“That’s what I’ve wanted for the girls,” he went on. “This place is not just a roof over their heads, it’s roots. A place where they can know where they come from and have the space to figure out who they are.”
“Then let’s bring it back,” Honey said. “The shirts. The name.We build the experience around their legacy. Not just fruits and hayrides but stories, warmth, and connection. Something that feels like home.”
He didn’t speak right away. Just looked at her the same way he did the other night outside The Kettle.
Ethan gave a small nod. “They’d have liked you.”
Honey felt something pinch in her chest, like her ribs were pressing too tight around her heart. Her cheeks burned as her mind offered up an image of the kiss they’d shared.
“Don’t do that,” she said, looking away first.
“Do what?”
“Don’t flirt with me while you’re still looking for your wife.”
Silence swallowed the air between them. Ethan didn’t flinch, but he didn’t smile, either. “It’s not?—”
“Don’t say it’s not like that.”
His jaw shifted. “I probably won’t find her anyway.”
The words hit like a slap, and she swallowed hard. “Enough, Mr. Hale.”
A long pause stretched between them. Dust floated in the shaft of light across the attic floor. Outside, a rooster crowed, as late and confused as Honey was.
“No, Honey. That came out wrong. You know that’s not what I mean.”
“How could I possibly know that?” Honey said. Then, because if she didn’t pivot she might break in two, she took a step back and said, with more conviction than she felt, “You’d better get the girls to school. Wouldn’t want to be late.”
She busied herself refolding the shirt and tucking it back away in the chest, not letting herself watch him as hestood there, mouth opening and closing, until finally, he sighed and walked away.
Once he was gone, she gently lifted one of the old shirts from inside. The cotton was faded and soft. She held it for a moment, running her thumb over the letters.
Marg and Lois. Petals and thorns.
She’d always figured she was more thorn than bloom—too sharp, too much, better at keeping people out than letting people in.
But somehow, in this little town, the edges had started to soften. She’d thought it was only the girls, and then Ethan, but now she could see how the rest would follow—Theo, Clover, Marlene, and all the others who’d accepted her into their strange little world.
She suddenly realized that maybe she’d just been petals all along.
Chapter 27
Honey
Honey sat at the front corner table of The Kettle, steam curling lazily from her teacup as she watched the townspeople meander past the fogged windows. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear and resisted the urge to tie the whole thing up into a bun.
The café hummed with energy. The air was rich with the scent of cardamom and warm pastry as Clover moved behind the counter. Her dark hair was tied back by a red scarf printed with bees, and she hummed an eerie tune as she worked. With a flick of her wrist, she mashed herbs in a mortar, and steam bloomed from the lip of a copper kettle at just the right moment.
The bell above the door gave a cheerful jingle, and she glanced up just as a figure pushed it open.
Then did a double take.
The man wore an oversized trench coat, a scarf wrapped twice around his neck, and a baseball cap tugged low over his eyes. He looked like someone trying very hard not to look like anyone at all.
But Honey would know that mustache anywhere. Officer Theodore Nolan.
She raised her eyebrows at him in acknowledgement, and he slid in across from her.
