Chapter 14
Grace woke up a few minutes before her alarm and lay there thinking about last night.
As Reno’d told her his painful secret, his voice laced with guilt, his hands clenched on his knees, shed wanted so badly to reach for his hands and hold them.
But first, she’d told him she wasn’t the person who had to forgive him.
She didn’t mean it to be cruel or unfeeling.
It was simply a statement of fact and had needed to be said.
She’d also told him he was honorable and decent and good. That, too, was a fact and not generosity. She hadn’t been kind to him on the porch. She’d been honest.
And if he was the man she thought he was, that would matter more to him than any kindness or compassion she could’ve shown him last night.
As her thoughts drifted to Susannah Perry, compassion and understanding filled her.
They’d both lost husbands, but Susannah’s loss felt worse to Grace.
At least Liam died being a hero, doing something good.
But Susannah’s husband had chosen a cowardly death that only made his list of bad deeds longer.
That poor woman. How on earth did she answer her children when they asked what their father had been like? And how would she shield them from the truth as they got older? What would she say to them when she could no longer protect them from the truth?
Grace sent up a prayer for a woman she’d never met to find the strength and wisdom she needed when those questions got asked of her.
She thought of Reno’s steady careful presence as he watched over her and Lily.
Of him crouched at Lily’s eye level explaining manners.
She pictured him standing in her kitchen yesterday with a flour handprint on his chest he quietly chose not to brush off.
And she saw the pain on his face when he said in a hollow voice that believed every word, I’m a man who drove another man to suicide.
She thought, very clearly, That’s not the man I kissed.
No, she’d kissed a man who sent a widow checks every month and did it anonymously because he didn’t want to cause the widow any pain.
She was right about him and he was wrong.
Her alarm clock jangled, and she got up, interested to see how Reno’s pancakes turned out.
He looked up when she turned the corner. He just gave her an easy half-smile and turned back to the pan. There was already a stack of pancakes warming under foil on the counter, and a bowl of strawberries cut into pieces.
She poured herself a coffee. From the pot already made. She was surprised at how steady her hand was. After kissing him and then him sharing his darkest secret, she’d expected to feel different. Nervous, maybe.
But the strange thing was she felt very much herself. Possibly a bit quieter inside than usual. Settled into something new but that felt exactly right.
She was not certain yet what the something was. She would know when she knew.
“Pancakes don’t like to be rushed,” she said, reading her own note off the card on the counter.
“Trust the bubbles,” he quoted her grandmother’s note on the recipe.
He flipped the pancake currently in the pan. It was perfectly browned to a lightly crispy golden crust over a fluffy, light middle.
“Nice!” she exclaimed. “Most people flip too soon. Takes real restraint to wait for the bubbles.”
“I have many fine qualities, Ma’am.”
She noticed he’d even warmed maple syrup in a small saucepan. It was a detail she hadn’t thought to suggest, and the degree of attention to detail he’d put into pancake making humbled her. Odd how such a small kindness as warming syrup moved her nearly as much as their kiss yesterday.
Lily appeared in the doorway trailing a seal by a flipper.
“Mr. Reno’s making pancakes?” she asked sleepily.
“I sure am,” he replied cheerfully.
Grace stifled a laugh as Lily’s gaze shot hopefully to the ceiling.
“There’s no pancake on the ceiling,” Lily declared, disappointed.
Reno didn’t laugh out loud, but his shoulders shook, and from her angle beside him, Grace saw the struggle on his face. He finally collected himself enough to say, “Well, I can flip one up there, but then you’ll have one less to eat. What’s your preference, Princess?”
Grace was alarmed at how long it took Lily to decide. But finally her daughter allowed that she’d rather eat all her pancakes.
If I could write Susannah Perry a note, this is what I would tell her.
The man who took your husband down is in my kitchen at five AM.
making pancakes for my daughter and me, and thought to warm the syrup for us .
Whatever you’ve done with the money he sends, I hope it has been helpful to you.
I hope your children are safe and well. He sleeps with lights on because if he sleeps with them off, he sees you.
“A pancake breakfast on a Wednesday is going to spoil us,” she said.
“Then I’d better make them every Wednesday.”
She liked the idea of him waking up here every Wednesday so he could make them pancakes.
