Chapter 14
Chapter fourteen
Sadie
Heartbreak Before It Begins
The worst part about heartbreak is how quickly your body recognizes it. Before your mind catches up. Before logic settles in. Before someone officially leaves.
Your body knows first. Mine knows the second I overhear Colby say: “I don’t even want New York anymore.”
Because that means New York was real enough to consider. Real enough to choose. Real enough to leave for. I barely remember carrying the trash bags to the dumpster behind the bakery.
Snow falls softly around me while the cold air burns my lungs, but all I can hear is the rest of the conversation echoing in my head.
The Vipers want an answer soon. Huge market. Fresh start. Career reset.
Of course, this… this thing between us was temporary. What did I honestly think would happen? That a nationally famous hockey player would suddenly decide small-town bakery life mattered more than career opportunities? That men like Colby Reid would want to stay?
I grip the dumpster lid hard enough that my fingers ache, because the truly humiliating part isn’t that he’s leaving. It’s that some stupid, hopeful part of me had started imagining that maybe he wouldn’t.
His car door opens behind me and I instantly freeze.
Colby’s footsteps crunch softly through fresh snow. “Sadie?”
His voice drops quieter when he says my name, and suddenly I can’t survive hearing it.
***
I straighten quickly without turning around. “Need something?”
Silence.
Too much silence.
Then: “You okay?”
There it is again. That awful, wonderful gentleness.
I force myself to finally look at him. Snow catches in his dark hair. Cold reddens his cheeks slightly.
His expression is careful and concerned and painfully sincere. Temporary.
Everything about him is temporary.
“I’m fine,” I say.
His eyes narrow almost immediately. Because apparently, he already knows when I’m lying.
Wonderful.
“Sadie—”
“You should probably take your call.”
The words come out sharper than I intend.
Confusion flickers across his face instantly. Then understanding hits. Not full understanding. Just enough to know that something has changed.
“You overheard me.”
Not a question.
I cross my arms tightly against the cold. “You don’t owe me explanations.”
His jaw tightens slightly. “I wasn’t hiding it.”
“I know.”
That’s somehow worse. Because if he wasn’t hiding it, then this was always inevitable.
New York.
Trades.
Big-market hockey.
Real life.
Not Briar Cove.
Not us.
The silence stretches too long between us while snow falls harder around the alley lights.
Finally, Colby says quietly, “It’s complicated.”
A laugh almost escapes me. Everything always becomes complicated right before somebody leaves.
“I should finish with the clean up,” I say.
His expression shifts. Not angry. Hurt. And somehow that hurts me too.
“Sadie—”
“Goodnight, Colby.”
I walk back inside before he can say anything else.
Coward.
Complete coward.
But if I stay out there another minute, I might ask the one question I absolutely cannot survive hearing answered. Would you have stayed?
The rest of the evening feels wrong after that. Too quiet. Too careful.
Colby comes in and helps finish cleanup inside the bakery like always, but now every tiny thing hurts.
The way he automatically rinses frosting bowls, the way he reaches past me for towels without bumping me, the way his voice lowers instinctively around Jillie.
Temporary.
Temporary.
Temporary.
I repeat the word in my head like armor, because if I let myself forget even once, this will destroy me.
Worse: it will destroy Jillie.
That thought steadies me instantly. Not me. Her.
Protect her first. Always.
So, I start pulling back immediately.
I stop teasing him. Stop lingering beside him at the counter. Stop letting my fingers brush his “accidentally on purpose” when we reach for coffee mugs.
I step away first now.
And Colby notices every single change.
***
The next morning at the bakery, Colby arrives and asks: "Where's management?"
I answer quietly that Jillian has already caught the school bus but don’t elaborate further.
I keep my voice painfully polite and assume that he will get the picture.
And he does.
“Can you hand me the tray?”
“Thank you.”
“Could you refill napkins?”
No teasing. No warmth. No us.
By ten o’clock the tension becomes unbearable. Mrs. Bellamy notices, because nothing escapes a seventy-year-old woman fueled entirely by caffeine and gossip.
She corners me near the espresso machine while Colby helps a customer near the front windows.
“What did you do?” she whispers.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“That boy looks emotionally confused.”
“I’m sure he’ll survive.”
Mrs. Bellamy gasps softly. “Oh, this is serious.”
I pretend not to hear her, mostly because if I start talking, I might cry directly into the scone display.
Across the bakery, Colby glances toward me again. The look in his eyes twists something painful in my chest.
Confused.
Frustrated.
Worried.
Good. Maybe confusion will help him detach faster. Maybe if I create enough distance now, Jillie won’t feel it so hard later.
The thought almost convinces me.
Almost.
That is, only until lunch rush ends and I catch Colby watching me from the prep counter. He waits until Mrs. Bellamy disappears into storage before speaking quietly.
“Did I do something wrong?”
Simple question. Gentle question. Dangerous question.
Because the truthful answer is: Yes.
You showed up.
You stayed.
You made my daughter trust you.
“No,” I say quickly.
“Sadie.”
The way he says my name nearly breaks my resolve on impact.
I force myself to keep wiping the counter. “We should probably just remember what this actually is.”
His expression changes immediately.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I laugh softly without humor. “Come on, Colby.”
“Seriously. What changed?”
Everything.
Nothing.
The future.
New York.
The possibility of losing him before I even fully let myself have him.
But I cannot say any of that out loud. So instead: “This was always temporary.”
The words visibly hit him.
Good.
