Chapter Five
Tori
I stood at the counter in Firehouse Café.
It was quiet and early, so there weren’t many people here yet.
Casey was busy filling the display case with fresh baked goods.
Luna had peered out from the kitchen in the back to say good morning.
She and I had actually gone to elementary school together, but she’d left before my family imploded.
Sometimes I wondered just how much the implosion had been felt by anyone else.
In a small town, gossip could burn hot and fast. It had been quite the bomb dropped for everyone to learn that my father, a beloved police officer, had been having a long-time affair.
For over a decade. With my mom’s best friend.
My mom hadn’t known. I hadn’t known. Until I walked in on them. That was so not fun.
The aftermath was a mess. To this day, I still carried lingering anger with my father.
The trust rupture for my mom had been massive.
My dad and Shelly had left town. He took a job in Anchorage.
Of course, he had another affair later. Now, Shelly was busy trying to make it up to my mom, and my mom was busy ignoring her.
After all of it, I was proud of my mom. She was still here. She was the reason I’d moved back.
“Well, hello, Tori,” Janet James said.
My eyes lifted to see Janet, the heart of Firehouse Café and maybe the whole town. “Hey!” I exclaimed.
Her eyes twinkled. “What can I get you?”
“Coffee and a raspberry scone. Also, a hug.”
Janet’s smile was wide as she rounded the counter to pull me into one of her comforting hugs.
After that, she put a scone in the warmer and began to prep my coffee. “I haven’t seen you here when I’ve been in yet. What gives?” I asked.
“I still own the café, but Luna manages it now. You know that, right?”
“Well, I actually didn’t know that. I’ve only been back in town for a little while. Is everything okay?” I tried not to sound too worried.
“Oh, yes! I just need to slow down a little. When Luna started baking donuts for me, I realized she might be a good fit to take over. Her donuts are divine.”
“Ah, well, excellent plan. Do we call them Divine Donuts?” I teased.
“Just Luna’s donuts,” Janet said with a smile. “You’ve met Casey, right?” she asked, gesturing to Casey, who stopped at her side.
“She’s waited on me a few times,” I replied. “But I don’t think we’ve gotten past names.” I grinned over at Casey. “Born and raised in Willow Brook, and I’m back.”
“So you have credibility,” Casey teased.
“Is that what we call it??”
Casey shrugged lightly. “I’ve only made it through one winter so far. I can’t call myself an Alaskan until I’m an old hand at winter.”
“Ah. The winters are a thing. Where are you from originally?”
“Coastal North Carolina. It’s freaking hot there. I love the snow here. It’s so pretty. I love how it brightens everything up.” She tipped her head to the side. “Are you glad to be back?”
I paused, contemplating. “I missed Willow Brook.” This was true, but my feelings were complex around my hometown.
“Why did you leave?”
“The usual. College and so on.” I figured vague-booking it was the best way to explain. “I haven’t been that far away. I went to college in Juneau.”
“Oh, so you’re Alaskan through and through.” Casey nodded thoughtfully.
Janet slid my coffee across the counter. I lifted it, taking a swallow immediately. “Oh, so good.”
Janet got swept into serving other customers, as did Casey. I slipped out of the way to wait for the scone I’d ordered. When the bell chimed on the door, I glanced over, and instantly, my stomach plunged. My mother’s former best friend glanced over, and our eyes met.
Shelly had babysat me so many times growing up. Her daughter and I had been friends. Maybe not best friends, but we’d been babysat back and forth between our parents. Until the whole messy, ugly, and hurtful truth came out.
While Shelly smiled at me, dread coiled inside my chest and I couldn’t even force a polite smile.
As soon as Janet’s eyes landed on Shelly, her gaze whipped toward me.
Of course, Janet knew the whole story. Even worse, it spread through high school because when the entire drama came out—that Shelly had been having an affair with my dad, her best friend’s husband, for a whole-ass decade, and my mom had left him.
Shelly and my dad moved in together and left town not long after that. Oh, so much fun.
Shelly was trying hard to somehow mend the bridges that she had literally thrown grenades at before. Good fucking grief, I could not tolerate her trying to be friends with my mother and me. It was all too much.
Over she came anyway. “Hi, Tori.” Her smile was soft, a little tremulous. “How are you? I heard you moved back to town.”
“Seriously, Shelly?” was all I said.
“What can I get you, Shelly?” Casey said brightly, blessedly interrupting.
“My usual,” Shelly said, her tone cool.
I immediately didn’t like that she wasn’t being nice enough to Casey, by my standards, at least. I stayed quiet and took the warm scone Luna passed over. I hadn’t even noticed her come out from the back.
“Do you need anything?” Luna asked, her voice low.
“An escape hatch?” I quipped.
“Do you want to come in the back?”
“I’ll take you up on that,” I whispered.
“You can meet my dog,” she said brightly, her voice rising.
“Well, I love dogs,” I said, already moving in her direction.
