This one is smoother.
Quieter.
Too quiet.
My shoulders tense before my brain catches up. For a split second, my heart stutters, sharp and panicked, already bracing for impact.
Who is that?
My first, stupid thought isreporter. Or someone from town, emboldened by Facebook courage. Someone who decided today was the day to come see the scandal up close. I picture a phone lifted. A voice asking for comment. My name spoken with curiosity instead of kindness.
I angle my body just enough to see out the window. Dark paint. Clean lines. The kind of car that belongs in a city garage, not parked in front of a ranch house that smells of hay and cinnamon rolls.
The engine cuts.
My pulse doesn’t.
I wipe my hands on my apron too fast, leaving streaks of flour behind.
Sadie looks up from the table, where she’s coloring a horse with six legs and zero concern for anatomy. “Is that a fancy person car?”
I force my face into a neutral expression. “I think it might be.”
Then, the front door opens before I can talk myself down.
“Well,” a woman calls out, bright and amused, “if this is what breakfast smells like around here, I understand why everyone refuses to leave.”
The sound hits me like a memory.
Warm. Confident. Familiar in a way that makes my chest tighten.
I freeze.
Because I know that voice.
I’ve only heard it once, drifting down the hallway while Silas was on the phone.
Julia Grant.
Silas’s mom.
She steps into the kitchen with confidence. Tall, elegant without trying, dark hair swept back, oversized sunglasses pushed up into it like an afterthought. A scarf looped loosely at her neck, decorative rather than necessary. She looks dressed for enjoyment, not practicality, and somehow it works.
Her gaze finds me immediately.
And then she smiles, and my insides loosen despite my best efforts.
“You must be Delaney.”
I wipe my hands on my apron again, slower this time. “I am. Hi.”
She crosses the room in three confident steps and takes my hands before I can decide how I feel about it, squeezing them warmly.
“I’m Julia. Silas’s mother.” She pauses, eyes flicking to the counter. “And judging by the smell in here, I finally understand why my son sounds so smug on the phone lately.”
I blink. “Smug?”
“Oh, insufferably smug,” she says cheerfully. “He told me you make bread from scratch and then waited…waited, Delaney, for me to react. Like he personally discovered you.”