Maybe now he’ll stop looking at me like I’m permanent.
Jillie had arrived after school on the school bus, and she now looks up from her coloring book slowly.
Children always notice tension.
Always.
She studies both of us carefully with that awful quiet wisdom she should not already possess at six years old.
Then: “Did you and Colby have a fight?”
My heart cracks a little.
Instantly.
Colby answers before I can. “No, Bug.”
Jillie looks unconvinced. “You sound weird.”
“We’re just tired.”
Another suspicious look, then she returns to coloring very deliberately while clearly continuing to eavesdrop.
Smart kid.
The rest of the afternoon drags on painfully. I keep my distance and Colby keeps trying to understand why.
Every glance between us feels bruised somehow. And underneath all of it sits one horrifying truth: I miss him already.
That realization nearly undoes me. By bedtime I’m emotionally exhausted.
Jillie falls asleep quickly after insisting her stuffed penguin needed its own blanket arrangement “for emotional support.”
I sit beside her bed longer than usual afterward, listening to the soft sound of snow tapping against the windows.
The house feels colder tonight.
Quieter.
Wrong.
Around midnight, Jillie whimpers softly in her sleep. I immediately lean over her.
“Bug?”
Her eyes flutter open halfway, unfocused from a nightmare. “Mommy?”
“I’m here.”
She curls closer beneath the blankets automatically. I smooth hair back from her forehead while her breathing slowly steadies again.
Then, sleepily: “Colby wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye… right?”
The question hits so hard I physically stop breathing for a second.
There it is. The thing I feared most. She already expects losing him. My throat tightens painfully. Because children who’ve been abandoned before always wait for it to happen again. Always.
I stare down at her tiny sleepy face and remember every single question after Darren left.
Did he forget me?
Was he mad at me?
Maybe if I’m extra good, he’ll come back.
No, I cannot let her survive this twice. “He cares about you very much,” I whisper carefully.
Not an answer. Because I don’t know the answer, and that terrifies me. Jillie drifts back asleep a minute later.
I stay sitting beside her long after, watching her breathe, watching snow move across the windows, and trying to convince myself that distance is the right thing - even while my chest hurts badly enough to feel it physically.
***
The knock at the locked bakery door the next evening doesn’t surprise me.
Somehow, I knew Colby would come. I just hoped I’d be stronger when he did.
The CLOSED sign hangs in the front window while I wipe down counters alone. The bakery smells like sugar and espresso and the peppermint candle that Mrs. Bellamy insists makes customers spend more money.
Another knock. Gentle. Patient.
I close my eyes briefly before unlocking the door. Colby steps inside slowly, snow dusting his shoulders. The second he sees my face, his expression softens.
That nearly ruins me immediately.
“We need to talk,” he says quietly.
I force myself to stay behind the counter like distance matters physically now.
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“That’s not true.”
Silence stretches between us. Heavy. Careful.
Then he asks softly: “What changed?”
Everything inside me tightens painfully, because he genuinely doesn’t know. He truly doesn’t understand what overhearing that trade conversation did to me.
“You got your offer,” I say flatly.
Realization hits his face instantly.
“Sadie—”
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine.”
“Why?” I laugh shakily. “Because I figured out reality?”
His jaw tightens. “You don’t understand.”
“No, I understand perfectly.” My voice cracks despite my best effort. “Briar Cove was temporary. This was temporary. I was temporary.”
His expression hurts to look at now, like I physically wounded him. Maybe now he finally understands how terrifying this feels from my side.
“You think that’s what this is?” he asks quietly.
“What else would it be?”
Silence.
Then: “You matter to me.”
The words land like impact. I grip the counter edge hard enough that my knuckles ache.
“Don’t,” I whisper.
His eyes lock onto mine. Too honest. Too open.
“Sadie—”
“You’re leaving anyway,” I snap suddenly. Emotion finally cracks wide open inside me. “So maybe we should stop pretending this matters before Jillie gets hurt.”
The second her name leaves my mouth, everything changes.
Colby goes completely still. And suddenly he understands all of it. Not my pride. Not my anger. My fear.
Jillie.
Always Jillie.
Silence fills the bakery. The heater hums softly overhead. Snow drifts past the windows.
And my heart pounds painfully hard.
Then Colby says very quietly: “I don’t want to leave.”
I freeze. Because the raw honesty in his voice doesn’t sound temporary at all. It sounds terrified. And suddenly something shifts visibly inside him too. It’s like he finally understands the truth in real time, not just that he cares about us, that he loves us.
The realization hits across his face slowly and completely.
I watch it happen. And somehow that’s even more frightening than the trade itself.
Neither of us speaks for several seconds. Then finally Colby steps back slowly. He’s not leaving emotionally, just giving me room to breathe.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says softly.
Not: If you want.
Not: Maybe.
Just certainty. The dangerous kind.
After he leaves, I stand alone in the bakery staring at the locked door while my entire chest aches.
Because I wanted distance. Instead, everything somehow became even more real.
The next morning arrives cold and silver over Briar Cove.
Jillie sits on her usual counter stool while Colby helps unpack flour deliveries near the kitchen.
The tension between us still lingers quietly beneath everything. Careful. Fragile.
I step into the back storage room for more coffee filters.
When I return, Jillie’s small voice drifts softly from the kitchen doorway, quiet enough she thinks I can’t hear.
“If you leave…”
My entire body stills.
“…will you still miss us?”
Silence follows.
And suddenly I realize all over again just how deeply this little girl has already given him her heart.