Chapter 2
Two
Jonah shook a little as he slid out of his truck. The wake of Rory’s birth wasn’t unlike the peculiar mix of exhaustion and adrenaline that hit him after a mission. A healthy dose of anticipation pumped up the buzz as he let himself into the house. Relieved of the worry over his sister and the baby, his mind had been full of Rachel on the near hour’s drive home. He needed to see her. To set her at ease. Because in all his ruminating, he remembered the distress in her eyes when she’d pulled back. She’d probably imagined all kinds of horrible reasons he hadn’t responded, and none of them would be the truth.
More than anything else, he just wanted another chance to kiss her back. To satisfy this craving. Because now that he’d had even the smallest taste of her, he couldn’t turn it off as he’d been doing for all these months.
The under-counter lights were on in the kitchen, along with several lamps in the living room.
“Rachel?”
He moved through the house, automatically angling his head to listen with his good ear. But he heard no reply. She wasn’t curled up with a book or watching TV. Neither was she napping on the sofa. And why should she be? It was after ten. She’d probably gone to bed a while ago in anticipation of the early hour she’d be up for work in the morning.
Jonah found confirmation in the form of a note on the kitchen counter.
Headed to bed. Audrey told me the baby was here. Congrats, Uncle Jonah! You’ve been up forever and a day, so sleep in tomorrow. Holt and I have the bakery covered.
She’d signed her name in the familiar looping scrawl he’d memorized in the commercial kitchen where she’d trained him.
Before he could think better of it, Jonah found himself standing outside the door of her room, his hand inches from the panel. But he stopped himself before knocking. No matter what had happened last night, she was here to do them a favor. Waking her for this conversation wasn’t smart or kind. Laying a hand against the door, he sighed with a mix of regret and resignation. It would keep. He just needed to wake up when she did to go in tomorrow morning. He’d set an alarm.
Too wired to sleep himself, and suddenly ravenous, Jonah retreated to the kitchen to scrounge up some food. The vending machine fare and hospital cafeteria options hadn’t done much to hold him over. He found a container of leftover chicken noodle casserole Rachel must’ve made. Not wanting to risk waking her with the microwave, he shoveled in bites cold as he leaned against the counter.
The talons of a headache dug into his skull, squeezing just hard enough to remind him he’d pushed himself too far, too hard, and if he didn’t get some proper rest, he’d be leveled with another of the debilitating migraines that were the bane of his existence. He’d had a lot fewer since he’d come home, but there were still regular enough aftereffects from the post-concussion syndrome he’d wrestled with for months after the accident that he couldn’t feel fully normal. By rote, he lifted his hand and rubbed two fingers over the ridge of tissue on the back of his skull. His hair had grown back, covering the scar, but he’d never forget it was there, even if he couldn’t clearly remember how he’d gotten it. Having read the mission report, that was probably a blessing.
Dropping his hand, his gaze fell on the clunky old radio shoved back into a corner beneath the upper cabinets. He didn’t know why he kept the damned thing. A relic from the seventies, the sound quality was barely adequate, and it took up more than a reasonable amount of counter space. Maybe he hadn’t tossed it because it was one of the few good memories he had of his dad. They’d taken the thing apart just to see how it worked. But it had been Jonah who’d put it back together. Because Lonnie Barker had not been a man who repaired things. He only broke them. It was what he’d done to their family, walking away when Jonah was eight years old, leaving him to take care of his mom and sister. It was a job he’d never shirked. Family was everything, and Jonah had spent his life trying to make up for the deficiencies of his deadbeat father. Living his life with honor.
Lonnie had died more than a year ago now and surprised the hell out of all of them when he’d left everything to Jonah and Sam, the kids he’d had nothing to do with in years. Not that everything had been much. The contents of his house and the decrepit bar he’d devoted his life to for the past twenty-odd years. They’d done the bare minimum. Jonah had boxed up the contents of the house, donating most of the furniture and putting the rest in storage until they felt like dealing with it. Sam would’ve been content burning it all, including the bar itself. But Jonah had looked at the building and seen possibilities. So much so that he’d dragged Holt and Brax down to Tennessee to start their own bakery once they’d graduated from Dr. Graham’s program.
It hadn’t been all smooth sailing. The project had been plagued with problems from the beginning. Vandalism. Theft. An attack on Mia, who’d been their contractor for the renovation. Multiple crimes that they’d attributed to other things. But at this point, Jonah was pretty sure they’d been wrong about all of it. At the end of the day, he suspected that all the trouble that had come to their door could be laid at Lonnie’s feet because of something he’d been involved with before he’d died. Jonah had always suspected his dad of something shady.
And before anyone else got hurt, he was determined to get to the bottom of what it was.
Having been a professional baker all of her adult life, Rachel was accustomed to keeping early hours. Being up well before the sun suited her most of the time. But that was with coffee and the freedom to move around without having to worry about waking anyone. When not on shift at the firehouse, John had slept like the dead. Jonah’s training as a SEAL meant he tended to be alert and awake at the slightest noise, so she hadn’t even tried to start coffee, and she’d carried her shoes with her to the door, figuring she’d walk softer in bare feet. It felt like doing the walk of shame. As if she were sneaking out of his bed, instead of just his house.
