Chapter 2 Zach
TWO
ZACH
As soon as Dare turned his back on me, I felt as if I could breathe again. Yet, watching him leave left me just as bereft.
Ten months. Ten months I’d been swooning after him. He just walked up to my truck one day, ordered a cake—a lavender cheesecake loaf—and a pumpkin spice latte. He walked away that day with his order and my heart, and he hadn’t returned it since.
“You’re just latching onto the unattainable, so you don’t have to deal with the past.” It was like I could hear my therapist.
Oh she’d have a field day if she knew what I’d been up to this past year. Instead of dealing with my problems, I’d run away from them. How could I not, after everything I’d been through?
So yeah, I had a crush on the sexy blueberry farmer with the million dollar smile. So what? I wasn’t hurting anyone. I wasn’t being a nuisance to him or others. It was my dirty little secret.
It wasn’t as if I had the guts to go after him. He was a ten and I was…well, I was a mess. Definitely not boyfriend material. Definitely not life partner material. Definitely not functional human material, but I was good at pretending at least.
So, all I really had were these almost daily interactions, the bare hints of his touch, and the wonderful belly laughs that filled me with everything that was nice and warm.
And the view. Front or back, he was quite the sight.
And since that was all I had, I’d enjoy every moment of it, damnit.
Lines and disgruntled customers be damned.
I took him in, all of him, walking with so much certainty, so much confidence. That was a man who knew who he was, what he wanted and how to get it.
I sighed. If only I could be half as much of a man as him.
“Ahem,” someone coughed, and I looked down at the next customer trying to get my attention.
“I’m sorry, Winifred. I was away with the fairies,” I said to my regular and took a deep breath, focusing solely on her and not the silhouette of the man that made it hard to breathe and yet gave me life at the same time. “What will it be today?”
Winifred pressed her lips into a smirk and with some hesitation dragged her gaze away from me and onto the glass display filled with cake.
“Well, I was going to go for the carrot cake, but Dare’s blueberry pie is calling my name,” she hummed after a moment.
“I can’t blame you. His pies are finger-licking good,” I said.
“Just his pies?” she raised an eyebrow but if she was suggesting something else I simply ignored it.
The worst thing you could do with a mature busybody like Winifred was give them an inch. I may not have had much experience with them in my old life, but I’d learned a lot in the past year since settling in Mayberry Holm.
It was impossible not to learn that lesson after ending up with a reputation last Christmas when I decided to give dating a try.
It hadn’t been a bad reputation per se, but it had taken a long time to get people off my back about being in love with Carson, the local grill owner I went on one date with.
And what a dull date it had been. He hadn’t been interested in me or my jokes, but it made sense given that he’d been in love with someone else.
Even so, the date had stung, and I still couldn’t help but feel it was my fault.
I’d tried dating since, but nothing serious came of it. I guess Victor had ruined me for anybody.
A shiver went down my spine at the mere thought of the man.
I looked around outside the truck for any sign of him while preparing Winifred’s order, but he wasn’t there.
It had been a week since I’d seen him—or thought I’d seen him—in this very place.
I was starting to believe I’d imagined it.
Maybe it had been someone who resembled my ex.
If that was the case I’d feel even worse for having Donovan here wasting his time protecting me from figments of my imagination.
“Thank you, Winifred,” I said, passing the elderly woman her pie and tea, before trying to tackle the line the best I could.
It was Halloween though, and everyone had a craving for pumpkin spice and a nice hot java so naturally it was impossible. But still, I refused to call Teddy.
He and Wesley needed the time alone to enjoy life, and each other, and to spend some quality time with little Bear, Teddy’s nephew who lived with them.
And anyway, I’d been doing this all on my own since I got here. What was one more day?
Dare’s blueberry pie was gone within minutes, and I was grateful he’d brought two and I’d kept one for myself.
I would take offense that people preferred the pie over my cakes, but I couldn’t blame them.
It was mind-blowingly good, with an unbeatable farm-to-table quality.
Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t get my blueberry pies to taste remotely as good as his and I was too much of a wuss to ask for the recipe.
By the time the pie was gone I was sweating buckets, and I was thankful to my past self for wearing a lighter outfit underneath the cat costume because I couldn’t have stripped it faster.
Someone whistled. I snapped my head. Was it someone on the line? Was it him?
It was him, wasn’t it? He was watching me. I could feel his leer sticking on my skin like grease and nicotine.
