6. The Offer
The Offer
By the time the second week rolled around, the logistics no longer felt impossible. Numbers, at least, could be contained, lined up in columns, balanced, solved.
Between the sale of her company’s assets and the condo, she could cover the funeral expenses, the severance packages, the remainder on the condo loan, and the last payments on the trucks and equipment.
What was left was modest but workable, a small renovation budget for the house and bakery, a cushion for bills, enough to replace the rusted ovens and the espresso machine that coughed more than it steamed.
And two cars. One for her. One for Emmie.
Jenna had enough. Barely, but enough. The rental was bleeding her dry anyway.
She folded the receipts and notes back into a folder labeled Transition, slid it onto the end table beside the couch, and rubbed her eyes.
She was still sleeping there. Somehow it felt wrong to move into Grace’s room, and the office wasn’t much better.
Every time she stood in the doorway, the air shifted, like the ghost of Grace’s routine still lived there.
Jenna could still hear the hum of Grace’s sewing machine, the scratch of pen on invoices, and even the faint clink of a mug on the desk.
So, Jenna stayed in the living room. Biscuit seemed fine with it.
Emmie, on the other hand, still kept her distance. They coexisted politely, trading short comments about groceries, school emails, and the weather. But each conversation ended with the same unfinished silence. Maybe the new car would help; at least it was something tangible she could give.
Jenna stretched, glancing through the front window toward the bakery. She’d been scoping both properties in her head all week, measuring in her mind, noting what needed repair and what simply needed care.
She could handle design decisions and logistics, but not the exterior paint, the warped floorboards, or the water spots in the ceiling.
What she needed now was a good contractor.
She’d just opened her laptop to start calling around when someone knocked at the front door.
Biscuit bolted from the couch, tail puffed. Jenna pushed the hair out of her eyes and crossed the room, half expecting Aunt Marilyn or a neighbor with another sympathy card.
When she opened the door, her face came level with a man’s chest. Not something that happened often.
He was tall, easily a head taller than most men she knew, with caramel skin, two-day-old scruff, and big hands holding a white pastry box tied with blue ribbon.
There was a faint smear of paint on one cuff, like he’d come straight from a job site.
For a second, she just stared, caught off guard by the sheer presence of him, before he stepped back slightly to meet her eyes.
“Hey,” he said, voice low and even, that velvety Tarpon drawl still there under the surface. “Jenna Hart?”
“Yes.”
The air shifted as she looked up, sunlight framing a body that filled her doorway.
His shirt clung in places she didn’t expect to notice, and his jeans were worn but clean, the fabric stretching over solid muscle.
His hands, broad and capable, the kind that built things and fixed what broke, held the pastry box so gently it almost looked absurd.
The smell of cedar and paint drifted off him.
For a split second, she forgot to breathe, unsure whether it was recognition or something older, more instinctive, that made her pulse quicken.
“Cole Bennett,” he said, offering a gentle smile. “We were in school together—Grace’s year. You were a couple behind us.”
It clicked after a second. “Right. You played basketball.”
He gave a modest shrug. “Still do, sometimes. Church league. Not as fast as I used to be, but the shot’s still there. Didn’t think you’d recognize me.”
She didn’t actually recognize him. Just the name.
Back then, he’d been lean and restless, all elbows and speed; now there was a steadiness in him that made her throat tighten.
The years had squared his jaw and deepened his voice into something low and sure.
She caught herself watching the way his hands moved when he talked, the flex of his forearms beneath sun-worn skin.
Jenna laughed. “You were good,” but the sound came out thinner than she meant it to, her eyes meeting his.
The moment held just a second too long, the kind that left her aware of every inch between them.
His voice wrapped around her when he spoke again, steady and unhurried, with that deep drawl that felt like warm honey.
He didn’t rush to fill the silence, just let it stretch comfortably, as if he understood that silence could be its own kindness.
He grinned, the expression widening enough to show the dimple she didn’t remember. “Are you sure I wasn’t just tall? People confuse that with talent.”
Jenna tilted her head, a teasing spark flickering before she could stop it. “Didn’t you outscore an entire team by yourself once? I’m pretty sure the yearbook called it a massacre.”
