Chapter 32
Chapter Thirty-Two
STEVIE
The morning starts normal.
Well. Normal for a woman living under a fake name in a small Colorado town, running a bakery she technically doesn’t own, sleeping in a dead woman’s identity while making heart eyes at three men who should’ve figured out I’m a feral raccoon in lipstick by now.
Just your standard, average day in witness protection, pining after men who don’t seem to mind sharing custody of my questionable morals.
Super normal. Maybe even above average.
Still no word from Dario, unless you count Saul’s cryptic “he wants to court you” bullshit. I’m unclear if that means flowers or, like, a PowerPoint on why he deserves my panties again.
Enzo’s gone AWOL on a need to think bender that Saul’s being odd about. I’m supposed to respect that it’s classified. Instead, I just mainline carbs and miss him in increasingly embarrassing ways.
I’m pulling the first batch of croissants from the oven when the bell over the door chimes. Early for customers, I haven’t even flipped the sign yet, so I assume it’s Martha, who’s decided that opening hours are more of a suggestion than a rule.
It’s not Martha.
It’s a delivery guy. Young. Nervous. Holding an arrangement of flowers so elaborate it looks like it ate three smaller arrangements for breakfast.
“Zoey Carter?” he asks.
“That’s me.” The name lands in my mouth like a loose tooth, wrong, but I’m used to chewing on it.
He sets the flowers on the counter. Roses, deep red, almost black at the edges. Peonies in soft pink. Eucalyptus and something else I can’t identify woven throughout. The kind of arrangement that costs more than my monthly grocery budget.
“Have a good day,” he says, and escapes before I can ask questions.
I stare at the flowers.
There’s a card. Small. Cream-colored. Expensive paper.
I know the handwriting before I read the words.
I hope your door is unlocked too. - D
The croissants burn.
I don’t notice for three full minutes because I’m standing in the middle of my bakery holding a card with seven words on it, having what can only be described as a complete cardiovascular event.
Dario sent me flowers.
Dario’s coming here.
I’m pretty sure I just had an out-of-body experience. My body’s in the bakery; my soul is breakdancing in traffic.
The smoke alarm goes off.
“Shit. Shit shit shit.”
I shove the charred croissants into the sink, flip on the fan, wave a towel at the alarm until it stops screaming. The flowers watch me from the counter, smug and beautiful and completely unhelpful.
I hope your door is unlocked too.
What does that mean? Is he asking if he can come? Telling me he’s coming? Is this a metaphor? Is the door my heart? Is my heart a door? Why am I spiraling about architecture when Dario Marchetti knows my address and is apparently romantic now?
I need to call Saul.
I grab my phone. Put it down. Pick it up again.
What would I even say? Hey, so, the mobster I’m in love with sent me flowers, just thought you should know?
Saul said he talked to Dario. Said they were going to try.
But I didn’t expect trying to show up on my doorstep before I’d finished my first cup of coffee.
The bell chimes again.
Martha materializes, clocking the flower explosion and my face, then beams like a cat who found cocaine in the catnip.
“Well, well,” she says. “Someone’s got an admirer.”
“It’s nothing.”
“That’s not a nothing arrangement, sweetheart. That’s an I’m sorry arrangement. Or an I love you arrangement.” She peers at the card in my hand. I shove it in my apron pocket. “Maybe both?”
“It’s complicated.”
“The good ones always are.” She settles into her usual seat. “I’ll take a scone and the story.”
“You’ll take a scone and silence.”
“You’re no fun, Zoey.”
No, I think, pulling a scone from the case with hands that won’t stop trembling. I’m too much fun. That’s the whole problem.
The second delivery arrives at 10:47 AM.
I know the exact time because I’ve been watching the clock like it’s hiding something from me, counting minutes since the flowers appeared and trying to convince myself that one arrangement doesn’t mean anything.
Rich people send flowers all the time. It’s probably just a ‘welcome to your new life’ gesture. A ‘sorry I complicated everything’ gift. Not a ‘I’m driving across the country to see you’ declaration.
The delivery guy is different this time. Older. Carrying a box that I recognize before he even sets it down.
Dark chocolate. Gold ribbon. The same brand that arrived at the bakery two weeks ago and made me cry into my macarons.
“Zoey Carter?”
“Still me.”
He leaves. I open the box.
Inside: two dozen chocolates, arranged in perfect rows. Dark chocolate. Salted caramel. Raspberry. Hazelnut.
The card this time:
I remember everything. - D
I eat three chocolates before I realize I’m doing it. Stress eating. Emotional eating. Dario Marchetti remembers my favorite chocolates eating.
Tom comes in for his usual bear claw. Sees the flowers. Sees the chocolates. Sees my expression.
“You okay, Zoey?”
“Peachy. Just self-medicating.”
“You’ve got chocolate on your face.”
I wipe my mouth. “It’s a medical condition.”
He bails. Nobody in this town is paid enough for my drama.
The third delivery arrives at 1:23 PM.
This time I’m ready. Or at least I’m standing near the door pretending to adjust the ‘specials’ chalkboard so I can intercept whatever’s coming before the entire town sees it.
The box is smaller. Flat. Wrapped in tissue paper.
I take it to the back, gut it open with my keys like a wild animal.
It’s an apron.
Not beige. Not practical. Not anything Beth Taylor would have owned.
