Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
By lunchtime the next day, I’d told myself at least six times that it didn’t matter whether Oliver came in or not. By half past twelve, that lie was starting to feel a little thin.
The bakery was busy, the way it always was when the snow fell thick and everyone decided soup and bread were a better idea than braving the supermarket.
Our Saturday lad, Jamie, rushed between tables with bowls of cullen skink and baskets of warm rolls, cheeks flushed, hair sticking up at odd angles.
“You aw richt, Bri?” he asked at one point, grabbing a tray from the counter. “You keep lookin’ at the door. Expectin’ someone?”
“No, of course not,” I said, a little too quickly. “I just can’t believe how busy it is today.”
The bell above the door had been jingling nonstop for the past hour. Teachers on their lunch break, fishermen with frozen fingers, families trying to warm up after the snow and the elderly folk coming in for their lunch.
But not him.
Not once.
Everyone else.
Except him.
By now, Oliver usually would’ve been sitting at his table by the window. Laptop open and coffee in hand, pretending not to be delighted when I brought over whatever new thing I’d been experimenting with. Instead, his chair sat empty, and it seemed stupid how much I noticed his absence.
I wiped the same patch of counter for the third time, replaying the night before in my head. The ice. The slip. His hands catching me, firm and sure and far too gentle. The way his voice had dropped when he said, Got you. My cheeks burned just thinking about it.
Maybe it had been nothing, just a reflex.
Maybe he was being a gentleman. But the memory of his hands at my waist didn’t feel like nothing.
What if it had made things weird? What if he regretted it this morning?
What if he’d decided that coming into the bakery every day felt too much like something it wasn’t supposed to be?
“Bri?”
I blinked. Jamie was standing in front of me, holding an empty tray.
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “What?”
“We’re out of the tomato soup,” he said, fighting a smile. “And you just put the sugar jar in the fridge.”
I glanced at the fridge door. Sure enough, a jar of sugar sat proudly on the top shelf.
“Oh,” I muttered. “Right. I’ll, uh… fix that.”
He snorted and went back out front.
By two o’clock, the rush had died down. The bakery settled into a soft, sleepy hum, the kind that came with low conversation, the radio whispering carols, and the quiet clink of cups against saucers.
The door swung open again and a blast of cold air swept in. I looked up automatically, heart doing a stupid, hopeful jump. It wasn’t him. Instead, it was Ivy, wrapped in her puffer coat and bobble hat, a shopping bag looped over one arm and a grin already forming like she’d walked in on a secret.
“You’re supposed to be off today,” I said, clearing empty mugs from the counter.
“I am off,” she replied, dropping the bag onto a chair. “I came to check on you.”
“I’m fine.”
“Mhm.” She hung up her coat, shook snow from her hat and hair, and slid onto a stool by the counter. “Your look says otherwise.”
I frowned. “What does that even mean?”
“You’re stiff and weird and keep staring at me.”
“I do not.”
She just stared at me in that way she had, amused, patient, completely unconvinced.
I busied myself with stacking plates. “How’s your day off going?”
“Oh, you know. Quiet trip to the supermarket, bit of Christmas shopping, overheard my entire future lined up for me by the town council.”
I paused. “The what now?”
She leaned in, eyes bright. “You’ll never guess what I heard in the cereal aisle.”
“I don’t want to know,” I muttered, which of course meant she was absolutely going to tell me.
“So there I am, minding my business, deciding between bran and something that actually tastes like food, and who do I hear but the over-sixties committee.”
I groaned softly. “Not the knitting group.”
“Oh, the knitting group,” she said, clearly delighted. “And apparently, they had front-row seats at Winter Wonderland last night.”
My stomach did a small, traitorous flip. “And?”
“And…” she said, lowering her voice dramatically, “according to them, there was ‘that city boy’ and ‘our Brianna Hart’ looking very cosy on the ice.”
My jaw dropped. “We were not–I nearly fell!”
“Uh-huh,” Ivy said, resting her chin on her hand. “Apparently, he caught you. Very romantically. In his arms. Under the lights. With the snow. Honestly, I’m offended that I missed it.”
Heat crawled up my neck. “They’re exaggerating.”
“Probably,” she allowed. “But then Mrs. MacLeary chimed in and said she saw you two walking back through the square. And then—” She paused for effect. “One of the ladies from the post office said she spotted him in McFarlane’s Clothing this morning.”
That made me blink. “McFarlane’s?”
“The place with the overpriced jumpers and thermal socks,” Ivy said. “Apparently, he was buying a stack of new clothes. And…” she added, lifting a finger, “a bigger duffle bag.”
A bigger duffle bag.
My first thought was ridiculous and immediate: He’s leaving.
The next thought came just as quickly, knocking the wind out of that one: No. He wouldn’t need more clothes if he were leaving sooner.
“He bought more clothes?” I asked, trying to sound casual and failing miserably.
“According to Mrs. MacLeary, yes. Jumpers, shirts, socks, the works. It looked like he was planning to be here for a while.” She tilted her head. “And yet… he didn’t stop in for lunch.”
I swallowed. “Maybe he was busy.”
“Maybe,” she agreed easily. “Or maybe someone’s been acting a little weird since last night and he picked up on it.”
“I was not acting weird,” I protested.
“You were seen practically sprinting into your building,” she said. “He walked you all the way back and you bolted like your life depended on it.”
“I did not bolt.”
She just raised an eyebrow.
My shoulders slumped. “Okay, I may have bolted a bit.”
“Bri,” she said gently, “there is no harm in having a little fun sometimes”
I stared down at the cloth in my hands, twisting it until the fibres creased.
I could still feel his hands at my waist. I could still see how he looked under the Christmas lights and the way he looked at me, like… like I was more than just the woman whose life he’d been sent to uproot.
“I’m just not interested in getting caught up with someone,” I said quietly. “I’m just being realistic. He’s here to potentially sell my building and kick me out of my home. We are nothing to each other.”
She watched me for a long moment, her expression softening.
“He’s buying more clothes,” she said. “He may not be running off the minute the snow clears. And if the knitting group says you looked ‘couple’ly’ last night…” Her lips twitched. “I’m just saying, maybe you’re not the only one who felt something on that ice.”
My chest tightened. “Ivy, he only packed for a few days when he first arrived, he has a home and a life to get back to. Maybe not tomorrow, heck maybe not even next week. But he will once the flights start again.”
“I bet he could have got a taxi to drive him to the first airport or even caught a coach home,” she said. “But he hasn’t and he’s here.”
I glanced instinctively toward the bakery window, out at the square dusted in white, the path he usually walked down from the hotel. I pulled in a slow breath and forced myself to turn back to the counter.
“I’ve got too much to lose. This bakery, this place is everything to me and I am just hopeful he sticks to his promises, and I don’t lose my home,” I paused feeling my heart begin to race.
Ivy didn’t argue. She just reached over and gently squeezed my hand.
“I understand that” she said softly, “But have you stopped to think, maybe this is all fate and meant to happen this way.”
I didn’t have an answer for that.
So, I did what I always did, rolled my eyes a little and went back to work, back to the ovens, back to the comfort of sugar and flour and recipes that never surprised me.
But all afternoon, every time the bell over the door rang, my heart leaped before my head could catch up. And every time it wasn’t him, the ache settled a little deeper, quiet and stubborn, in the space he’d somehow carved out without even trying.