His truck was in the drive when she eased down onto the front steps to put on her shoes. She hurried through the process, expecting the porch light to go on at any moment. When she made it to the car without interruption, she heaved a sigh of relief. Now if he’d only sleep through the starting of the engine, she’d be home free. At least for a few more hours. That’d be hit or miss, depending on whether his good or bad ear was aimed toward this side of the house. And that just sent her brain on a merry little trip wondering how he slept. On his back? On his side? On his stomach, with those long, strong limbs spread out like a starfish?
Focus, McCleary.
She cranked the engine and eased out of the driveway, keeping her eyes on the house in the rearview mirror as she slowly rolled down the street. No lights came on to indicate she’d woken him.
Finally relaxing, her mind shifted to recipes as she headed toward town. Though it had been more than a year, her brain clicked into planning mode automatically, mentally reviewing the contents of the walk-in cooler and storeroom she’d perused on Friday, and calculating what different things she could juggle to best maximize oven capacity and the time she had before the bakery opened. She realized she’d missed this, missed the anticipation of the work and the challenge of beating the clock. For the first time in a long time, she felt like doing things again. That was another little sign of healing. She’d finally reached a place where she could celebrate those small milestones instead of grieving them.
No one else was on the road. She enjoyed being awake when everyone was asleep. No one was giving her looks of pity or asking questions in that hesitant, careful way. No one was checking on how she was doing, eying her as if she were seconds away from falling apart. That had been the recurrent theme of her life since John died, and she was beyond tired of it. She’d loved her husband, and she’d grieved him. But her life wasn’t over, and it was past time for her to start living it again. She just didn’t think she could do it in Syracuse, where memories slapped her in the face on every corner.
That was part of what this stint in Tennessee was about. Testing out the small-town life, seeing if it was something she could be happy with. She liked the idea of it. Of becoming part of a smaller community. Somewhere she could learn the locals and where they could get to know her as her, not as that poor, young widow.
Eden’s Ridge was a cute little town—emphasis on the little. Downtown consisted of about three blocks along Main Street, with a handful of other streets running crossways and parallel that hosted a variety of businesses. She drove past several on the way to the bakery, which was, itself, on the outskirts of town. The two-screen movie theater. The grocery store, Garden of Eden. Gift shops. Jonah’s mom’s salon. Crystal’s Diner of the famed grilled mac and cheese sandwich, which she had yet to try. All shuttered and dark at this hour. But later on, the sidewalks would be filled with people moseying about their day. Her “Yankee sensibilities”, as Jonah would say, couldn’t consider the speed at which Southerners seemed to go about life as bustling. But she liked the slower speed. Liked the fact that people here felt as if they had the time to stop and talk to their neighbors and friends. It felt more personal. Not that she didn’t have those connections back home. But she had them because it was home. Starting over somewhere entirely new seemed less intimidating to do in a small town.
She’d thought maybe of doing it here. Not because of Jonah—or, at least, not entirely because of him. But because of all the guys and their wives. Because she legitimately liked the town. But after The Incident, she’d probably screwed that up as a possibility. She didn’t want to analyze the fresh surge of grief she felt at the idea that she’d taken that choice away from herself. Those were thoughts for after coffee. She’d brew a pot when she got inside, and start on dough for some cinnamon rolls.
Gravel crunched under her tires as she pulled into the bakery’s driveway. She drove up the little hill and parked in front of the building. The original structure had been an uninspiring cinderblock rectangle. She hadn’t seen it in person, but Jonah had sent pictures when he’d asked for her opinion on converting it into a bakery. Brax’s wife Mia had done the design, gutting the inside and covering the outside with siding now painted a rich forest green. A wide porch wrapped around three sides, and a bright tin roof accented the whole. It was woodsy and masculine and absolutely fit the three men who’d opened Bad Boy Bakers. The teacher in her was beyond proud of what her students had accomplished.
Mind on the coffee to be brewed, Rachel climbed out of the car and strode toward the rear entrance that led into the kitchen, one hand groping in her purse for keys. Okay, seriously, where the hell were they? She really had to clean out all the receipts and other garbage in here. No one who wasn’t a mom should have a purse with this much crap in it.
A scraping sound had her head whipping up, her feet coming to a halt. Gooseflesh erupted along her arms, all the hair standing up.
I shouldn’t be here.
The certainty of it was immediate and visceral, even before she spotted motion by the back dumpster. Was it an animal digging for food? Shit, they had bears here. But the shape she could make out against the dark blue of the dumpster wasn’t an animal. It was very definitely human.
Holt’s truck wasn’t here, so it wasn’t him. Lights weren’t on inside, and he would’ve called out, anyway. Heart pounding, she began to back away. She needed to get to the car and call Jonah. Or 911. Something. But she had to get to the car first. Turning to run, she cursed when she bumped into one of the tables set outside for customers who wanted to enjoy the view.
Shit. Shit. Shit!
Footsteps sounded behind her, and the acrid taste of fear coated her mouth and throat as she stumbled on a chair, nearly going down. But she caught herself and lurched forward in an awkward run, digging for some more speed as she neared the corner of the building. Someone cursed and then a weight hit her square between the shoulders. She screamed as she lost her balance, flying forward toward the rail. Then the world exploded in a shock of white and pain before everything went dark.