And alive.
At least she still had him.
Some dear people in Wisteria couldn’t say that. Some had lost much more than their shops or homes or cars. They’d lost their pets. Even their people.
She swallowed through the lump in her throat as tears trailed down her cheeks.
Rosemary’s grandpa had been swept away in the current. Found two miles from his home.
Jodie—sweet and sassy Jodie from Wisteria General Store—had lost her brother, a first responder. He’d saved a little girl but hadn’t made it out of the floodwaters himself.
And there were dozens of similar stories of loss.
Too many. And more to come, she suspected.
The comparison didn’t lessen the pain of looking over her devastated shop.
Or make the gaping hole of loss any less.
But it did bring things into perspective.
“I’ve got the whole upstairs of the cabin where we can keep your things until we can repair the shop,” Jack said, leading the way to the kitchen.
Until we can repair the shop?Was that even possible?
She swallowed the growing lump in her throat and followed him. It was too much to think about. Right now, all she could do was put one foot in front of the other.
The kitchen looked similar to the front of the restaurant. Mud everywhere. Broken items in various places around the floor. Wallpaper peeling like shedding skin. Several of the lower cabinets stood open, revealing mud-covered pots and pans.
Among the brown and gray mess, her attention caught on the sight of some red tape wrapped around a pipe beneath her larger sink that abutted the wall connecting Finn’s restaurant to hers. She moved closer, bending to get a better look.
Was that new piping too?
She blinked. But she hadn’t asked Mr. Lawson to fix those pipes yet.
“Finn paid for it to be temporarily repaired until you could get to it,” Jack said, bringing some of the untouched cookware from the top shelves and placing it in a box he’d carried in with him. “He didn’t want me to tell you. Just wanted to help you get by.”
Tears blurred her vision as the words settled in.
Finn.
His pub was closer to the river than hers, even if just a little. He had to have lost more. His brand-new kitchen. Refinished floors. Custom tables. All of it.
And still...
He’d paid forherplumbing?
Before they were even together?
She looked around at the peeling wallpaper, the shattered teapots, the life she’d built—now swimming in sludge.
And then—from somewhere outside the back door—came a sound.
Laughter.
High-pitched. Surprising. Pure.
Daphne turned toward it.