Smoke flooded my nostrils, invaded my lungs, constricted my throat. A cigarette cloud that wasn’t even there.
I coughed, covering my mouth, looking, searching, gasping for air.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
My heart beat in my chest like a bass at a nightclub making me feel sick.
Bile peppered my throat. My eyes stung. My stomach sank.
When did breathing become so hard?
What’s wrong with my airways?
Where is he?
Is he hiding?
He’s the man in the baseball cap all the way at the back of the line, isn’t he?
Or is it the man in shades watching me from the bench by the waterfront?
“Zach? Zach are you okay?” A pair of hands seized my shoulders, and I flinched, bracing for impact. “Zach, sweetie, what’s happening?”
I blinked with a shudder and concentrated on the person standing in front of me. Brown hair, dark eyes, friendly smile.
It was Autumn. Autumn was here. It wasn’t him. It wasn’t Victor.
“I…I’m okay,” I panted and took a deep breath in before I let it out.
Exhaustion drowned me as my heart rate returned to normal and the world came back to focus.
“Are you sure? You don’t look okay,” Autumn said, her voice, usually bubbly and energetic, now low and dark.
“Yeah. I…I just got a bit light-headed,” I said.
Autumn’s eyebrows knitted over her nose, her eyes narrowed with concern, and I did my best to smile and return to my normal self, whatever that was.
“Here, have a seat. I’ll take over for a second.” She pushed me back on the plastic chair and didn’t turn back around until she was sure I was going to rest for a moment.
I would have complained but I was drained. Moments ago I’d been fine and now…now I wanted to curl up in bed and sleep.
As Autumn turned her attention to my customers, Donovan climbed into the truck and helped package cake while Autumn served drip coffee to everyone apologizing for the lack of pizzazz and pumpkin spice in the drinks.
After a moment, I closed my eyes and tried to tune everything and everyone out and imagined warm water raining down on me, washing away the anxiety, the pain, the fear.
This wasn’t me. It wasn’t. It hadn’t been me for well over a year. I just needed to remember it.
I’m a strong, confident Black man in charge of his destiny and no one can define me. No one can stop me. No one can break me.
“Here, drink this.” Autumn placed a glass of iced water in my hands and the coolness against my skin almost reinvigorated me.
“Thanks.” I smiled and took a long sip. It helped me find peace again.
“Better?” she asked a few moments later when I stood up.
The truck was way too crowded for three people.
“Yeah. Much,” I said.
“Great. Go and take a walk. Get some fresh air. We’ve got it covered here.”
“Yes, Mom,” I chuckled, and she shooed me away with an eye roll.
I only walked around the back of the truck and looked out into the sea. It might be fall and the water may be choppy, but it was still serene and had the ability to make all my fears and doubts fade away.
He wasn’t here.
Victor wasn’t here. Maybe he never was. But he definitely isn’t here now. If he was, he’d make himself known. He wouldn’t hide. I was safe. Mayberry Holm was safe. Victor couldn’t find me here. He couldn’t hurt me. He couldn’t touch me anymore.
I repeated it all in my head, over and over, until my confidence returned and with it, my spirit. I went back inside and took over coffee duties and allowed the other two to help me, at least until I ran out of cake and I could manage on my own.
But even when I got home later that day I couldn’t rest. I had to keep working. Work never stopped for a baker. Work never stopped for me.
So I stood in my small kitchen all evening and kneaded, beat, whisked and piped until I couldn’t anymore.
That night I slept like a baby. No dreams, no nightmares. Just pure, uninterrupted rest. And I returned to the truck the next morning with nothing but a zest for life.
Mayberry Holm had been so kind to me after all. There was nothing to worry about—
I stopped.
The boxes in my hands slipped, crashing onto the boardwalk with a thud. My knees gave up seconds later.
“G-gone,” I mumbled, staring at my dream in front of me. “It’s…gone.”
The gorgeous cozy food truck I’d left the day before was no more.
All that stood in its stead were melted steel walls, broken glass and ashes surrounded by trucks and uniformed people. A perfectly coordinated chaos.
Smoke billowed from what had once been the Wandering Bundt up into the sky turning a red and blue sunrise into a gray morning.
“Victor,” I whispered.
Because it was him. I knew it was him. It hadn’t been my imagination. It hadn’t been an illusion.
He was here. He was on the island. And he had destroyed my truck, my livelihood, like he’d destroyed me all those years ago.