2. Grant
GRANT
Acommunity shows its true colors after a natural disaster, and Hope is no exception. As I drive into town, the streets are alive with residents picking up debris, sweeping the road, and checking in on their neighbors.
I come to the intersection of Sycamore and Farrell Streets, and Owen’s sheriff’s car is parked sideways across the road to block access. A young officer is directing traffic away from the main street.
As I drive slowly past, I peer down the main street. It’s a hell of a mess. The ancient sycamore trees in the center of the road have been battered. Branches scatter the street, making it unsafe for any vehicle to drive down.
I park on a side street and jog back to the main street.
Someone’s set up a trestle table with a portable grill and is serving hot dogs and fresh coffee to the volunteers.
The smell of grilled sausages makes my stomach rumble.
I can’t remember the last time I ate. I’ve been up since five helping bring stranded people down the mountain, including my buddy Jace and Kayla, although based on the knowing looks they were giving each other, I suspect they would have happily stayed in that secluded hut another night.
I wolf down the hot dog then grab one for Owen, as well as the young officer who’s directing traffic.
Owen’s speaking to two teenage girls who have come out to help. He directs them to a stack of trash bags and a box of latex gloves.
I’ve never seen the acting sheriff anything but smartly put together and well dressed. But today a button is undone, his shirt is untucked on one side, and there’s dark stubble on his usually clean-shaven jaw. I double back and grab him a strong coffee and another hot dog. He needs it.
Someone’s brought a chainsaw, and they’re chopping one of the large fallen branches into manageable pieces. As I get closer, I recognize Sam, another veteran I’ve gotten to know, and give him a wave.
Shop owners are assessing damage to their stores, and as I move down the street, I take a mental inventory of damage.
The Joe’s Hardware store sign has almost come down, a branch narrowly missed the window of The Mountain Loaf, and a pile of debris blocks the door of Babyland.
It’s close to a storm drain that must have overflowed and dumped the debris it picked up right on their doorstep.
None of the damage to the businesses looks too bad, until I reach Sweet & Strong.
Broken glass spews out from the shop window onto the sidewalk. The sign has come down and lies face down and bent out of shape, and inside there’s damage to the photo wall where the wind and rain must have come in through the broken window.
Something glitters against the asphalt, and I crouch down on the road in front of the shop. In the post-storm sunlight, tiny fragments of glass glitter in the road in front of the cafe.
I peer up at the cafe window and the wide sidewalk between it and the road. It’s strange that a window blown out by a storm could send shards of glass all the way across the sidewalk and onto the road.
I glance around and among the rubble of fallen branches and litter. There’s a rock. It looks weighty, not something easily moved around by wind and rain. It could have come from the water feature opposite the clock tower at the top of the street.
Kayla and Jace turn up holding hands and looking smug. I guess they worked through whatever was holding them back. While Kayla begins to sweep up debris, Jace comes over to where I am, crouched by the rock.
“What is it?” Jace peers down at me, scanning the road.
I point to the broken window and the glass all over the sidewalk.
“This isn’t storm damage.” I say it quietly, voicing my suspicions for the first time. “Look at the way the glass has fallen across the sidewalk. This is deliberate. Someone used the storm as cover to vandalize the bakery.”
I glance at Hannah through the shattered window. She doesn’t need to know until I can confirm.
“Don’t do any more cleanup here,” I tell Jace. “I’m getting Owen.”
I take a picture before anyone can clear it up and walk slowly back up the street looking for rocks. I get all the way to the top and don’t see any stray ones.
Owen’s speaking to an elderly man holding a broom, and I wait until he finishes before approaching.
“I need you to come check something out.”
He frowns. “Everything okay?”
“Could be something, could be nothing.”
But my gut tells me it’s not nothing. Besides, I missed something once and made the wrong decision. I won’t do it again.
“I’ll be there in a minute.”
I grab a traffic cone from the back of Owen’s car and jog back down to Sweet & Strong where I place it over the rock. It could be evidence, and I don’t want it being swept away in the cleanup.
I haven’t spoken to Hannah yet, and if my suspicions are correct, I need to inspect the place before they disturb the evidence.