Back when you could use that word in a yearbook and no one blinked.
He laughed, deep and genuine, the sound rolling through the stillness between them. “I can’t believe you remember that.”
She didn’t, not really, not until now. “I was on the yearbook staff.”
“Oh, yeah!”
The silence between them thickened. She caught herself wondering if he could hear the way her heart was thudding before he shifted the box in his hands.
He lifted the delicate white box. “I brought these from Hellas. Thought maybe you and Emmie could use something sweet.”
When he offered up the pastries, he shifted them in his hands, then extended it toward her.
Their fingers brushed, barely a second, but it sent a pulse of warmth up her arm that hung around for long after the touch was over.
He must have noticed the way her breath hitched, because his smile softened, the corners of his mouth tugging upward.
He had a way of looking at her that felt both unassuming and too perceptive.
For a heartbeat, she forgot about the grief, the paperwork, the to-do lists.
There was just his voice, low and certain, and the hum under her skin that wouldn’t still.
“Hellas?” she repeated, one eyebrow rising.
“Yeah.” His mouth twitched, part grin, part wince. “Probably not the smartest move. I realized halfway here that showing up with pastries from the competition might not be the best call.”
Jenna laughed under her breath. “Grace would’ve had something to say about that. She was proud of what she built—but she also knew good baklava when she tasted it.”
Cole smiled. “Yeah, Hellas wins on that one. But nobody ever touched her apple pie.”
Jenna’s chest tightened slightly. “Grandma Hart’s recipe.”
“The famous one,” his tone eased. “I can smell it every time I drive past this place.”
He hesitated, shifting the box from one hand to the other. “I just wanted to stop by. Say I’m sorry. I heard you’ve been back a couple weeks, but I didn’t want to bother you right away.”
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
He glanced toward the house, then back to her. “You holding up okay?”
“Trying to. There’s a lot that needs work. The bakery, the house…”
“Well,” Cole said, rubbing the back of his neck, “that’s what I do. Construction. Small crew, repairs, remodels, restorations. We take on old places that just need a little patience.”
A small, knowing smile tugged at her lips. She’d already clocked the paint on his cuff, the work-calloused hands, the sun on his skin; he didn’t need to say it. “You’re still local?” she asked, feigning surprise.
“Never left.” He smiled, that easy kind of confidence that came from knowing exactly who you are. “My crew helped Grace out a while back: hinge on the back door, plumbing under the sink. She tried to pay us in muffins. We took ‘em.”
Jenna’s laugh caught in her throat and turned into something finer. “That sounds like her.”
“I can stop by tomorrow if you want,” he said. “Take a look at both places, give you an idea where to start. No charge for the first look.”
“That’d be great,” she said before she could stop herself.
“Morning work?”
“Morning’s perfect.”
“I’ll bring coffee.” He lifted the pastry box slightly. “And maybe something less controversial.”
She smiled for real this time. “Deal.”
Cole tipped his head and stepped back down the porch stairs. The late light caught on the dust along his shoulders, the steady, sure motion of someone who never rushed because he didn’t have to.
She leaned against the doorframe, watching as he crossed the yard.
The way he moved, measured and confident, without wasted motion, made her chest tighten in a way she couldn’t name.
When he reached his truck, the sunlight caught the edge of his jaw, and something about it made her stomach flip.
She realized she was still holding her breath when the engine started.
The air carried the faint trace of sawdust and soap, a scent that lingered even after he’d gone.
The pastry box was warm in her hands, and she caught herself smiling, then immediately scolding herself for it. It felt wrong to feel anything but grief here, in this house, in this moment, but for the first time in weeks, she felt alive.
When his truck disappeared down the street, she let the screen door close behind her.
She placed the box on the counter and opened her laptop again, but the screen stayed blank.
Her mind wasn’t on numbers or spreadsheets.
It was on the rough timbre of his voice, the way his hands had dwarfed the pastry box.
She told herself it was relief, just gratitude for a solution that arrived when she needed one.
But the image of his shoulders, the calm surety in his tone, replayed until she pressed the heel of her hand against her chest and exhaled hard.
Maybe it was exhaustion. Maybe it was something else.