Chapter Twenty-Nine
Melanie
I had never known a town to look so aggressively merry at ten in the morning.
Reckless River wore December like it had been tailored for the little river town.
Wreaths on every lamppost, bows fat enough to have their own postal code, garland so lush it looked Photoshopped.
Even the snow seemed to fall politely with soft little flakes that drifted instead of hurled, turning Main Street into a postcard I didn’t want to admit I liked.
Which was probably why I’d slipped out early and ducked into the coffee shop before Lydia could hustle me into a full day of “light” festival errands that always somehow became heavy lifting.
I told her I’d meet her here, and I chose a table by the window—half for the view, half so I could stare at something that wasn’t the inside of my head for a change.
“Triple gingerbread latte,” Riley sing-songed, setting the mug down with a flourish that would have earned applause in a larger city. She wore a forest-green beanie and a grin that said she’d already milk-foamed three life crises for other customers this morning and had room for one more.
“Triple?” I raised a brow. “That’s… a lot of gingerbread.”
“Consider it community service.” Riley winked. “After the last twenty-four hours you’ve had, you deserve liquified cookies.”
I tried to play it cool. “What do you mean?”
She laughed. “Please.”
I rolled my eyes, but my mouth tugged upward in a betrayal. “It’s good to be back.”
Riley’s grin softened into something kind.
“Good. About time the universe gave you something nice.”
She drifted back behind the counter, already calling a hello to someone new, and I wrapped my hands around the warm mug and let myself exhale.
Nice.
That word felt small compared to what last night had been.
I hadn’t slept much—too wired, too blissed-out, too aware of Drew’s steady breathing beside me and the way the cabin smelled like cedar and heat and a life that didn’t scare me when I let it.
Morning had been all soft jokes and burnt toast and him humming under his breath while he fixed a cabinet door like it owed him money. He’d brushed a thumb across my cheekbone and said, “You look happy,” and I had, which was both the simplest and most terrifying thing I’d done in years.
I took a sip. The latte tasted like a bakery had decided to hug me with molasses and spice, and darn it, I loved every sip of it.
Outside, snow dusted the awnings, and two kids in puffy coats argued about the relative merits of tree toppers, angel versus star, with the kind of passion normally reserved for courtrooms.
Despite myself, I could see it. A version of this, of me—coffee here on weekday mornings, knowing smiles from people who knew my name, plans that didn’t require three calendar apps and a color-coding system.
I could picture walking up the hill after, breath making little clouds, stopping at the bakery for bread that still steamed when you tore into it. The thought settled deep in my chest.
The door chimed, a cold gust curling around my ankles. I glanced up, expecting Lydia with her mittens and her thousand-watt cheer.
Not Lydia.
A blonde woman breezed in, shaking snow from a sleek coat, her hair pulled into a low ponytail that said I have a drawer full of matching containers with lids.
It wasn’t the ski-bunny blonde from the bar last week—no neon lip gloss or giggle like trouble; this one was tidy, composed, expensive in that you-can’t-put-your-finger-on-why way. She took in the room as if she were cataloging it for an appraisal.
Riley looked up and lit up like a string of lights. “No way. Sawyer!”
The blonde’s face split into an easy smile. “Hey, Riles.”
They met halfway with a quick hug over the pastry case, and something in my stomach gave a small, irrational twist.
“Look at you,” Riley said, reaching out to flick the end of the ponytail, immediately scolded by her own health code instincts. “What are you doing back in town? I thought you were allergic to winter now.”
Sawyer—that was a name people trusted with their second homes and their life savings—laughed. “As it turns out, my tenants are bigger snowbirds than I am. They bailed. Figured I’d swing up, check the place, and put the rental back on the market. Holiday bookings are snack-cake level—going fast.”
“Lucky us,” Riley said, tapping at the register. “Back to the mothership for the holidays.”
Sawyer’s gaze slid past her, doing that soft-focus scan real estate people did when they looked at square footage. “Town looks good. New garland?”
