Chapter 9
Liam
I don’t think about this before I start moving.
One second I’m behind the bakery booth listening to the mayor call Charlotte to the stage. The next second I’m handing a tray to Mark, stepping out from behind the table, and walking straight into the crowd.
I hear someone say my name. I hear Henry mutter, “Oh, he’s really doing it.” I hear Chris whisper, “Do not screw this up,” like I can control any of this.
I keep walking.
Charlotte stands on the small stage with the microphone in her hand, the sun catching her hair, a polite event-planner smile on her face that does not match the way I know she laughs when she is actually having fun.
The mayor is talking into another mic, but his words blur together.
My heartbeat is louder than anything else.
I reach the edge of the stage and stop at the bottom step. She looks down at me, eyes wide, like she did not expect this.
She didn’t. Honestly, neither did I.
The mayor glances between us, reads the situation faster than he probably should for a man in a town council polo, and holds the spare mic out like he is offering me a lifeline.
I take it before I can change my mind.
For a moment I face the crowd. People look curious, amused, not hostile. Good enough. Then I turn back to Charlotte.
Her eyes search mine, and I know exactly what she is asking without her saying a word.
Are you sure?
No.
I am nowhere near sure.
But I am done hiding behind that.
“Hi,” I say into the mic, and my voice comes out lower than usual. “I’m Liam. I run Spice Spice Baby Bakery down the road.”
A few people cheer, and someone whistles. Great, I have a fan club.
I look at Charlotte again. “I know this is supposed to be about the festival. And it should be. Because it is great, and you did that.”
Her cheeks go a little pink, but she rolls her eyes at me like she thinks I am exaggerating, which I’m not.
I look out at the crowd again. “But this week has also been about something else for me.”
My hand tightens on the microphone. I’ve spoken to customers, suppliers, and health inspectors. I’ve never spoken to an entire town about my feelings.
“Six years ago,” I say, the words coming slower now, “it became very clear that my life was not going to look like I planned. I had a daughter. I had a bakery. I did not have a partner who wanted to be in the middle of all that every day. So I made the decision to focus on what I could control. Raise my kid. Grow my business. Keep my head down and my heart out of anything that looked like risk.”
I feel Charlotte watching me. I feel a lot of people watching me. Yet, I keep going because if I stop, I will never start again.
“And it worked,” I say. “Mostly. We were okay. We were... steady. But I also kept my life very small, on purpose. I did not want anyone to get close enough to leave again.”
I shift my focus back to her.
“Then this woman walked into my bakery,” I say, and my voice softens without my permission. “She had a clipboard, a schedule, and a smile that made my kid instantly decide she was part of the family.”
The crowd laughs lightly. I hear Maisie somewhere up front say, “That’s me,” because of course she does.
“She was here to organize the festival,” I continue, “and I was supposed to see her as someone temporary. Just passing through. But she kept showing up: in my bakery, at my counter, in my kitchen, in my daughter’s drawings, and in my head.”
Charlotte’s mouth curves, but her eyes are bright, focused completely on me now.
“I haven’t dated in a long time,” I admit, speaking louder so everyone hears it.
“Not because I was above it, but because I was scared of it. I did not want to risk bringing someone into my daughter’s life who might leave.
” I take a breath. “But at some point this week I realized I was already in it. I already let her in. And no amount of pretending I hadn’t was going to undo it. ”
The mayor looks delighted. A few people in the front row clasp their hands to their chests. I ignore all of them.
“This woman is stubborn, kind, annoying in a way that makes me want to argue with her all day, and she cares about people in a way I have not let myself do for a long time. She loves this town, even though she’s not from here.
She loves this ridiculous festival. She listened to my kid talk about cookie feelings and did not pretend to understand them, but she cared anyway.
She walked into our world like she belonged, and I have been trying to catch up ever since. ”
My voice goes quieter at the end, but the microphone carries it.
I look straight at her.
“Charlotte,” I say, “you changed a week that should have been nothing but stress and turned it into something I am not ready to lose when this festival ends.”
Her lips part, I see it hit her, the way my words land. My pulse picks up and my hand tightens on the mic again.
“You don’t have to give me an answer right now,” I say quickly.
“I know you have a life outside of this town. I know you didn’t come here expecting some single dad with flour on his shirt and a kid attached to his hip to complicate everything.
But I also know I don’t want to pretend this is temporary if it doesn’t have to be. ”
I swallow, forcing myself to say the rest.
“I want you to stay,” I say, straight out. “Not for the bakery. Not for the festival. For us. For whatever this is turning into. For more mornings and muffins and your terrible clipboard stress. I want you in our life for more than a week.”
Silence drops over the crowd for a moment. The good kind. The kind that hangs there waiting for the next word.
Then a small voice shouts from somewhere up front.
“Say yes!”
Maisie.
Of course.
A ripple of laughter goes through the crowd. I lower the mic and pinch the bridge of my nose.
“Subtle,” I mutter.
Charlotte laughs then, a real laugh, the kind that makes her shoulders relax and her whole face light up. It does that thing to my chest again, that slow, warm pull that feels like something finally settling into place.
The mayor looks at her like it is her turn.
I lift the mic again, softer now. “What I am trying to say, in a very public and probably over-the-top way, is that you are not temporary to me. I don’t want you to be temporary to my daughter.
Or my life. I know that is a lot to say in front of.
