Chapter 23 #2
“Cooper developed the flavor himself,” Ryan told her. “He’s been experimenting with different syrup combinations for weeks.”
Something that might have been respect flickered in my mother’s eyes. “You always were meticulous about your interests.”
The conversation shifted to other topics—Lily’s school projects, Ryan’s work at the bank. But I caught my mother watching the shop operations with growing interest. When I brought Lily a heart-shaped cookie, my mother actually smiled slightly.
Her gaze landed on Jack at the counter. “He seems to fit in.”
The simple statement, free of the usual criticism that colored her comments about my life, caught me off guard. “He does.” Jack interacted with customers with genuine friendliness and warm smiles.
So why was he so distant with me? It made no sense.
For a moment, I just watched Jack as he worked, the noise and hustle of the shop fading to the background.
There was an ease to his movements, a confidence as he chatted with customers and slipped sleeves onto cups, that made my breath catch.
Then Lily asked for more whipped cream and pulled my attention back to her.
My family stayed longer than I expected. My mother actually engaged in conversation with several regular customers who stopped by to say hello. When they finally prepared to leave, my mother paused.
“I’m…impressed, Cooper,” she said, the words clearly difficult for her. “With the business you’ve built.”
I was so stunned I could only nod.
“Perhaps your father and I misjudged the viability of this…endeavor.” Her gaze swept the packed shop once more.
“Thank you.” The words felt inadequate. “That means a lot.”
As I watched my mother walk out of the coffee shop, the bell chiming behind her, I found myself completely mystified by what had just transpired.
This was the same woman who had criticized nearly every decision I’d ever made, who had dismissed my dreams and questioned my choices at every turn.
Yet she’d just complimented Jack, acknowledged how well he fit into my life, and done it all without a single barbed comment or passive-aggressive dig.
I had no clue what had caused this shift in her attitude—whether it was seeing Jack fit into my life, seeing the success of the event, or something else entirely—but I wasn’t about to question it.
For the first time in years, my mother had looked at something in my life and found it worthy of approval.
Whatever had changed, I was grateful for it.
The lunch rush finally ended. It was still busy, but I couldn’t take Jack’s strange behavior any longer—the way he’d been avoiding my eyes all day, the careful distance he maintained whenever we passed each other behind the counter. I needed answers.
“Jessica, Marco,” I called out and untied my apron. “Can you two handle things for a bit? Jack and I are going to grab lunch.”
Jessica nodded, already moving toward the espresso machine. “Take your time.”
“Jack,” I said, my voice carefully neutral. “Let’s take a break. Grab a sandwich.”
He looked like he wanted to refuse, but after a moment’s hesitation, he plated a roast beef and cheddar sandwich and followed me into the office.
The small space felt even more cramped with the tension radiating between us.
Jack sat rigidly in the chair across from my desk, his Americano untouched, while I picked up my veggie panini with hands that weren’t quite steady.
“Okay.” I set my food aside, appetite gone. “What’s wrong? And don’t tell me you’re fine—you’ve been acting like a stranger all day.”
Jack’s jaw tightened, and when he finally looked at me, his eyes were filled with hurt so raw it took my breath away. “How can you even ask me that? After the text you sent last night?”
“What text?” Confusion washed over me. “Jack, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t.” His voice was quiet but sharp. “Don’t pretend you don’t remember.” He pulled out his phone, his fingers shaking as he scrolled through his messages. “This one.”
He turned the screen toward me, and my blood ran cold as I read the words displayed there.
I’ve been thinking. These attacks have made me realize I need to focus on the coffee shop. Let’s go back to being friends. I’m sorry.
“Jesus Christ.” The words fell from my lips in a horrified whisper. “Jack, I didn’t send this. I would never—” I grabbed my own phone, frantically pulling up my message history with him. “Look, see? The last text I sent you was about Garrett missing Shaw at the motel. There’s nothing after that.”
