Ashes to Ink (Montgomery Ink: Colorado Springs #4)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Abby loved tea. She loved everything about it.

The taste, the smell, the way it warmed her up on a cold day or cooled her down on a warm one.

She’d even loved tea when she was a little girl, playing with air in her teacups and treating her stuffed animals and Cabbage Patch dolls to an afternoon tea party.

Her grandmother had taught her the basics of brewing the perfect cuppa, as well as the ratio of sugar cubes needed. Abby had then learned to try tea with all additives: cinnamon sticks, lemon wedges, a dash of cream. Some might consider that ruining it, but Abby had wanted to try it all.

She loved tea bags but adored loose-leaf tea even more. She relished steeping it, blending it, and finding the perfect mix for the season.

So when she found herself looking for a way to create something that was just hers and start over after everything had fallen apart around her, opening the tea shop had seemed like a no-brainer.

Teas’d specialized in loose-leaf tea, but Abby also sold some bagged tea and different teapots and helpful equipment.

It was Abby’s goal in life to make it so others could discover the joys of tea like she had, and maybe find a new favorite along the way. She had always loved the idea of teatime, even if she didn’t have the time to truly sit down and enjoy it herself every day.

Regardless, she adored the scents, loved the idea of falling into a cup—a different flavor every day.

With the resurgence of tea drinkers, it was easier for Abby to find fellow tea lovers as time moved on.

There were big chain tea shops and smaller ones as well, but Teas’d was just for her.

She was a tiny little speck in the idea of tea and how it could serve the needs of the people, but she was the best speck she could possibly be.

She’d had to be after everything changed.

She’d had to be when she lost everything.

Well, not everything. She still had her little girl. Abby grinned down at her phone and swiped up so she could look at the photo on the home screen.

Julia was growing every day and even looked slightly different now than she had in the picture.

Abby still couldn’t quite believe that she and Max had made this beautiful baby girl.

Max might not be around to help raise Julia, but he had been there for the conception and had been there to pick out everything the two of them as new parents would need to raise their child together.

It didn’t hurt as much as it once had to think about Max. Oh, it would always hurt, but at least it didn’t make Abby want to throw up and grieve right then.

She could think about her husband and smile now. She could think about the fact that he had loved her with all of his heart, even if that had been the thing to take him away from her in the end.

And she couldn’t say her feelings didn’t matter now though, because that would be a disgrace to his memory and the fact that she could see Max in her little girl every single day.

Julia would never know her father, but Abby was doing her best to make sure that Julia knew exactly who Max was, and how excited he had been to have Julia in his life.

The two had never met, but Abby knew Max was always watching over them.

There was no other way to think about it. Not when Abby needed to get up every day and breathe—try to be the mom and woman she needed to be.

But today was a new day, just like all the others. Today, she would make some tea, sell some tea, and maybe even have a cookie or two. Because it was Friday, and she was allowed to have a cookie if she wanted.

She just might have a little extra padding on her hips, but that was fine with her. It wasn’t like she was trying to entice a man.

Oh, she’d dated a couple of times in the past year or so, but it hadn’t really amounted to much. She hadn’t been ready, and she didn’t know if she was ready now either.

“What are you looking at over there?”

Abby looked up at the sound of her friend Adrienne’s voice and smiled. Adrienne Montgomery owned the tattoo shop, Montgomery Ink Too, next door and was part of a huge family—way bigger than just the set of cousins that lived near Abby.

The Montgomerys were large, loud, brash, and the sweetest people Abby had ever known. They had taken her in with just one look, much like their cousins in Denver had, and Abby loved every single one of them.

“Just looking at tea,” Abby answered, holding up a couple of tins. “I’m trying to see what I need to put on special. We have good stock of most things, but not all.”

“I don’t know how you do it. I mean, I know how to run a business, and I think I’m doing pretty well, but it takes the advice of two accountants for me to know what I’m doing.”

“Since I have the same two accountants you do, I totally understand.”

Shea was Adrienne’s sister-in-law, and Roxie was Adrienne’s sister. Both were accountants, and pretty much helped run the businesses on this stretch.

