Chapter 19
MAGGIE
I’d been at the bakery since before sunrise. Even before I’d unlocked the front door, my mind had been racing, chasing everything I’d tried to leave behind in Alabama.
The scent of yeast and caramelized sugar should have settled me, but it only made my chest tighter.
The bakery had been pretty depleted when I’d gotten back home, and I lost myself in the baking. I’d been elbow deep in flour most of the day, arms aching and head spinning, but it still wasn’t enough to quiet my mind.
The morning rush hit harder than usual, and I burned my hand pulling croissants from the oven. Then I burned the next batch of them.
Sutton flipped the closed sign on her way out, her eyes cutting to me in a way that tore right through my bullshit. I didn’t have my shit together, not even close, and she’d seen every slip and every raw nerve regardless of how much I tried to hide them.
I wanted nothing more than to climb straight up the back steps and drown myself in sleep. But the kitchen was covered in flour, used parchment, stainless steel bowls, and dirty sheet trays that I would need again tomorrow.
I didn’t let myself slow down. If I did, the panic would wash over me, and I had no idea what I was going to do. There’d been a message from Ella when I’d checked my phone at lunch, and I wanted to scream.
I didn’t answer it—not the message from Ella, not the one from my mom, and especially not the one from Hunter that’d popped up somewhere between burning my finger and burning the croissants.
There were at least a dozen messages from him that I hadn’t answered, but it didn’t matter how many times I told myself to let it go, my eyes kept flicking to the screen every time my hands stilled. The longer I left his messages unopened, the more they started to burn a hole in my resolve.
He should have been easy to ignore. I’d spent years perfecting the art of pretending I didn’t want him, telling myself it was a harmless crush, but he was so much more than that.
He’d always been more.
He was the one thing I’d never been able to shake, the need that lived under my skin and came alive every time I let my guard slip. I could lose myself in him so damn easily, burn through the guilt and pride and just give in.
But I was already about to lose everything else, and the people I loved only let me down.
My hands shook as I slid another sheet tray into the sink. I scrubbed at it with a little too much force, splashing water onto my apron, but it was the only thing I could do not to think about the meeting I’d had at the bank yesterday or the conversation I had with my father before I left.
I’d just woken up, still in the clothes from the day before, when his voice came from behind the office door.
He was already at his desk when I pushed it open, drink already in hand before nine in the morning, and the way he looked at me made my stomach drop in fear, the kind a daughter should never have to feel for her own father.
“This business with the loan.” He’d set his glass down on his desk as he assessed me. “Best thing you can do is walk away clean. Sell the place, give Ella a share, and save yourself a hell of a lot of trouble.”
I kept my arms folded tight over my chest and my face still.
I’d spent my whole damn life giving this man the look of respect he craved, but all I could think about was that glass in his hand, the way the scotch caught the light, and how badly I wanted to pick it up off his desk and smash it against the wall.
But I didn’t. I stood there and let the burn work through my chest, let it crawl up my ribs and into my throat until my hands shook from the force of keeping still.
“I’m not selling my bakery.”
And there was no way in hell I would give Ella a share if I did.
He regarded me with the same quiet assessment he’d always used to cut me down to size. His eyes traveled over the lines of my face, noting every hint of exhaustion, every crack I wasn’t fast enough to cover.
“Ella said you’re not going to be able to refinance on your own, and even if you manage it, you’ll get a shit rate and end up paying three times as much for that dump.
” He took a long sip of his scotch, but he didn’t take his eyes off me.
“Call the bank, get me the paperwork, and I’ll take care of it. ”
I just stood there, and the familiar ache of a girl who always disappointed her father leaked right back into my bones.
“I don’t want your help,” I said, but my voice cracked on it. I hated that. Hated how he could do that to me with nothing more than a look and a few words.
He tipped his chin up, ice in every line of his face. “It’s not about what you want. It’s about responsibility. Something you’re lacking.”
“Is that what you did for Ella?” I met his gaze head on, and I refused to look away. “Did you just… take care of things for her, too?” My voice was so brittle I barely recognized it.
There was the faintest tick of his jaw. “Ella handled her shit herself,” he said, and I could hear the edge in his voice, could practically taste his anger building.
“Something you’ve never been able to do.
