Kerri Carpenter - Bayside's Most Unexpected Bride

“Yep, just sent it your way. I think I covered the majority of the new ones, plus I added my top-ten holiday classics. Got a couple good quotes from the guys over at the Palace Movie Theater, too.”

“Excellent,” Claudia said with a big smile. She spotted Riley’s computer screen and gestured toward it. “I see you’re reading the Bayside Blogger’s column today. Sawyer is gonna be pissed.”

“Uh, yeah, just finished it. But I don’t know why he would be. A ton of people saw him at The Brewside with Holly yesterday.”

Claudia leaned onto the wall of Riley’s cubicle. “But you know how he hates to be featured in that column. The Bayside Blogger should really tread lightly, especially since Sawyer is the only person who knows her identity.”

Riley fidgeted in her chair. “It’s not like he would out her. Or him. Not after all this time.”

“Maybe not.” Claudia lowered her voice conspiratorially. “You think it’s serious with him and Holly?”

Riley suddenly felt uncomfortable. She shrugged. “Who knows?”

Sawyer Wallace was more than the editor in chief and owner of the Bayside Bugle. More than her boss. She’d known him her entire life. Two years older than her, their families were very close and had always shared holidays, vacations, barbecues and practically every important milestone.

Sawyer was like an annoying older brother, only...not brotherly at all.

“My friend Vivica asked him out a couple weeks ago.”

Riley perked up at that tidbit. She straightened in her chair. “Really? I didn’t know that.”

“Probably because Sawyer turned her down. Crazy, because Vivica is the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen. But, personally, I think something’s going on with him.”

They both turned toward the glass office in the corner of the newsroom where Sawyer was intently studying his computer screen.

“Something bad?” Riley asked.

“You tell me. Your families are tight.”

Riley eyed Sawyer in his office again. Apparently not that tight. Although, he had been extra surly lately. Sawyer did that whole stereotypical moody-writer thing well. But it never bothered her. In fact, she always knew how to make him lighten up and laugh.

“I say we get him drunk at this year’s holiday party and force him to reveal the identity of the Bayside Blogger,” Claudia said.

Riley smiled. “I don’t think there’s enough spiked eggnog on the planet to get that closely guarded secret out of him. Besides, I’ve tried.”

Everyone in town had tried at one point or another. The Bayside Blogger not only had a daily column in The Bayside Bugle, but she—or he—also had a blog and utilized every social media channel imaginable. No one was off-limits—the blogger always seemed to know everything about everyone, anytime, anywhere.

“I can’t believe he won’t tell anyone who she is. Even us. We work here, for goodness sake. And that damn Blogger is published in my section.”

“We should go on strike,” Riley stated dramatically, making Claudia laugh.

“You may be onto something. In the meantime, I’m going to read over your article. Oh, by the way, my husband and I are going to take a weekend trip to New York in December. You know, see the holiday windows and the big tree and Rockefeller Center.”

Riley tensed. “Cool.”

“I know you lived there for a while. Maybe you can give us some restaurant recommendations.”

She twisted her fingers together. “Well, you know New York. Everything’s constantly changing. I haven’t been back in a couple years. I’m totally out of touch.”

But she wasn’t. After graduating from Syracuse, Riley had moved to the city that never sleeps. She’d worked at a start-up marketing firm writing copy and social media posts. She’d lived in a massively overpriced studio apartment where she’d had to store her shoes in her oven and hang her laundry from her curtain rods.

It had been fabulous. Everything she’d always wanted. Living in the greatest city in the world. She’d stayed out late and seen Broadway shows and walked down Fifth Avenue at night. As often as her entry-level salary allowed, she’d tried new restaurants and bakeries. She’d been dazzled by the lights, the sounds, the people.

At least, that’s what she let people think of her experience in the Big Apple. It was easier to pretend her life was closer to Friends than Two Broke Girls.

When she’d returned to Bayside for holidays, she’d never been able to let the truth slip, which was that pretending to be a sophisticated young twentysomething in Manhattan was exhausting. And frustrating. And expensive. And...disappointing.

She’d wanted to live in Manhattan forever. She’d had a whole picture of what her life would be like, but the reality never matched up to it.

She was supposed to have an amazing job, a large apartment with tall windows that overlooked Central Park, a group of friends to rival Monica, Rachel and Phoebe. And, of course, her cool boyfriend would be the icing on the cupcake.

But that’s not how Connor McKenzie turned out to be.

She frowned. She’d seen no harm in dating her coworker. After all, their company hadn’t had a policy against it. At least, that’s what he’d told her. Why wouldn’t little old naive twenty-two-year-old Riley believe the dazzling, successful thirty-year-old Connor?

So, all had been well...until it wasn’t. She’d moved back home.

Well, more like run back with her tail between her legs. Now she never talked about her time in Manhattan if she could help it. Or she’d tell people the version she knew they expected to hear. At twenty-nine, Riley had definitely learned her lesson.

Claudia’s face fell and Riley relented. She hated letting anyone down. “I mean, I guess I could put a list together. Remind me.”

This seemed to appease Claudia. “Great. And don’t forget, editorial meeting this afternoon.”

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

Riley watched her editor walk to her office before returning to her screen and studying Sawyer’s name embedded in the Bayside Blogger’s column. Maybe Claudia was wrong. Maybe he wouldn’t get too mad about it.

“Hudson.” Sawyer’s voice boomed out from his office. “Get in here.”

As she got up and adjusted her dress, more than one head turned in her direction with sympathetic eyes. Never a good thing when Sawyer used his outdoor voice. Or called her by her last name.

“What’s with him?” Dennis, her next-door cubicle mate, asked quietly.

“Dunno. Probably pissed about that restaurant review I did. They were an advertiser.”

“Hold strong.” He touched his stomach. “I ate there, too. It wasn’t good.”

Riley grabbed her notebook and pen. “Will do.” Then she headed toward Sawyer with the sinking feeling she already knew what this was about.

When she reached his office, she stayed where she was in the doorway. She crossed her legs, accentuating the fabulous brown suede knee-high boots she’d bought in DC last weekend when she and her best friend, Elle, had driven to the city for a girls’ weekend.

“Hey, boss. What’s up?”

He steepled his hands on his desk and peered at her with his dreamy hazel eyes.

Damn. Dreamy? She meant irritating. Beady even.

The weather was unseasonably cold already and he was sporting a pair of corduroy pants and a somewhat ugly argyle sweater that she knew had been a Christmas gift from his mother last year. Not the most stylish of outfits and yet somehow he looked like he’d walked out of the pages of an L.L.Bean catalog. Just because he was tall with broad shoulders and had really cute sandy-brown hair that flopped on his head because he needed a haircut. And today he was wearing his glasses. What was it about a large lumberjack-looking man who wore glasses? Why did that make her stomach twist up into knots? And then there was his lopsided smile...