CHAPTER ONE
3 months later . . .
EDEN
The cottage feels like something from a postcard. It’s picturesque, with a slanted roof, creaking floorboards, and a garden Martha insists we will grow “real vegetables one day” even though neither of us can keep a basil plant alive.
Still, it’s ours. Ours in a way nothing ever has been.
Morning light spills across the mismatched kitchen tiles as I pour tea into two chipped mugs. Martha clatters down the narrow stairs, humming, cheeks flushed with the kind of glow I haven’t seen in a long time.
“Going to the farm shop later?” I ask casually, passing her the cup.
She bites her lip, not very subtly. “Maybe.”
Maybe . . . which obviously means definitely, because he’ll be there.
I smile into my tea. “Tell Tom I said hi.”
Her eyes go wide. “I never said his name was—”
I raise a brow. “Sweetheart, it’s a small town. The population is basically twelve. Of course, I know his name.”
She groans, embarrassed, but she’s smiling full and bright.
Tom has been good for her. This whole place has been good for her. For us. It’s quiet. Steady. Predictable in a way the club never was. You can walk everywhere, people wave when you pass them, and the postman knows we like parcels left in the shed.
And nobody here knows who I used to be.
No one knows the club. No one knows Kade. No one knows the life we’ve left behind.
I tell myself that’s a good thing. It’s a clean slate, a fresh start, but my heart still kicks whenever my phone buzzes, like some part of me expects his name to appear.
But it never does. I don’t call him, and he doesn’t call me. Those are the rules I set, the ones I still believe were necessary, but it doesn’t stop me from missing him.
I leave Martha to her humming and pull on my coat, stepping out into crisp air that smells faintly of woodsmoke. The village street is only a few minutes long, lined with crooked cottages and tiny shops painted in pastel colours. The bakery opens early, and the butcher is always sweeping his doorstep.Predictable. Safe.
It’s nothing like the city, nothing like the club.
Some days, I feel safe enough to breathe again. Other days, I swear I see a familiar bike in every shadow.
The bell above the bookshop door jingles as I step inside. Mrs. Wainwright is already behind the counter, glasses perched on the end of her nose, arranging a display of new hardbacks.
“You’re late,” she says without looking up.
“It’s five past nine.”
“In village time, that’s late.”
I hide a smile and slip behind the counter. “Anything exciting happening today?”
She finally meets my eyes, a spark in hers that means gossip is coming. “Oh, only that Bernie Taylor’s tractor caught fire yesterday. Right outside the post office. Nearly gave poor Mrs. Clarke a heart attack.”
I laugh softly. “How does a tractor catch fire?”
“That,” she says, “is the burning question.” And then she chuckles.
Working here has become something I look forward to—sorting stock, chatting with customers, listening to Mrs. Wainwright’s endless stories about who married who for money and who’s been feuding with their neighbour for twenty-seven years.
