She'd said she had daughters. She'd found someone, settled down, and I wasn't going to ruin that for her.
Caden growled.
Maeve made chit-chat, asking about the kids and if she was new in town. The woman grinned and made a joke about moving and the number of boxes versus the number of siblings, how everyone survived, and only the dog remained traumatized. She laughed easily.
I'd bet money she was a good mom. The kind who remembered field trip forms and which color cup each kid liked at breakfast.
What would she think if I just popped up, dough in my hair, and said, Hey, remember me? My gaze kept snagging on the curve of her hip as she shifted her weight, the line of her throat as she laughed with Maeve. Every detail carved itself into me, bright as flame, impossible to look away from.
Do it!
Maeve boxed up the order, humming under her breath.
"Anything else?" she asked, double-checking the ticket.
"Do you have those chocolate croissants?" the woman asked. "It's Meredith's absolute favorite. She's had a tough year, so I promised."
"We do, and I'll throw in an extra since it's your first week in Laurel Gap." Maeve's smile made everything sound easy.
They kept talking, and it all ran together in a blur of kid stories, something about water and animals in creeks, and gossip about who'd bought the old book store. I barely heard it. My brain was stuck on the way she moved, fast, efficient.
It killed me not to go up to her.It really did. But I stayed hidden, stacking pans and playing mannequin, telling myself it was the right thing. She deserved to keep her life.
Caden disagreed.She's ours!
No.She's moved on.There was nothing to move onfrom,really. It had just been a one-night stand.
She thanked Maeve, left an absurd tip, and turned for the door. Not a single look in my direction.
But I saw the moment she passed the window, the quick glance she threw at the black SUV. Not long, but sharp enough to stab right through me. She clocked it as a threat, too. Maybe not consciously, but instincts didn't lie.
Then she was gone. The bell jangled once, then silence.
Maeve peeked around the divider.
"You looked like you'd seen a ghost," she said, eyebrow raised.
I tried to play it off. "Late night. Or maybe the mint poisoning's getting to me."
She snorted.
The SUV started its engine. I tensed, ready to block the door if it tried anything. But it just drove away in the opposite direction.
Caden raked my insides raw, furious to let her walk away. I held firm.
She's moved on, I repeated.Or there was never anything for her to move on from. It's highly unlikely she's thought about me for the last seventeen or so years.
He growled in answer.
I barely remembered the drive home.
One minute I was scrubbing flour off my forearms at the back sink, bellowing "see ya tomorrow" to Maeve over the usual clatter of the bakery's closing routine, and the next I was gunning my truck up the rutted mountain road. I'd skipped the post-shift wipe-down. My shirt and jeans were streaked with dough, sweat dried into the creases of my elbows, and I itched all over from a day in the kitchen trenches. It didn't matter. None of it mattered. Not with the way Tash's face kept flashing through my mind, every damn time I blinked.
She hadn't even been in the bakery for more than ten minutes. Just enough time to drop every single word out of my mouth and rewire my head. All day, I kept wanting to see her again. Hell, it was worse. I needed it. Her laugh. That stubborn tilt of her chin. The way her hair had glimmered in the overhead lights, the memory of cinnamon and honey and bright, burning hunger. Every time I rolled more dough or shoved another tray in the oven, there she was, carvedbehind my eyes. I was used to running hot, but this was something else.
Maeve teased me about obsessive tendencies, but she had no idea.
I spun into the driveway, dust pluming behind me. My house lights were off, woods creeping in from all sides. I didn't bother locking up. Nobody got up this far unless they were lost or had wings.
