Rather than unfolding through grand gestures, One Alpen Day by Michele Davenport-Dutton follows a quieter path, tracing how ordinary days can shift everything when two people, each shaped by loss, find themselves unexpectedly connected.

Angela Sutton has retreated from the life she once knew, carrying the weight of divorce and repeated pregnancy losses. Working in her aunt’s bakery gives her purpose, but she remains unsure of what comes next. That uncertainty deepens when Mason Glade, a celebrated Hollywood actor, arrives without warning.

Mason is escaping more than attention. His marriage to Camila has fractured under the strain of her alcoholism, a struggle that has spilled into tabloids and deeply affected their two young children. With Camila seeking treatment, Mason travels with his children and their nanny, hoping to shield them from further harm. As Angela spends time with the family, her warmth toward the children becomes impossible to ignore. Mason begins imagining a life built on stability and care, but choosing between reconciliation and a new beginning proves far from simple.

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Excerpt

Angela moved back to Grainau last year after Uncle Karl died from a massive heart attack at the age of seventy-six, leaving Aunt Terese to tend to their forty-year-old bakery alone. Around the same time, Angela had gone through a bitter divorce from her husband, Nick Sutton Jr. after three years of marriage. He had carried on his father’s legacy as a business mogul in L.A. Nick Jr. was in the Garmisch/Grainau area for business and it was there he met Angela at the bakery four years ago. He had swept her off her feet and dragged her to L.A where they were married a few short months later.

The Alpen Bakery, as named by Aunt Terese and Uncle Karl, carried an assortment of breads, rolls, sheet cakes and pastries. Bread is to Germans what cheese is to the French. There are more than four hundred types of bread in Germany. And, a good bakery such as Angela’s aunt and uncle’s, stocked at least ten to twenty kinds of breads, ten kinds of rolls and an assorted variety of sheet cakes and various pastries, including Aunt Terese’s delectable Apple Strudel. Plus, it was said by locals that they made the best cappuccino in town.

Angela was cleaning and dusting all the pictures and paintings displayed in the bakery, over the empty tables when she heard Aunt Terese yell.

“Oh, dear! Somebody left their wallet on the counter!” She looked inside to see if she could find identification. She peered sideways at Angela and batted her eyelashes. “Mason Glade,” she said. Angela’s stomach turned in knots. Just hearing his name made her break out in goosebumps.

“He’ll be back soon enough,” and with that, Aunt Terese closed the wallet. “He won’t get far without his wallet,” she quipped enthusiastically.

Angela went back to spritzing glass cleaner on the glass covering the Neuschwanstein picture which had smudges all over from people, mainly kids, touching it. It’s King Ludwig’s most beautiful and prized castle. The rest of the walls displayed photos of Garmisch-Partenkirchen and the ski jump, where the 1936 Winter Olympics were held. Both Aunt Terese and Uncle Karl’s parents attended, as it was a huge event. Uncle Karl was just a baby at the time. Next to the Olympic pictures were framed news articles and interviews from that event.

After she dusted the painting of the Zugspitze, Germany’s tallest and most glorious mountain, which has her town of Grainau at its base, she went back into the kitchen and washed her hands.

Aunt Terese saw Mason walking outside the front window and quickly shouted, “There he is, Angela!”

Mason opened the door and walked up to the counter. “Hello, excuse me, but I believe I left my wallet here, or I’m really hoping it’s here.” Aunt Terese picked it up from behind the counter and handed it to him. Mason was grateful he didn’t lose it. “Oh, you don’t know how scared I was, thinking I had lost it. Thank you so much,” he said, a nervous relief in his tone. At that moment, Angela walked out from the back and Mason said, “Wait, aren’t you Angela?” He pointed over to the rear corner where he remembered seeing her choking.

Angela’s insides did a cartwheel. She couldn’t believe he remembered her name from when Aunt Terese shouted it earlier, asking if she was okay.

Angela cleared her throat. “Yes, Hi, I’m Angela.” She reached out her hand and Mason shook it.

“Hello Angela. It’s very nice to meet you. I’m Mason, by the way. You work here?”

Her hands were clammy and sweaty from her nerves. “Yes, this is my Aunt Terese and Uncle Karl’s bakery. They’ve owned it for forty years now.”

About the Author

Michele Davenport-Dutton has loved reading since childhood and was once the top reader at her Montessori school in Garmisch, Germany. A lifelong fan of heartfelt love stories with happy endings, she finally brought her own story to the page with this debut novel. Michele earned her bachelor’s degree in Business Management from CSUB before putting her career on hold to raise her family, spending nearly 30 years as a stay-at-home mom. Now fulfilling a long-held dream of becoming an author, she lives in Shafter, California, with her husband, Chris. Together they have eight adult children and seven grandchildren, with hopes for many more.

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