Mixed Signals

The third installment in the Lovelight series is set in the small town of Inglewild, centered on Lovelight Farms. Layla Dupree co-owns and operates a bakehouse on the farm with her best friend Stella and Beckett, the head farmer. Layla holds a dual degree in mathematics and engineering but discovered her passion for baking, a career choice her Navy father views as a disappointment.

Layla's love life is a string of disasters. Her most recent date, with a man named Bryce at a coastal tiki bar, ends when he insults her education, steals the silverware, and leaves her with the check. As she settles the bill, she runs into Caleb Alvarez, a regular bakehouse customer who visits every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for a butter croissant and coffee. Caleb is attending his brother Alex's birthday celebration, wearing a Hawaiian shirt that reveals collarbones and biceps Layla has somehow never noticed. When Caleb learns her date abandoned her, he insists on driving her home.

During the ride, the two discover surprising common ground. Layla confesses she keeps dating terrible men in a desperate search for connection. Caleb admits he struggles too: Women tell him he is "too much," and his relationships stall around the fourth date because he overthinks everything. He tells Layla she deserves "the whole damn cake" rather than "crumbs" (20) and proposes they date each other as practice. He will show her what she deserves, and she will give him honest feedback. Layla, who has a strict rule against dating anyone within town limits, tells him she will think about it.

Caleb's narration reveals that his interest is far from casual. A substitute Spanish teacher at the local school, he has harbored a crush on Layla for years, once buying a rejected cake from her bakehouse simply because a rude customer upset her, then ordering new cakes every two weeks just to see her. He grew up listening to family love stories that shaped his belief in enduring romance. After three days waylaid by family obligations, he arrives at the bakehouse, asks for Layla's phone number, and tells her he is taking her out the next day.

Their first date at a roller-skating rink goes comically wrong. Caleb reserved the rink for a private evening, but the owner forgot, and the place is packed with teenagers. Caleb cannot skate and falls repeatedly while Layla skates backward holding his hands. Afterward, they agree on the terms: one month of exclusive dating, with either party free to end it at any time. Their second date at an escape room devolves into chaos when a town firefighter accidentally elbows Caleb in the face. Despite the disasters, Layla is charmed by Caleb's effort, warmth, and attentiveness.

Their connection deepens quickly. Caleb discovers that Layla holds secret early-morning recipe sessions with Ms. Beatrice, the town's other baker. The two women maintain a public rivalry that is actually a curated act to boost both businesses. On a beach picnic, Layla confides that she worries the upcoming Baltimore Magazine feature on her bakehouse is a mistake. The fear runs deeper than the interview: She has never felt like enough for her family, her exes, or herself. Caleb tells her he has always noticed the small details: the orange she wears on Tuesdays, the line at the corner of her mouth when she is excited. A storm chases them off the beach, and on Layla's rain-soaked front porch, Caleb delivers a classic movie kiss: slow, savoring, then overwhelming. At home afterward, Alex warns Caleb to remember the arrangement is temporary.

But Caleb cannot separate his feelings from the experiment, and neither can Layla. They agree to expand their physical boundaries after Layla confesses that no partner has ever brought her to orgasm. With open communication, Caleb patiently learns what she responds to, and she reaches orgasm with a partner for the first time. He tells her the story behind his years of cake orders, assuring her that their connection is not a product of the arrangement but of who they genuinely are together.

Layla's friends surprise her by painting "Layla's Bakehouse" in gold script on the front window and installing a bronze sign. Beckett, who oversaw the installation, tells Layla the bakehouse has always been hers. When Layla obsessively prepares for the photo shoot, a power outage overnight destroys all her food. She sits on the floor and calls Caleb. He mobilizes the entire town: Beckett brings a generator, Caleb buys out the grocery store, Ms. Beatrice commands the kitchen, and Caleb's family helps bake. By ten o'clock, the bakehouse is restored with fresh scones, shortcake, and wildflowers from the fields.

As the one-month mark approaches, Caleb realizes he has fallen in love and decides to end the arrangement to start something real. At a picnic by the pond, he tells Layla he wants to end the arrangement, and she immediately assumes he is breaking up with her. When he tries to explain he wants more, Layla says she cannot trust herself. Her history of failed relationships has left her convinced her judgment is broken. She asks him to return to their old bakehouse routine. Caleb agrees, heartbroken.

The weeks that follow are painful. Caleb returns on schedule but orders avocado toast and green tea instead of his usual, a quiet rebellion that unsettles Layla. She confides in Stella, who points out that Layla's fear mirrors Stella's own long avoidance of her feelings for her partner, Luka. Ms. Beatrice visits unannounced and tells Layla bluntly that she dates terrible men because it is easier to be disappointed by someone unworthy than heartbroken by someone good. Beatrice compares Layla to a gladiolus flower that can bloom again after surviving the cold.

The breaking point comes when Layla sees Caleb laughing with Emma, a teacher at his school, and assumes the worst. Caleb explains that Emma was confiding about a crush on another teacher. He tells Layla to stop treating him like the men who disappointed her and says he will wait as long as she needs, but the next step is hers. His grandmother later visits with advice, revealing that his grandfather's famous love story was embellished: He knocked over the shoe stand by accident and had to buy everything he ruined. The truth does not diminish the love that followed, she tells him, and urges Caleb never to stop trusting his heart.

Layla decides to fight for Caleb. Stella and Charlie, Stella's half brother, orchestrate getting him to the bakehouse through the town phone tree. Outside among the pine trees, Layla presents Caleb with a handwritten grading sheet evaluating their month together: tens in enthusiasm and originality, an eight in kindness only because he should protect his own heart more. In the final bonus category, she confesses she has been falling in love with him and did not recognize the feeling because she had never experienced it before. Caleb tells her he has been falling in love with her too, one butter croissant at a time. Layla proposes a new arrangement with no pretense, no grading, just honest love, and they kiss among the trees.

An epilogue set two years later finds Caleb and Layla living in a house behind the bakehouse. A framed Baltimore Magazine photo hangs above their stove. Caleb makes her a breakfast sandwich, wears their rescue dog Poppy in a chest harness, and slides a velvet ring box across the counter, echoing Layla's words: "I think we should revisit the details of our arrangement."