“Indeed,” Riley said fondly. “There’s something about the holidays and Reckless. I just love decorating.”
Sawyer smiled. “How we both get, if memory serves.”
We.
My stomach did that tilt again, like a plane hitting air that wasn’t where the sky promised it would be.
“What can I get you?” Riley asked her.
“Americano,” Sawyer said, then added without looking at the menu, “and a cranberry-orange scone if you haven’t ruined them with gluten-free flour.”
“Rude,” Riley said, already reaching for the portafilter. “We ruined nothing. They’re perfect. And yes, there’s also real butter.”
Sawyer glanced around while Riley worked—past the window where snow freckled the glass, past the knit-hat trio in the corner parsing the merits of cinnamon versus star anise, past the shelf of bagged beans with their earnest fonts.
Her attention snagged for a second on me, then slid away without recognition.
Good. I didn’t want to be recognized. Not as the woman who’d fallen into bed and possibly something else with a man whose history here had more roots than I did.
Riley slid the drink and scone across.
“On the house,” she said. “Consider it a welcome back and a bribe for gossip.”
Sawyer laughed as she dug in her purse for a tip anyway. “You always were the town crier.”
“Someone has to maintain cultural literacy,” Riley said, then added lightly, “Speaking of culture, have you seen Drew yet?”
The name landed sharply and surprisingly.
Sawyer’s smile did an interesting thing. It didn’t vanish; it… tailored itself.
“Not yet,” she said, casual as a cat. “I literally just got in.”
Riley’s brows did the mischievous dance. “Planning to?”
Sawyer pretended to consider, breaking off a corner of scone with manicured precision.
“We’re still friendly,” she said. “I’ll say hi. See how he’s doing. It’s been a while.”
Friendly. I wrapped both hands tighter around my mug.
Riley caught my eye, then flicked her gaze minutely away, like she was gently shooing the conversation elsewhere.
“Yeah, he’s good. Busy. You know how the Stag is this time of year. He and Callum are basically elves with a liquor license.”
Sawyer laughed. “Always said he had a type.”
“A type?” Riley leaned in. “Define.”
Sawyer took a sip of Americano, savoring. “Holidays, community, routine. He likes tradition. He should’ve been born in a Norman Rockwell painting.”
Riley hummed. “You never minded.”
The blonde lifted one shoulder. “No. I liked it here. But I also liked… other things.”
She didn’t have to say what: cities that stayed open past nine, flights that left every hour, jobs that required suits more than flannel.
“Can’t believe your tenants left before New Year’s,” Riley said, scrubbing the steam wand with practiced vengeance. “That place of yours books like a fever.”
Sawyer’s smile sharpened. “They’d been… messy. I was ready to reclaim it. Reset. Fresh paint, fresh linens. Maybe I’ll stop by the Stag after I check in. We’ll see.”
We’ll see.
My brain lined the words up next to friendly and started doing math. I refused to show my face.
Riley slid a napkin across the counter. “I’ll tell him you’re back.”
“Don’t you dare,” Sawyer said, laughing as she tucked the napkin into the sleeve like a secret invitation. “If he wants to know where I am, he knows where to find me.”
My thoughts lodged themselves like a piece of popcorn I couldn’t dislodge with water or prayer.
This was stupid. I had no claim. I had a night and a morning and a promise we’d try, that I would stay through the holidays and he would stop looking at me like I was already choosing goodbye.
We hadn’t defined anything; we’d barely named the shape of what we were building. But jealousy didn’t care about definitions. It was a blunt instrument…heavy, dumb, accurate enough to bruise.
I took another sip of gingerbread and tried to focus on the window.
A man in a red knit hat struggled heroically with a twelve-foot tree and an economy car.
A golden retriever wore a scarf and supreme self-satisfaction.
The world continued to be adorable. I continued to feel like I’d swallowed a snowglobe whole and the glitter had lodged in my throat.
“Who’s your friend?” Sawyer asked, and the words weren’t unkind.
Just curious. Practiced. Like she always knew the room.
Riley didn’t miss a beat. “That’s Melanie.”