It’s teal. Deep, gorgeous teal with copper buttons. The kind of apron you wear to host orgies on the Food Network. Patterned with wheat, which feels poetic and possibly a personal attack.
I hold it up. It’s perfect. The exact color of Saul’s blanket. The exact color I told Dario I loved when I was drowning in beige and needed something real.
He was listening. When I sat in his kitchen wearing his shirt, babbling about Beth Taylor and disappearing, he was listening.
The card:
You were never meant for beige. - D
I put the apron on.
It fits perfectly.
I cry a little. Just a little. Into the teal fabric that somehow feels more like me than anything I’ve worn in months.
Congratulations, Dario, you win emotional terrorism, round four.
Then I wash my face, go back out front, and sell Martha her second scone of the day because she’s been hovering near the counter making significant eye contact at each delivery and I need her to leave before I completely lose my composure.
“New apron?” she asks innocently.
“Goodbye, Martha.”
“It’s a lovely color. Compliments your complexion.”
“Goodbye, Martha.”
The fourth delivery arrives at 3:45 PM.
I’ve given up pretending to work. The display case is half-empty and I can’t remember if I restocked the brownies or just stood in the kitchen holding the tray and staring at nothing. My brain has been replaced by a single repeating thought: He’s coming. He’s coming. He’s coming.
The box is small. Black. Expensive-looking.
Perfume.
I know before I open it. My real scent, not the $8.99 generic I’ve been dousing myself with since I faked my own death.
He noticed. Somehow, in the restaurant? He noticed what I was wearing. Or at his house, what I wasn’t wearing. Or…
The card:
I want to know all the versions of you. Even the ones you’ve lost. - D
I spray it on my wrist. Just a little.
And there I am.
Stevie Reeves. The woman who existed before witness protection.
I smell like myself again.
I didn’t realize how much I missed that scent until right now.
The fifth delivery arrives at 5:15 PM.
I’ve closed early. Flipped the sign, locked the door, and am standing in the middle of my empty bakery surrounded by flowers and chocolate and the lingering scent of who I used to be.
The knock makes me jump.
Not a delivery guy this time. Two guys. And a dolly.
“Zoey Carter? Got a delivery. Gonna need you to sign for it.”
The box is huge. Industrial. The kind of packaging you see for serious equipment, not romantic gestures.
They wheel it into the kitchen. Leave the paperwork. Disappear.
I stand there staring at the box for a full minute before I find the courage to open it.
It’s a mixer.
KitchenAid, the kind you have to mortgage your soul for. Cobalt blue, exact shade of the bakery door, gleaming like a wet dream for carb enthusiasts.
This man is trying to buy my love and it’s working.
The card is taped to the top:
For everything you’re going to build.
I’ll be there at seven. - D
I read it three times.
Then I sit down on the kitchen floor next to my beautiful, ridiculous, impossibly expensive mixer, and I laugh.
Not the hysterical kind. Not the crying kind.
The happy kind. The kind I’d almost forgotten existed.
Dario Marchetti is coming to see me.
He remembered my favorite chocolates and my perfume and the color I need instead of beige. He bought me a mixer because he believes I’m going to build something. He sent flowers and notes and pieces of himself across the miles, and in two hours he’s going to walk through my blue door.
I should be terrified.
I’m not.
I’m going to bake.
Amaretti.
Italian. Traditional. The kind of cookie I’ve avoided making because every time I thought about it, I thought about him, and thinking about him hurt too much to bear.
My hands shake as I measure the almond flour. Shake as I separate the eggs. Shake as I fold in the sugar and the amaretto and the tiny pinch of salt that makes everything sing.
I pipe perfect rounds onto the baking sheet. Dust them with powdered sugar. Slide them into the oven.
And then I wait.
The bakery smells like almonds and hope. The flowers are arranged on the counter. The chocolates are hidden in the back because I ate too many and need to pace myself. The apron is still on. I haven’t taken it off since I put it on, haven’t wanted to.
I look at my reflection in the darkened window.
Teal apron. Flour in my hair. The faint scent of perfume I used to wear when I was still myself.
I look like Stevie Reeves.
I actually look like me.
The timer goes off. I pull the amaretti from the oven. Perfect. Golden. The cracks on top spreading like little smiles.
I arrange them on a plate. Set the plate on the counter.
Then do what any self-respecting disaster would. I unlock the front door at 6:30 because the symbolism is giving me a contact high.
He left his door unlocked for me, so now I’m leaving mine open for him.
This is either romance or I’m about to get murdered on a Hallmark set.
I pour two glasses of wine. Set them on the small table by the window. Light a candle. Wonder if this is too much, not enough, completely insane.
All of the above, probably.
The clock says 6:52.
I should sit down. Should try to look casual. Should not be standing in the middle of my bakery vibrating with anticipation like a golden retriever who heard the word “walk.”
I stand anyway.
When the handle turns at 6:58, because apparently even Dario’s punctuality gets needy, I nearly combust.
The door swings wide and Dario walks in, dragging half the sunset behind him and looking… no, really nervous.
Dario Marchetti. World’s sexiest criminal. Nervous in my bakery like he’s about to ask for extra ketchup at a five-star restaurant.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi,” he says.
We stand there, three feet apart, neither of us moving.
And then he smiles, that small, real smile, the one I saw in the courtroom, the one he gave me in his kitchen.
I think, Oh.
There you fucking are.
I knew you’d find me.