Page 69 of The Witches of Cambridge

“Where are we going?” Jamie asked, already willing to follow her anywhere.

“You’ll see. If I turn the lights on.”

Ava led Jamie to a tiny storage room, and he bent to kiss her before the door was closed behind them, his hands already inside her clothes. There were shelves of vegetables and sacks of coffee beans in the storage room. They locked the door and left the light turned off.

“Are you sure?” Jamie said, his voice thick.

Ava was quick to let him know that she was when she kissed him.

He wasn’t Luke Burroughs, he was only himself, the man she’d fallen in love with without even trying. Ava could have told him the truth, but it would only have broken his heart, and what was the point of that? There’d been enough damage done already. His suitcase took up space in the storeroom and there was almost nowhere to move, but they managed. They were desperate, and there was so little time. The plane ticket was in the pocket of his coat.

Leave the scene of the crime, that’s the last thing his father had told him. Get as far away from Cambridge as you can. It will do you good.

A prep cook from the kitchen pounded on the door and cried, “Hey, I need the canned tomatoes,” and Ava laughed despite herself but Jamie growled “Go away,” because they weren’t about to stop, and eventually the cook gave up and let them be. Frankly, they didn’t care who was outside that small room, or how loud the patrons’ calls for espresso were. They had known what was between them the first night they met, and they knew it now.

“It’s still not enough of a goodbye,” Jamie told her when it came time for him to go.

“You’ll be back, Mr. Burroughs,” Ava said, and he laughed, then leaned in to kiss her one last time, and that was that. The door opened, let in a flicker of light, and closed. Once he was gone, Ava remained in the storeroom, but she didn’t cry. She told herself there was the future to think of, one that had already begun. I’m just telling you a story, Jamie had said, a story about a woman whose beloved watched over her from the treetops, even when she could no longer see him.

Love has nothing to do with the here and now. That’s what he’d said. It’s what we have no matter what else happens.