There’s no sign of forced entry on the door as I nudge it open.
The scent of coffee and baked goods lingers in the air, even though the ovens haven’t been on for two days. Despite the turmoil of the past few days, the long nights and the rescue missions, as soon as I enter the cafe, my chest lightens and fills with warmth.
Hannah is picking up pictures from the floor, and her smile when she sees me has my mouth going dry and my tongue tying more than usual.
But her smile is strained, and I see the pain behind it.
The photo is a family one, her sisters all together with their parents before they passed.
I’ve been here long enough to learn the tragic family history of the Baxter sisters, how they lost their parents and were raised by their grandparents, until their grandmother passed some years ago.
Unable to keep the farm running, the girls opened Sweet & Strong.
It’s a fixture of Hope, the cozy cafe with the photo wall reminding its patrons to hold on tight to those they love, seek connection while you have the chance, and that perseverance through adversity will always win out.
Until it doesn’t.
Hannah is clearing up the evidence of what I suspect is not just storm damage.
“Leave it.” I lunge toward her and put my hand over hers, accidentally knocking the picture to the floor where it lands face down in a puddle of water.
She gasps and grabs the picture, but it’s too late to rescue it from water damage.
“What are you doing?” She stands up with the picture in hand and a furious look on her face.
I curse myself and my clumsiness.
“You need to leave everything where it is.”
She shakes her head like I’m talking nonsense. “Rachel already took pictures for the insurance company. I just want to get this cleaned up.”
She’s distressed, and if I share my suspicions it will only make it worse. But I can’t have her clearing up evidence.
“Owen is coming down to take a look.”
She looks confused. “Is he doing that for every business?”
I ignore the question, not wanting to have to lie, and move through the cafe, sidestepping the broken glass and debris on the floor.
The photo wall is a shambles. Half the images have come down, and others are hanging at jaunty angles. It’s an odd thing for the wind to bring down a picture, unless they weren’t hung properly.
“Who put these up?”
Hannah folds her arms. She’s pissed at me, and I don’t blame her. But I don’t want to add to her worries right now.
“I did. Why?”
The pictures have left a mosaic of bright squares and rectangles where they’ve protected the wall from the sun and kept it in the original bright hue.
“What did you use?”
“I drilled the screw into the wall. I do know how to hang a picture.”
I’m sure she does. What I’ve learned about Hannah, observing her the past few months, is that she’s resourceful. She’s had to be. If I have my way, she’ll never have to hang a picture again. I’ll be the man doing the DIY around the house, making it a home for her.
I push the fantasy out of my mind. I like to dream about an alternate reality where I deserve a woman like Hannah and a family of my own. But I’m in this reality, where I took that away from someone. In this reality, I barely deserve to breathe the same air as her.
A screw pokes out of the wall. The picture must have hung on it ever since they opened this place. If it was a stick-on hook, I could imagine a gust of wind blowing it off, but Hannah’s workmanship looks solid.
I notice something else. The photos remaining on the wall are of the town, Hope in the 1920s when the clock tower was erected and the sycamore trees were saplings.
The photos knocked down are of the Baxter family and their farm. This is personal.
“How many entrances are there to the cafe?”
Hannah must hear the edge to my voice, because her expression goes from annoyed to worried. “The main entrance and the back door.”
“Show me the back door.”
She looks like she wants to ask something, but she doesn’t. Instead, I follow her around the back of the counter, where I’ve never been before, and through the kitchen. There’s a small office to the side, and Rachel sits in an office chair with her phone pressed to her ear.
“She’s on the phone with the insurance company,” Hannah explains.
Past the office is a small corridor that leads to the back door. It opens to a loading bay that’s shared by several businesses.
“Anything unusual when you arrived today?”
“We entered through the front because we wanted to see the damage from the outside. When I came back here, the door had blown open.”
I examine the latch. It’s been smashed as if the door was forced open. It would have to be an extremely strong wind to do that.
“Any of the other businesses along here have their doors blown open?”
“Not that I noticed.” Concern turns to fear as she begins to grasp my suspicions.
I move back through the cafe. I need to ask the other business owners what they found when they arrived and check if their damage is anything like this. I bet it isn’t.
