Just like she was lying about Jake's touch not affecting her.
Just like she was lying about his words not mattering.
Just like she was lying about this place being just a building.
Some lies, it seemed, didn't fool anyone.
Hannah's handsmoved with practiced grace as she piped delicate rosettes along the cake's border. Each flower was perfect—white buttercream petals dusted with the faintest shimmer of edible gold. Just like she'd done every year for the past five years.
Emily Peterson's twelfth birthday cake.
The order form sat on the counter beside her, creased and coffee-stained. She didn't need to look at it anymore—she knew Emily's preferences by heart. Vanilla bean cake with raspberry filling. Gold and white flowers. The inscription:"To our shooting star."
Hannah's throat tightened as she added the final touches. The Petersons wouldn't be picking it up. They'd made that clear when they'd canceled all their orders.
But she'd made it anyway.
Perfect rosettes.
Perfect filling.
Perfect inscription.
The kitchen was quiet as she worked, the familiar hum of the refrigerators and the soft scratch of her piping tip against buttercream the only sounds. Outside, the sun was setting, painting everything in shades of gold and shadow.
When the cake was finished, Hannah stepped back, studying her work. It was beautiful. Maybe her best version yet.
No one would see it.
No one would appreciate the extra care she'd taken with the filling, the way she'd enhanced the vanilla with a touch of almond.
No one except...
Hannah reached for her grandmother's old recipe box, fingers tracing the worn wooden edges. Inside, hundreds of cards told the story of Sugar & Spice—each recipe annotated with notes about the people they'd served, the lives they'd touched.
Add extra cinnamon for Mr. Wilson's scones.
Mrs. Peterson likes her Danish less sweet—diabetic husband.
Hannah pulled out the vanilla cake recipe, her grandmother's familiar handwriting blurring slightly as she read:
"Remember, sweetheart—we don't bake for praise. We bake for love."
And Hannah added her own note.
Emily Peterson: vanilla bean, not extract. Gold flowers like a princess.
She carefully wrapped Emily's cake, adding a few extra sugar flowers in a separate box. The church's soup kitchen could use something beautiful tonight.
As she worked, her eyes drifted to the wall of photos behind the register. Decades of memories captured in fading snapshots—her grandmother teaching her to pipe roses, her mother hanging those copper wind chimes, Jake helping her paint the kitchen last summer...
Hannah's hands stilled on the cake box.
The photo of Jake caught the exact moment he'd gotten paint on his nose. She remembered laughing, remembered him pulling her close despite her protests about wet paint, remembered how he'd kissed her until they were both breathless and covered in pale yellow streaks.
She should take it down.
Should clear away every trace of him.