I forced my mouth into something polite and looked over. “Hi.”
Sawyer’s smile was immediate, unthreatening. She was older than me by a handful of years, or maybe she just wore confidence like a moisturizer.
“Hi,” she said. “Visiting or freezing with the rest of us?”
“Visiting,” I said, because I didn’t have a better verb for what I was doing here besides trying. “From Seattle.”
“Ah.” A small, knowing ah that said a thousand things about how people leave and how some come back and how some don’t.
Riley, determined to be Switzerland and also diplomatically nosy, slid in cheerfully, “Mel’s Lydia’s bestie.”
Sawyer brightened. “Well, that’s practically a golden ticket. Lydia’s running half the town and mothering the other half.”
“Accurate,” I said, managing a laugh.
“Welcome to Reckless River, Melanie.”
“Thanks,” I said, not liking the fact that it already sounded like she was welcomed back, and I was just visiting.
She turned to go, but paused at the door and pushed her knit headband up an inch.
“So…how’s Drew?” she tossed over her shoulder, light as a snowflake, not looking at either of us long enough to watch it land.
Riley’s smile flickered like a candle in a draft.
“He’s… Drew,” she said. “Working too much, pretending he isn’t.”
Sawyer’s mouth curved. “Some things don’t change.”
She went out into the snow then, the bell chiming behind her, the cold uncurling into the shop before the door thunked shut. For a second, the room held still, like the scene wanted to see what I would do with it.
I stared at the swirl of white outside, trying to swallow down the nausea that rose with stupid, humiliating predictability.
An old fling was the phrase my brain supplied, efficient and cruel.
The kind who had a set of keys once, and the kind of muscle memory that made hugging someone at a bar feel like skipping to the part where you remember a joke together.
The kind who asked about him like she was ordering muscle memory with her Americano.
Riley cleared her throat softly. When I looked up, she wore an expression I recognized from women who poured drinks for a living and watched hearts try to be useful anyway. “You okay?”
“Yep,” I said too quickly. “Fine.”
“Uh-huh.”
I set my mug down carefully. The ceramic made a louder sound than it should have, like a punctuation mark I didn’t mean to add.
“How long has she been gone?” I asked, careful to make it sound like trivia.
“Couple years,” Riley said. “In and out before that. She… and Drew…” She trailed off, making a waffle hand that meant complicated and not mine to narrate. “They were friendly. They’ll probably stay friendly.”
I nodded, staring at the little crescents my fingernails had made in the cardboard sleeve. “Right.”
Riley leaned on the bar. “Melanie.”
I looked up.
“She’s not you,” she said simply.
It was meant to help, but it didn’t because the problem wasn’t Sawyer being Sawyer; it was me being me. The me who could sprint back to Seattle at the first sign of discomfort, who could decide the brave thing was whatever required the least vulnerability and the most spreadsheets.
I forced a smile I didn’t feel. “I know.”
“Lydia’s due here in five,” Riley said, mercifully changing lanes. “Want a gingerbread refill?”
“I think I need one,” I said.
While she pulled another shot, I went back to the window and watched the snow fall over a town that had been making a case for itself in me since the moment I arrived.
A blonde woman turned the corner up the block, her breath fogging the air, her step sure on the icy sidewalk. Maybe friendly meant nothing. Maybe it meant history that didn’t change just because I’d decided to show up for once.
The bell over the door chimed again, and a flurry of cold spiraled in. I didn’t turn. I wasn’t ready to see who the wind might bring next, or what part of myself would rise to meet it—coward or contender.
I wrapped my fingers tighter around the mug until the heat bit the skin and told myself to breathe, to wait, to be the version of Melanie who didn’t bolt at the first shadow of competition.
Outside, the snow kept falling, indifferent, pretty, and relentless. Inside, the gingerbread clung to the air and sugar-dusted my tongue, and I let myself admit one thing, if only for the length of a latte.
I wanted to stay.
I wanted to choose this.
Even if it meant running into Drew’s old ghosts.