“Can you tell me what the hell is going on?” Hannah follows me through the kitchen and into the cafe and around the counter.
I stop abruptly before the window, and she crashes into the back of me.
Her soft body bounces off my hard one, and that moment of contact breaks through the uneasiness that’s brewing inside me and turns it into something fiercer by reminding me what’s at stake.
A protective instinct surges inside of me.
Someone targeted the cafe and Hannah. She needs my protection.
“I’m your new protection detail.”
I sidestep until I’m in line with the traffic cone and imagine throwing a rock. I map the projection in my mind through the window. Glass shatters across the sidewalk and spills onto the road, the rock rolls a few times and comes to rest. The sound of shattering glass is covered by the storm.
“Sorry, what?”
“From now on, I’m your new bodyguard.”
I head outside, and Hannah is two steps behind. “What are you talking about? I don’t need a bodyguard.”
I reach the cone at the same time as Owen with a furious Hannah behind me. Her eyes blaze and she can be angry with me all she likes, but she’s the one who’s here on her own starting at four in the morning baking. There is no way in hell I’m letting her do that alone.
“What have you got?” Owen asks.
Hannah folds her arms across her chest. “I’d like to know what the hell is going on.”
I can’t protect her any longer from the truth. She may as well hear it. “This wasn’t the storm. This was deliberate.”
“What do you mean?” Hannah’s voice is shaky.
“I mean someone broke into your cafe during the storm, tore down your family photos, and chucked a stone through your window. They used the storm as cover, but it was a targeted attack.”
Hannah’s expression changes, and the anger turns to something else: fear. She’s scared, and that makes me more determined to protect her.
“Who would do that?”
I have my suspicions. Someone’s trying to buy up the land where the Baxter farm is.
Several property owners have been approached.
Some small holdings are selling up, but the Baxters are the second owners to turn down the offer.
It can’t be a coincidence that their main source of income then got targeted.
“Hey!” Owen strides toward a woman with dark bushy hair pulled back in a ponytail which swings as she moves. She has her phone up taking pictures of the damaged cafe. “Put that goddamn phone down.”
The woman spins around, and I recognize Daphne. She writes for the local paper and news site, and I’ve seen her at the cafe sometimes.
“Did you hear any of that?” Owen barks at her.
“Did I hear that someone vandalized Sweet & Strong during the storm, or did I hear that you’re still a shouty asshole blocking me from doing my job?”
He runs a hand through his hair. “I’m serious, Daphne. This is all speculation, and I don’t want any of it to get printed anywhere, not even on your gossipy local Facebook groups.”
“Ouch.” She looks mock offended. “That’s where most of this town gets their news.”
“That explains a lot,” Owen mutters.
Daphne raises an eyebrow. “It was one of those ‘Gossipy Facebook groups’ that mobilized all these volunteers you’re seeing, so...”
Owen huffs out a breath. “I don’t have time for this. Don’t print, or post, anything about what you just heard. This is serious, and it could impede the investigation.”
She puts her hands on her hips. “I won’t say anything, sheriff, on one condition. You come to me when you have the whole story.”
He shakes his head. “I don’t negotiate with journalists. Don’t mention this, and that’s an order.” Owen strides toward the cafe, and Daphne calls after him.
“And I don’t take orders from uptight men.”
Daphne narrows her eyes at him, and I notice how her gaze tracks down to the sheriff’s ass once his back is turned.
But someone else’s secret crush is not my concern.
Hannah is speaking with Rachel, and they both glance over at me.
Hannah’s expression is still annoyed, and I’ll take that over her fear any day.
Owen will have questions for them so I head up the road, giving Hannah a little time to cool off.
I bet she hasn’t eaten, so I grab another two hot dogs from the guy running the grill and take one apiece down to Hannah and Rachel.
As I hand Hannah her hot dog, our fingers touch. It’s a small contact, but that warmth from her little finger is enough to remind me why I need to keep vigilant. I missed something one day, and someone ended up dead. I won’t make that mistake again.
I turn away before she can see my hands trembling and stuff them in my pockets. I can’t change the past, but I will not let anything happen to Hannah.