With another glance at Shelly, while I could practically feel her eyes burning holes into my shoulder blades, I rounded the counter and followed Luna into the back of the café.
“You know, I’ve never been back here,” I commented.
Luna grinned. “Most people don’t come back here unless they work here. Or unless Janet drags you back here, or me.”
“Thank you.” I took a breath, mentally sagging inside. “Are you glad you moved back?” I asked, trying not to think about Shelly.
“One hundred percent. I missed it,” Luna said firmly.
“How long were you away?”
“If you didn’t hear, my parents moved us away to be RV influencers. It totally sucked. If I had my way, we never would’ve left, but I didn’t have my way. So now I’m back,” Luna explained.
“RV influencers?” I gave my head a little shake.
“Oh yeah. They drove all over Alaska, living in an RV and posting about our lives online. Were you lucky enough not to watch their channel?”
“I guess? Not really my thing.”
“Good.” She chuckled. She thumbed over her shoulder. “Shelly seems to be trying awful hard to make it up to pretty much everybody.”
“I know,” I murmured.
“Follow me to meet my dog.” Luna led me through a back door, and we crossed the rear parking area into a separate building.
“What’s this?” I asked curiously.
“An old garage that came with the property for the café. Jasmine has her pottery studio on that side,” she added, peering through an inside window. “She’s not working right now.”
“And this is…?”
“Fuzzy,” she said as a large white dog approached, tail swinging in a wide arc and tongue lolling. “He hangs out here when I’m working.”
“Oh, he’s the sweetest thing!” I knelt down to pet him, and Fuzzy circled me with his tail thumping against my sides. “I have an old dog. Her name’s Bella. Maybe they could play together sometime. Her playing is pretty slow, but she loves other dogs. She always has.”
I finally stood up from petting Fuzzy, and Luna walked me back to the café. “You can just cut over to the parking lot if you want,” she pointed out.
I shook my head. “I refuse to let Shelly chase me away from places I want to be.”
Luna was quiet for a beat before pulling me into an unexpected hug.
Stepping back, I sighed. “It’s just… awkward, you know?”
“Oh, I do. One of the things I love about small towns is how people take care of each other. Nobody’s a stranger. The flip side to that is everybody knows everybody’s business, and sometimes that’s super awkward.”
I laughed softly. “It is. But life goes on, right?”
“It always does.”
Luna stayed in the kitchen to bake, and I slipped back out front. I decided to do what I’d planned, which was to sit down and quietly enjoy my coffee and scone, even though Shelly was there, sitting by herself.
Grateful there were plenty of other customers around, I snagged a table. “Oh, well hey there, Tori.” As soon as I heard that voice, my system jolted. It felt as if my libido was waking up like my old dog Bella, coming out of sleep abruptly and shaking off.
My cheeks were burning before my eyes even met his. “Oh, uh, hey, Kincaid.” My voice was ridiculously breathless. His cognac gaze held mine. “What are you doing here?” I asked, rather pointlessly.
He lifted his coffee. “Getting coffee.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Shelly stand from her table. I didn’t even want to risk her trying to come over and talk to me, so I blurted out, “Have a seat.”
My invitation was enough out of the blue, and my tone bright enough, that Kincaid arched a brow. Yet, he sat right down without missing a beat. “Am I occupying this chair to keep it from someone else?” he asked.
My cheeks heated again, this time because I was a little embarrassed that he picked up on that. “Yeah,” I said with a sheepish smile.
Shelly—bold as ever, apparently—stopped beside the table. “I’d love to talk sometime, Tori,” she said.
I lifted my gaze to her, figuring if she was going to be bold, I might as well be too.
“I wouldn’t, Shelly. Take care. If you don’t mind, I’m having coffee with a friend.”
Her lips pinched a little, a look familiar to me. That was what she did when her daughter and I were little, and she was annoyed with our behavior. “You take care,” she finally said, her voice cool as she turned away.
“Okay,” Kincaid said after a few beats, leaning back in his chair. “So there’s a story there. What is it? What did she ever do to you?”
“She’s my mother’s former best friend. She used to babysit me all the time.” I took a deep breath. “She had an affair with my dad. For a decade. Needless to say, my mom’s not friends with her anymore, and I don’t want to be friendly with her.”
“Oh, oh,” Kincaid said, his eyes widening slightly. “I understand.”
“Then, they moved in together, and eventually they moved to Anchorage and got married. He went on to have an affair on her sometime after that. I guess she’s come back to town and wants to make up with my mom and me.
” I shook my head, calling on the numbness I needed inside to keep from breaking into tears. “I’m not interested.”
“Well, uh, I completely understand that.” His tone was careful and level.
“All this to say, for what it’s worth, I do have trust issues,” I added with a wry chuckle.
Kincaid snorted, tilting his head to the side. The way his gaze softened twisted my heart with a piercing jolt. “Fair enough. Don’t we all?”
I paused for a moment before shrugging. “I don’t know. Maybe. What’s your story?”