.. everyone.” I gesture vaguely. “But you deserve to hear it from me clearly.”
I let the mic drop down to my side. My heart is beating so hard I can feel it in my fingertips. My throat is dry. I have never been this exposed in my life.
Then it’s her move.
Charlotte steps a little closer on the stage, until she is standing near the edge looking down at me. Her eyes are bright, and I can’t tell if it is from tears or sunlight, but she doesn’t look scared. She looks steady.
“Can I have the microphone, please?” she asks the mayor.
He hands it to her like he has been waiting for this all day.
She looks out at the crowd first, which makes my stomach twist, then she looks at me.
“You know,” she says, voice clear, “when I took this job, I thought I was coming to organize an event, not reorganize my entire life.”
A few people laugh. I don’t as I’m too busy trying not to panic.
“I travel a lot,” she continues. “I go where I’m needed. I make things work. I leave when they are done. That has always been the deal.”
She lets that hang there for a moment.
“Then I came to Valentine,” she says, “and met this man who runs a bakery and raises his daughter like she is the best thing that ever happened to him. Which she is.”
My throat tightens.
“He tried very hard not to let me in at first,” she says, and the crowd laughs. “Acted like he was too busy to flirt, like he was immune to romance at a festival. That didn’t work for long.”
A small smile tugs at my mouth.
“And then there’s Maisie,” she says, softer now. “Who decided in about three minutes that I belonged to them. She drew me a picture with glitter and glue, and somewhere between meeting you and that drawing, I realized something I didn’t plan on.”
She takes a breath. Her eyes do not leave my face.
“I don’t want this to be temporary either.”
Something opens up in my chest so fast and sharp it makes me dizzy.
“I love this town,” she says. “I love this festival. I love your staff and how they act like a strange little family. And I love the way your daughter sees the world, even when it makes no sense to adults.”
She pauses.
“And yes,” she adds, “I love the way you look at me like you’re trying not to and failing.”
The crowd makes a collective sound at that, some mix of teasing and cheering. I feel my ears go hot.
She laughs once, then shakes her head slightly, like she cannot believe she is saying all of this in front of an entire town.
“I’m scared too,” she says, more quietly now but still into the mic. “Not of you, of what this means, of staying, and of choosing something that looks less like a job and more like a life. But I have spent a lot of years helping other people create memories. Maybe it’s time I let myself have some.”
Then she says the thing that finishes me.
“I want to be here,” she says simply. “With you, with Maisie and with this bakery that smells like cinnamon every day. I want to see what this looks like when it is not on a deadline.”
The crowd bursts into applause, people whistle, and someone yells, “Kiss her!”
Maisie screams, “I knew it!” from somewhere near the front, and I hear my mom’s laugh mixed in, proud and relieved.
I don’t need any more prompting.
I walk up the steps, crossing the stage in a few strides and stop in front of Charlotte. We are close enough that the microphones are picking up every breath, and the crowd blurs into meaningless noise around us.
“Hi,” she says softly, close enough that I don’t need the mic to hear her.
“Hi,” I answer, my voice rough.
“You really did this in front of everyone,” she says.
“I wasn’t subtle,” I admit. “I panicked.”
Her eyes shine with amusement and something deeper. “I liked it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
There is too much energy in my body to stand still any longer.
I take the microphone from her hand, pass both mics back to the mayor without looking, and then I do the only thing left to do.
I cup her face in my hands and kiss her.
The crowd erupts.
The second she kisses me back, every nerve in my body settles and spikes at the same time.
Her hands curl into my shirt. My thumbs brush her jaw.
I taste a hint of sugar from something she must have stolen from a booth earlier, and it hits me how much of my life she has already threaded herself into in such a short time.
I had been so focused on being careful that I almost missed the point.
This, right here, this is the point.
When we finally break apart, breathing a little harder, the crowd is still clapping. I rest my forehead against hers for a moment.
“You sure about this?” I murmur.
She nods, her breath warm against my mouth. “I’m in.”
I feel the words land in my chest and stay there.
“Good,” I say. “Because so am I.”
Down below, I hear Maisie yell, “Does this mean we can all have cupcakes now?” which makes half the town laugh again.
Charlotte pulls back enough to glance out at the crowd, then looks at me with a grin.
“I think your daughter knows how to close a scene,” she says.
“She gets that from you.”
“She’s known me for a week.”
“That’s all it took,” I say.
She laughs, and the sound wraps around everything inside me that had stayed quiet for too long.
The mayor takes a step forward, clearly thrilled with how this unplanned entertainment has turned out. “Well,” he says into the mic, “I think that’s our cue to officially declare this year’s Heart-to-Heart Festival a success.”
People cheer again, and the music starts back up. The moment, unbelievably, becomes part of the event instead of a disruption.
We step off the stage together. As soon as our feet touch the ground, Maisie runs at us, throwing her arms around both of our legs at once.
“I knew it,” she sings. “I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.”
I lift her up, balancing her on my hip, and Charlotte pats her cheek lightly.
“You did good,” Charlotte tells her.
“I know,” Maisie says. “Can we have cake now?”
I look at Charlotte. “What do you think?”
She smiles at me, soft and sure. “I think we have a whole bakery’s worth.”
For the first time in a long time, I look at the two of them and do not feel that old panic creep in. I feel something else instead.
Hope.
Real, solid, everyday hope.
And for once, I decide not to question it.