notice, I didn’t. Couldn’t. This was a dream for her. “So can we at least throw you a going-away party tomorrow?”

Relief rushed past Margaret’s lips. “I’ve to be on site Monday morning.”

“Then it’ll be tomorrow evening.” I faced Rachel. “We can do a little something tomorrow evening, right?”

Unshed tears glistened in Rachel’s eyes. Her bottom lip quivered, but still she nodded and smiled. “Great.”

Margaret pursed her lips. “I wouldn’t have taken this, Rachel, if Daisy wasn’t here. I know the two of you can manage.”

Rachel cleared her throat. “Of course.” She turned and vanished into the kitchen.

Margaret moved to follow.

I blocked her path. “It’s okay. Let her go. She’s been wound tight lately.”

Worry erased her happiness. “What’s going on with her?”

“Jean Paul is insisting on changes, and it’s upsetting her. And the renovation is not helping.”

Silver bracelets jangled from Margaret’s wrist as she tugged at a key-shaped earring.

“She’s the boss. If she doesn’t like it, then she should tell him so.”

“That’s not her style.”

“Maybe it should be.”

“I know. You know. But this is more than about changing more menu items. These are the last of Mike’s menu choices.”

Margaret rolled her eyes. “Doesn’t mean it was great. I mean, Mike could bake, but he wasn’t the expert. I didn’t like all his choices.”

Mike had been a talented baker and seemed to be the perfect fit for Rachel.

He liked to make decisions, and she was happy to let him.

Their relationship wouldn’t have worked for me or for Margaret, but it worked for them.

Since his death, Rachel had been hurled out of her comfort zone and forced to make tougher choices. So far, she’d not done so well.

“Don’t worry about it. I’m here, and Rachel and I’ll figure this all out.”

“I’m leaving you in a terrible spot.”

“Not really. You’ve done a lot to keep the bakery going, carried the load when I didn’t. Let me worry about it for a while.”

Margaret tugged at the apron strings. “I didn’t think I’d feel this guilty about leaving.”

“The place has a way of sucking you in.”

“So, what are you going to do? This isn’t your forever kind of place. I figured sooner or later you’d job hunt in New York or on the West Coast.”

“I’m going to give the bakery a full year, see it through the renovation and the wholesale transition.”