Jack leaned forward, studying both screens with the intensity of someone trying to solve a puzzle. Slowly, understanding dawned in his eyes, followed immediately by fury.
“That bastard,” he breathed. “Shaw used a man-in-the-middle attack. He must have set up a stingray—a fake cell tower—somewhere nearby and intercepted our phone signals. He sent the text, making it appear to come from your number.”
Relief flooded through me so powerfully I felt dizzy. “So you don’t believe I actually—”
“Not anymore,” Jack said quickly, reaching across the desk to grab my hand. “I was devastated because I thought you meant it.” He squeezed my fingers and shook his head. “I was an idiot. I should have known it wasn’t really you.”
“How big is a stingray?” I asked, my mind already racing ahead to the implications. “Where would he put it, if the stingray needs to be close enough to intercept our signals?”
“It could be briefcase-sized. Easy to hide in a car parked on the street, somewhere with line of sight to the coffee shop and my apartment.” Jack was already pulling up technical specifications on his phone. “He’d want to position it where it could catch the strongest signals from both our phones.”
A chill ran down my spine. “There’s been an SUV parked in the alley behind the shop for two days. I thought it was weird, but didn’t think much of it.”
The blood drained from Jack’s face. “Let’s go,” he said.
We left my office and walked down the hallway toward the back door, Jack’s hand warm and reassuring in mine.
I pushed open the heavy door to the alley, and there it was: the silver SUV with tinted windows that had been parked in the same spot for two days, looking innocuous enough but now seeming sinister.
“That’s it,” I said, pointing toward the vehicle wedged between the dumpster and the brick wall of the building across the alley.
Jack pulled out his phone and held it up, his expression growing more certain as he watched the signal strength bars.
“Signal’s definitely stronger here,” he confirmed, then looked up at me with grim satisfaction. “This has to be—”
The SUV’s door suddenly burst open, and a man stumbled out, his eyes wild when he spotted us. For a split second, we all froze. Then the man bolted.
“Stop!” I shouted, but he was already sprinting down the narrow alley toward the street.
I took off after him, my feet pounding against the cracked asphalt.
The man was fast, but desperation made me faster.
I could hear Jack behind me, his voice urgent as he called Garrett and yelled that we’d found Shaw.
Shaw stumbled slightly on a piece of broken asphalt, and I launched myself forward and tackled him hard to the ground.
My shoulder took the brunt of the fall, and I grunted.
“Get off me!” Shaw writhed beneath me, trying to throw me off. “You can’t prove anything!”
“We’ll see about that,” I panted, sitting on Shaw and pinning his shoulders down as he continued to struggle. Behind me, I could hear Jack giving Garrett our location, his voice tight.
Shaw kept twisting and cursing, but I held him firm until the wail of a siren filled the alley and Garrett’s Interceptor screeched to a stop near the mouth. Garrett jumped out, his hand on his weapon.
“Cooper, step back,” Garrett commanded, moving in with practiced efficiency. He hauled Shaw to his feet and cuffed him while reading him his rights, Shaw protesting his innocence the entire time.
Once Garrett secured Shaw in the back of his Interceptor, he walked over to us and pulled out his phone. “Let’s test this theory of yours.”
We gathered around Shaw’s SUV, all three of us checking our signal strength. The bars on our phones were noticeably stronger there than they’d been just twenty-five feet away.
“That’s our smoking gun,” Garrett said with satisfaction. “I’ll get a search warrant for the vehicle. In the meantime...” He walked back to his Interceptor and returned with a roll of yellow crime scene tape, quickly cordoning off the SUV. “A deputy is on her way to watch the scene.”
After the deputy arrived, Garrett drove away with Shaw. Jack and I stood in the alley, the weight of what had just happened settling over us.
“It’s over,” Jack said quietly, and the relief in his voice matched the flood of emotion washing through me.
“It’s really over.” I pulled him into my arms, holding him tight against my chest. “No more looking over our shoulders, no more wondering when the next attack will come.”