The Montgomerys owned two of the businesses—Montgomery Ink Too, and Colorado Icing. While Adrienne and Shep ran the tattoo shop, the Montgomerys’ middle sister, Thea, owned the bakery at the end of the strip.

Abby had a feeling that if there had been more space available, the accountants of the family probably would have moved in as well.

Or maybe even the mechanic, Carter, who was married to Roxie.

In fact, Adrienne was dating one of the tattoo artists, Mace, and that just meant there was more family than ever. More Montgomerys.

Abby didn’t think that Thea’s boyfriend, Dimitri, would be able to move a whole high school into the strip, but if there were a way, the Montgomerys would likely make it happen.

“Your family really is pretty amazing.” Abby grinned as Adrienne rolled her eyes.

“Oh, don’t tell the guys that. I mean, you can tell me, Thea, and Roxie. It’s true, and it’s sort of what we do. We are the touchstone for the Montgomerys.”

They both laughed at that because even though it might be true, every single one of the Montgomerys had their own touchstones when it came to what those around them needed.

“So, have any good tea for me today?” Adrienne asked.

“I have a long project coming up, one that’s gonna take me a few hours and a few sessions.

I could use all the energy I can get. And while I love coffee from Thea’s bakery, I think I’m in the mood for tea today.

Something to keep me wired, but something flavorful as well.

I can head over to Thea’s later for something sugary, or even a sandwich for some protein, but here is where I want my tea. ”

“Well, you’ve come to the right place. Let me set you up with some chai.

I know that’s your favorite.” Abby went around the counter and began working.

She knew the exact blend her friend favored and even had the milk Adrienne so dearly loved to put in it.

She’d make a latte if she could, but she only did that when she visited Thea’s bakery.

Here at Teas’d, it was all about the blends and steeping.

“That and some of that peppermint one for later. It is the holidays. You have some peppermint, too, right?” Adrienne bounced from foot to foot as if she’d already had her caffeine for the day. Knowing Adrienne, she probably had but wanted more. Abby was happy to oblige.

“Oh, I have the peppermint. I also have that white chocolate peppermint bark one that you love.” Both of them smiled, and Abby watched as Adrienne rubbed her stomach with her hand, her eyes comically wide.

“I might have to come back for that later.”

“I can always stop by with some tea. That is what I’m here for.”

“You’re going to be a delivery person for tea as well?”

“I can. Only for my friends.”

Abby didn’t actually serve brewed tea all that often. Most people came to Teas’d for stock rather than just a cuppa. But she did have a couple of places to sit outside, as well as one inside. It was winter in Colorado Springs, so sitting outside wasn’t something that people did often.

But Abby knew some did like to sit outside the bakery at the other end of the strip, drinking their hot cocoa or coffee and braving the cold just because they were Coloradans, and that’s what they did.

And while it didn’t happen often, she loved when people came in for a cup to go, or even stayed to drink out of her ceramic mugs. She had painstakingly searched forever for the cups that she wanted and had ended up just going to Jake Gallagher to have them made.

Jake was an artist. He sculpted with his hands and with his heart. He’d made the mugs for her, as well as other things she could sell in the store.

She knew that he made art. Real art. And though she thought of her teashop as its own kind of art—the way it made others feel was art itself—she knew Jake was in a realm of his own.

With any other person, he might not have tried to help her as he did, but they had a good relationship now, and she liked that their working relationship meant that she could sell his wares and still use everything that he made for her and her customers.

The Gallaghers were connected to the Montgomerys through marriage, and Abby was tied to the Gallaghers through Max since Jake’s brother Murphy had been one of Max’s best friends.

It was odd how everything seemed to tie together and be so close—yet so far away.

She might have felt that she was on the outside looking in once, but that wasn’t the case anymore. The Montgomerys and the Gallaghers wouldn’t allow that.

And while both families had given her space to breathe, they hadn’t given her enough room to bury herself. No, she wasn’t thinking physically, she would never do that. Never to herself, never to Julia, and never to Max’s memory.

But she had needed some time to figure out how to be a single mom in this world. A mom without a real job and with only a savings account for a dream that she’d never thought to have realized in the timeframe she was forced to work in.