It’s Ransom,she realized.I wish I were sharing this news with him right now.
She glanced at her phone again, but there was still nothing in her text chain with him.
She could reach out of course, tell him what was going on.
But maybe it was better to just let go of any silly ideas she was getting now.
He would have only broken my heart again anyway.
16
HAILEY
Hailey was up at the crack of dawn the next day to run to the train station and pick up Caspian.
Waiting on the platform as the train pulled in, she cinched her coat more tightly around herself and felt thankful that she wasn’t walking around the city every day anymore. She had a lot of less than fond memories of the wet New York cold soaking into her bones every time she left her apartment.
“Hailey, my love,” Caspian cried, spotting her the second he got off the train.
He looked the same as always, his blond hair slicked back, blue eyes twinkling over his red scarf. She went to him and smiled when he pulled her into a warm hug.
“This place is really something,” he said, looking around.
Hailey always thought Trinity Falls was beautiful, but seeing it from Caspian’s point-of-view made the snow-frosted shops seem even more charming, and gave her anew appreciation for the slow pace of the people window-shopping and stopping to chat on the freshly shoveled sidewalks.
“It’s my hometown,” she told him proudly. “And it’s every bit as nice as it looks. I’m so excited to get started. I thought we would go meet Mallory at the bakery first and have you taste some things. What do you think?”
“Sounds amazing,” he told her. “I was up too early for breakfast, so I’m positively famished.”
“You’ll definitely be glad you’re visiting her on an empty stomach,” Hailey assured him. “And we’ll have the bakery to ourselves. She’s opening early just for us.”
“I don’t need the celebrity treatment, Hailey,” Caspian said, his handsome face suddenly worried.
“She doesn’t know who my potential client is,” Hailey told him, winking.
“Oh, that’s fun,” he said with a smile. “Though I don’t know, do people out here even watch soap operas?”
“More of them than you would think,” she told him as they walked down the platform and crossed Park Avenue.
“Well, they probably just want to cheer for their hometown girl,” Caspian said with a smile.
“You might be a little bit right about that,” she said with a smile.
They were just passing by Scandinavian Sundries when she spotted Reggie Webb standing outside.
“Oh, good heavens,” he said. “Is this who I think it is?”
“Are you a fan ofRidley Hospital, sir?” Caspian asked politely.
“I was until they killed off my favorite character,” Reggie said with a frown.
“Agreed,” Caspian replied, wrapping a friendly arm around Hailey’s shoulders. “I was hoping they’d give us a romance plot line, BeeBee deserves it.”
“Sure does,” Reggie said, his eyebrows slanting up as he broke into a smile.
“We’ve got to head to the bakery,” Hailey told Reggie.
“They’re not open yet,” he pointed out, turning back to Caspian.