We stood there for a long moment, just breathing each other in, before Jack pulled back with a smile that lit up his entire face.
“Come on,” he said, taking my hand. “We have a Valentine’s Day event to run, and with the air cleared between us we can actually enjoy it.”
Walking back into the coffee shop, I felt lighter than I had in weeks, and I realized that with Shaw finally caught and the cyberattacks behind us, nothing stood in the way of what Jack and I could become.
The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of Valentine’s Day customers and nervous energy. By the time we reached closing, I was exhausted but elated. Jack flipped the sign to Closed and leaned against the door with a dramatic sigh.
“We did it.” He straightened his glasses.
“We did it,” I echoed and surveyed the aftermath. Despite the mess of empty cups and scattered napkins, the event had been an unqualified success. “I can’t believe how many people came.”
Jack pushed off from the door and walked toward me. “I can. This place is special, Cooper. You’ve made it special.”
“We made today special,” I corrected him and held his gaze. “I couldn’t have done this without you. Not just the work—though God knows I needed the extra hands—but the ideas, taking down the counterfeit health inspection report and the negative reviews, all of it.”
Something shifted in Jack’s expression—a vulnerability I’d been catching glimpses of more and more lately. “I’m glad I could help.”
On impulse, I pulled him into a hug. Jack’s arms came around me instantly and held me tight. He buried his face in the crook of my neck. We stood like that for a long moment and swayed slightly in the middle of my shop.
When we finally pulled apart, I caught it: that unguarded look in Jack’s eyes, a depth of emotion that made my heart stutter.
It was gone in an instant, replaced by his usual warm grin, but I knew what I’d seen.
The raw emotion there mirrored what I felt growing in my own chest, giving me hope for the conversation we would have.
“We should probably start cleaning up.” He stepped back. “Otherwise, we won’t have time to get ready for the dance tonight.”
“Right.” I struggled to refocus. “Aaron and I can clean up if you want to go home and change.”
“I don’t mind staying,” Jack said, already gathering discarded cups. “Three pairs of hands will make it go faster.”
Aaron emerged from the back room with cleaning supplies. “This place is a disaster.” He shook his head. “I’ve never seen it so busy.”
We worked together and restored the shop to order. As we moved around each other in the familiar space, a certainty was growing inside me, impossible to ignore.
I didn’t want this to end.
Not just the day, but everything: the way we’d been growing together these past four weeks, the easy companionship, the shared moments both public and private.
And it wouldn’t, if I had anything to say about it.
“Good day?” Jack jolted me out of my reverie. He held out a cup of our house blend, his expression curious.
“The best.” I took the mug gratefully. “Beyond my expectations.”
“Mine too.” He leaned against the counter beside me. Our shoulders touched, and his warmth seeped through my shirt. “Your mom seemed to come around a bit.”
I snorted. “That was unexpected. It’s the first time she’s acknowledged that the coffee shop might not be a complete waste of my time.” I turned to him. “And she seemed more accepting of my having a boyfriend.”
“Progress,” Jack said with a slight smile. “Baby steps.”
“Progress,” I said, my thoughts already turning to the evening ahead. “Are you ready for the dance tonight?”
Jack winced. “As ready as I’ll ever be. What if we’re crowned king and king of the dance?” A flush rose in his cheeks.
I chuckled. “Then we’ll be gracious,” I said. “A good way to cap off the day as the couple the town expects.”
Jack’s grin returned. “It will be. We’ll make it memorable.”
As we finished cleaning and I locked the shop behind us, I felt a strange mix of exhaustion, satisfaction, and anticipation. The day had been a triumph. The event was a hit, the air was cleared between Jack and me, and Shaw was in jail. Tonight would be our grand finale as a temporary couple.
But after that? After that, I hoped for a beginning—a real one, with no boundaries or bargains or expiration dates. Just Jack and me, figuring it out together.