“I need to work,” I said, my voice shaky.
“I know.” Stephen’s thumb brushed my jaw. “I’ll be right here.”
“You’re staying?” I asked absently.
“I am.”
Pati handed him a cup of black coffee and a bear claw, and I watched as he walked to the window table. The same table he’d been sitting at for six months. The same table where Grace and Karlyn had been sitting just before the Death Dogs came through that door.
The same table where everything changed.
He settled into the chair, pulled out the leather-bound journal, and opened it.
And just like that, I was forgotten.
The morning rush came and went. I served customers, made small talk, refilled coffee pots. Pati worked the kitchen, shooting me knowing looks every time I walked back there to restock the display case.
But my attention kept drifting back to Stephen.
He sat at that table for hours, his focus entirely on the journal. Sometimes his jaw would tighten. Sometimes his hand would curl into a fist. Once, I saw him close his eyes and take a deep, shuddering breath that made my own breath catch in my throat.
What is in that journal?
The question gnawed at me, but it wasn’t about curiosity or suspicion; it was about concern.
Because whatever was written on those pages was hurting him.
I could see it in the way his jaw tightened as he read, the way his shoulders carried tension that hadn’t been there when he’d kissed me this morning. The way his hand would curl into a fist on the table, knuckles white, before he’d force himself to relax and turn another page. Each gesture was a small act of violence against himself, a physical manifestation of whatever pain those words were inflicting.
My heart began to pound in a way that had nothing to do with attraction and everything to do with the desperate need to fix something I couldn’t even see.
I wanted to go to him. Wanted to put my hand on his shoulder, ask if he was okay, offer him... what? Comfort? Understanding? I didn’t even know what he needed. My hands trembled as I wiped down the espresso machine, my movements jerky and distracted. A customer asked me a question twice before I heard them. My chest felt tight, constricted, like I couldn’t quite draw a full breath.
Whatever was in that journal was private, personal. I wasn’t entitled to that information simply because we’d spent the night together. I knew that. Understood it intellectually.
And I respected that.
I did.
That didn’t stop me from worrying about him. Didn’t stop the ache that bloomed in my chest every time I caught sight of him hunched over those pages, lost in whatever darkness they contained.
I watched him close his eyes again, his hand coming up to rub his face. The gesture was weary, defeated in a way I’d never seen from him before. Stephen Hartley was confidence and charm and cocky grins. He was the man who’d walked into my bakery six months ago and decided I was worth pursuing, worth the excessive tips and the crass flirtation and the relentless presence. The man who’d made me feel alive in ways I’d thought were long dead.
This man, the one sitting at the table by the window with grief etched into every line of his face, was someone different. Someone vulnerable. Someone carrying a weight I couldn’t see but could feel radiating off him in waves. And seeing him like this, broken and hurting and unreachable, made something inside me crack open.
And that terrified me. Not because I didn’t trust him, but because I cared about him more than I’d admitted to myself until this moment. Because seeing him hurt made my chest ache in a way I hadn’t felt in decades. This wasn’t the comfortable, steady ache of losing Terry. This was sharp and immediate and all-consuming. This was the kind of caring that could destroy me if I let it.
I wanted to take that pain away. Wanted to cross the room and wrap my arms around him and tell him he didn’t have to carry it alone. But I also knew that some things couldn’t be fixed with words or gestures or even love.
Some things just had to be endured.
So I stayed behind the counter, serving customers and refilling coffee, my movements automatic while my mind spiraled. I smiled when I needed to smile, made change with shaking hands, and all the while I watched him read. Watched him hurt. Watched him carry whatever burden those pages held. Each moment felt like a small eternity, each second stretching out as I waited for him to look up, to acknowledge me, to give me some sign that I mattered more than whatever secrets were written on those pages.
And I waited.
Because when he was ready—ifhe was ready—I’d be here.
He looked up then, as if he could feel my gaze, and our eyes met across the bakery.