” I watched his hand tighten around his glass.
“She came home where she belongs, and that loan? She signed it when you needed her, and now she needs you to return the favor.”
The favor. The fucking favor.
I wanted to scream at him, to say something cruel enough to make him flinch, but whatever fight I had left in me collapsed in my chest and I walked out of his office without another word.
The sound of his voice chased me down the hall, but I climbed the stairs two at a time, more desperate to escape this house than I’d ever been. I shoved my things back in my duffel and yanked the zipper with more force than necessary, cursing under my breath when the cheap metal teeth split open.
I made it halfway to the front door when Ella and Mom stepped out of the dining room already dressed and ready for the day. They both stopped short when they saw me, and Mom’s gaze ran over my jeans and T-shirt, then to the duffel over my shoulder.
“Are you not ready, Maggie?” A wrinkle formed between her brows. “We’re supposed to be at the bridal shop in an hour.”
“Something came up with the bakery,” I said, eyes fixed on my sister. “I have to leave.”
“Now?” I could hear the displeasure in her voice. “You just got here. Your sister—”
“It’s okay, Mom,” Ella said, looking away from me and smiling at our mother. “We can do the dress shopping on our own. My friends are going to meet us there.”
I felt the old urge to smooth things over, but I couldn’t even fake a smile.
Mom’s eyes flicked from me to Ella and back. “I wish you’d told us sooner,” she said. “Ella was counting on you.”
“Yeah,” I managed as a bitter laugh fell from my lips. “Well, I was counting on Ella.”
My sister finally turned back to look at me, and for a moment, I swear I could almost see my sister beneath all the bullshit.
“I can’t believe you went to him.”
Ella flinched, and Mom’s mouth went tight.
Ella didn’t even try to defend herself. Not one word.
There was just that flinch, and then she’d looked away, back to Mom, like I wasn’t even standing there.
Like we hadn’t grown up in the same house and learned the same lessons about our father the hard way.
I couldn’t stand to look at either of them any longer. I walked out the door, climbed in my truck, and didn’t look back.
The silence after I left stung worse than I’d braced for.
But all I could feel was the memory of them watching me walk out.
Not one of them tried to stop me. No one chased me to the truck, nobody so much as called my name.
They just stood there and let me go, like it was nothing. Like I was nothing worth fighting for.
I drove straight through daylight into dusk, and by the time I killed the ignition outside the bakery, my hands were still shaking. I’d put almost four hundred miles between me and that house, but it didn’t do a damn thing.
I still had to deal with the mortgage, my father’s voice was still in my ear, and Hunter was still the first place every me wanted to go.
I shoved another sheet pan into the sink and tried to breathe. The clang of stainless steel rang out too loud in the empty kitchen, bouncing off the tile and crawling up my spine. I gripped the edge of the sink and stared down at the mess, my arms trembling with exhaustion and the edge of panic.
My phone buzzed again behind me on the prep table, and I picked it up. Brody’s name lit up my screen, and I winced.
Brody: Hey. You okay? Sutton said you seem stressed.
I hesitated, thumb hovering over the keyboard, before forcing myself to reply.
Maggie: I’m fine. I just have a lot going on.
The three little bubbles came back almost immediately.
Brody: Why don’t you let me come pick you up and take you to a late dinner? Get your mind off things.
I set the phone down beside the sink and stood there with my hands gripping the edge for a long moment. I’d known from the start that I wasn’t being fair to him.
I dried my hands and picked the phone back up.
Maggie: I don’t think that’s a good idea, Brody.
Brody: What about tomorrow?
Guilt twisted in my chest, and I stared at that message for a solid minute. Brody was a good man and there wasn’t a damn thing wrong with him except that he wasn’t the one who set every part of me on fire. He was safer, easier, and everyone in town approved. But he wasn’t Hunter.
I knew how fucked up that was, and if I could stop it, I would have done it a long time ago.
Maggie: I don’t think we’re a good idea.
Maggie: I’m so sorry. I really am. You deserve so much better.
My chest ached with the truth of it, the way I’d let Brody hope for something I was never going to be.
I stared at the screen until my eyes burned, every muscle in my body so tight it felt like something might shatter and spill out of me if I even tried to breathe.