Grace stood to gather the plates and he jumped up to help, wincing because he moved too fast and his knee complained.
She cleared the table and he carried over pans from the stove, and they ended up at the sink together.
When she reached past him to put a plate in the basin, her hand brushed the back of his forearm, and she had two simultaneous options.
She could keep her hand moving. She could let it stay.
She let it stay.
He didn’t move his arm. She didn’t look at him and he didn’t look at her, and a second passed, and then another second, and then she moved on to the next plate because she would feel silly if she didn’t.
If she’d ever had a rush of thrill the first few times she accidentally touched Liam, she had no memory of it because she’d been six. She doubted it had felt this exhilarating back then.
They went their separate ways to get ready to leave. He went to shave and she got Lily dressed and packed for school. They headed out in his truck. He waved to the deputy who waved back.
She watched him drive. He drove the way he did everything, which was carefully but without making a big deal of his care. Lily kept up a steady commentary from the back about a seal who might have a birthday today, possibly. The seal had not decided.
Reno listened. He nodded at the appropriate moments. He asked what kind of cake the seal wanted.
“Carrot,” Lily said firmly. “With a frog on top.”
“That seems custom-order.”
“It is a custom order. But Mommy can bake anything.”
Grace smiled out the window.
They dropped off Lily and Reno pulled up at the curb next to Buns ’N’ Roses.
“Thanks again for the pancakes. And have a good day.”
“It’s already a great day. I made my two favorite girls smile this morning.”
She unlocked the bakery door, turned on the lights, and put her purse in the office. Then she tied on an apron and pulled the proofing trays out of the fridge before she let herself look out the front window at the truck.
He was still there. He had his phone out. Mary’d told her in passing a few days ago that he watched the security cameras to make sure she was okay before he drove away.
On impulse, she waved up at the camera and blew him a kiss. Smiling, she went back to brushing melted butter on the sourdough rolls.
She’d been at the work table for a half-hour when Mary came in. She knew something was wrong immediately.
Mary set her bag down on the bench by the back door. Hung up her sweater. Washed her hands. And when Mary turned around to dry them, she still didn’t say good morning. Mary always said good morning. In fact, she would say it twice if Grace didn’t say it back the first time.
“Morning,” Mary said, finally, looking down at the towel.
“Morning.”
“What are we starting with.”
“The orange chocolate icing.”
Mary went to work, looking distracted.
Grace let her work. Mary would tell her in her own time what she was upset about.
Although, as Grace kneaded a batch of bread dough and thought back over the past week or so, she realized Mary had been distracted for a while.
And she’d been so busy worrying about her own life that she hadn’t asked Mary once if she was okay.
She plopped the dough in a proofing bowl and turned around.
“Mary, Honey, talk to me.”
Mary’s shoulders went tight under her shirt. She didn’t turn around. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s something.”
Mary put her hands flat on the counter and looked at them, and Grace saw her decide, in a small movement of her chin, not to talk about it yet. “Not today, Gracie. Please.”
Mary only called her Gracie when she was about to ask for something important or about to break.
“All right,” Grace said kindly. “I’m here to listen, any time, though.”
“Soon.”
Grace went back to her dough and Mary went back to icing.
The bell over the front door rang.
Tessa came in the way she always did, fast and on a mission, her phone in one hand and a list on the back of an envelope in the other. “Morning, Grace.”
“Morning. What’ll you have?”
“A half-dozen cinnamon rolls and a quart of coffee. To go. I’m late for a fitting I forgot to put it on the calendar. I figure your cinnamon rolls are the only thing that’ll make them forgive and forget.”
“That seems fair. Where’s Charlotte?”
“Picking out lace. In Boise. We’re now operating at a volume that requires bulk lace buying trips.”
“That’s amazing!” Grace exclaimed.
Tessa froze in the act of taking the rolls and coffee. “Are you okay?”
Sometimes she forgot just how perceptive Tessa was. The woman missed nothing.
“Reno told me something last night,” she said.
“Something big? Are you okay with it?”
“I think I am. I’d like to help him be okay with it, but I don’t think there’s anything I can do.”
Tessa nodded the way somebody nods when they have been there. It stinks not being able to help the people we love when they’re hurting. She squeezed Grace’s hand briefly across the counter. “Call me,” she said.
“I will.”