Took care of me.
“Thank you.” I whispered as he leaned back out of the SUV and gave me a gentle smile, blue and red lights flashing across his perfect face.
“Don’t mention it.”
I barely registered the quick drive seven blocks across town to where Honey & Hearth was, nestled directly in the town square. I was too lost in watching the red and blue lights from Tanner’s cruiser flash off everything in the sleepy, quiet town before merging with the dozens of other lights visible as he turned onto Main Street.
When we pulled up, parking right behind the multiple fire trucks, the sight greeting me hollowed me out.
My bakery—my entire world—looked like a crime scene. Water streamed down the glass windows, reflecting the lights even brighter. The front door hung open, broken along the edgeas if someone had kicked it in, and as I peered through the gaping hole, I could see water spread across the tiled floor.
My lungs seized.
I barely noticed Tanner helping me out of the car until his arm wrapped around my back, holding me to his side as he held me up, ushering me through the chaos outside. “Easy,” he murmured. “I’ve got you.”
Thank God, too. Because as soon as I stepped through the front door, my knees wanted to buckle.
The air reeked of damp wood and ruined dreams. Water dripped from every surface, down the walls, tables, and counters. The mural I’d painted by hand behind the front counter, the one customers saw the moment they walked through the front door, already peeled, the drywall crumbling beneath the water weight soaked into it.
I pressed my hand over my mouth, but the sob still broke free around it.
The noise was broken and reflected the desperation in my heart as I tried to figure out how I’d rebuild something I’d already poured my life’s savings into.
“All my—” my voice cracked as people lingered around us, watching me break. “I built this. With everything I had. And now it’s?—”
“Shh,” Tanner pulled me into his chest, and I let him. I let his strong arms wrap around me like steel and shield me from the horrifying damage around us. His shirt was damp, but I could still smell the familiarity of his cologne through it, and I let it ground me. His embrace was solid. He was solid.
Tanner didn’t minimize my feelings or try to sugarcoat anything. He didn’t lie. He didn’t make promises he couldn’t back up. He just held me and let me cry into his shirt over his bulletproof vest.
I barely noticed the other people moving around us until one voice carried through the mess in my head.
“Sprinklers are cut off,” Rhea Dalton announced, and I turned my face from Tanner’s chest as she rose from a squat against the wall in front of a control panel. Her long dark hair was tied back in a wet braid, and her soaked blue uniform shirt clung to her upper body as she wiped her hands on a rag, putting tools away into a kit. The fireproof pants she wore from her turnout gear should have looked silly on a woman who was no taller than me, and on me they would have, but she carried the weight of them as if they were an extension of herself. As if they were part of her identity.
Her bottomless green eyes glanced over at us and then stuck on the way Tanner’s arms were still around me. Something flickered across her face, something sharp and unreadable—but it was gone before I could name it.
“Brooks,” An officer from outside called in through the front door, “We need you outside for a minute.”
Tanner hesitated, glancing down at me as I took a step back, forcing myself to stand under my own power. “Are you okay?”
No, I wasn’t. But I nodded anyway, forcing an iron bar into my spine that held me up when the days were long and the fears were strong. I had fought through so many fears over the last few years, trying to build this dream into a reality, and I had to keep that fight in me now. If I lost it, I’d crumble for good.
His hand lingered on my elbow a beat too long before he gave me a nod and moved toward the door.
Which left me alone in the room with Rhea.
Everyone else moved in and out, but only the two of us stood still.
We didn’t really know each other. Cedar Bluff was small, so I knewofher, the firefighter with the long legs and the cockysmirk, but I didn’t knowher.Yet, somehow standing in the wreckage of my dream, the distance between us felt thinner.
Rhea leaned against the massive hearth in the center of the room, crossing her arms. “Hey.”
I rubbed my eyes, heat rushing to my cheeks as I got out of the way of a firefighter carrying something that looked like a generator into the back room. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to fall apart?—”
“You’re allowed.” Her voice was steady, but gentle. “This is your home. I’d be worried if you weren’t upset.” Something in the how she called my bakery my home made me feel seen. She gestured to the dripping ceiling and the soggy tables. “But this, it’s fixable. It’s just stuff. You didn’t lose the heart of it. Because that’s inside you. You bring the warmth to this place, not the other way around. “
I took a deep breath and looked around the space, trying to envision it all as just stuff. “You say that like you are a regular here,” I chuckled softly, but it fell flat. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you here.”
She shrugged, giving me that signature one-sided smirk, making the deep dimple pop in her cheek. “I eat and drink something made by your hands multiple times a week.”
