Chapter 22
Emmaline
For a couple of hours, I lost myself in work, buffered by the dark quiet of pre-dawn that had always been my favorite time of day because it was peaceful.
In the years working with Gran, we’d had our tasks and kept to them, not leaning into conversation.
She hadn’t been a social morning person, and it had been more than fine with me to listen only to the hum of the overhead lights, the pop of the ovens as they came up to heat.
These had been the metronome I’d tuned my whole life to.
In the months after she’d disappeared, I’d started turning on music to drown out her absence.
Today, Diana Krall crooned in the background as I moved on muscle memory through the prep.
I told myself to focus on the lamination—lock in the butter, fold, turn—simple, controllable geometry.
But my attention kept sliding back to the memory of my hand on Bodie’s bruised cheek.
I still felt the rough catch of his beard against my fingertips, the heat of him under the cold of the ice pack, the way the air between us had tightened when he leaned in, like a wire pulled taut.
I’d wanted to press my lips to the bruise that showed exactly what kind of man he was.
I’d wanted so much more than to kiss his cheek.
He hadn’t taken what the moment had offered. Neither had I.
That wasn’t part of the deal.
I’d told myself I could do this—marry for necessity, sleep alone, keep my heart in its box.
I could catalog Bodie Gibson as usefulness and loyalty and years of history and leave it at that.
It had seemed possible in the abstract. In practice, the neat categories refused to hold.
He was the boy who’d shared half a peanut butter sandwich and syrup-sweet tea when I’d run out into the woods to get away from my mother’s rage.
He was the man who’d let a bastard take a swing at him because it might buy a woman two days of safety.
Those truths bookended so many more examples, some I’d acknowledged, some I didn’t, some I’d never even known about.
The end result was a pressure in my chest that I didn’t have a valve for.
So I poured it into pastries. Rolling out croissants, creating honey buns and cinnamon rolls by rote, before moving on to the day’s selection of muffins.
The scents of butter, yeast, and caramelized sugar slowly filled the space like a comforting hug I hadn’t known I needed.
I closed my eyes for one breath and let it wrap around me.
“Okay,” I told myself. “Breathe. Work. Don’t think.”
I failed spectacularly at the last part because my brain kept wandering across town to the house where Bodie was, hopefully, sleeping peacefully in that king-sized bed I’d been trying not to think about since the day I’d moved in and hung my clothes in the closet beside his.
The thought of climbing into that bed with him instead of retreating to the guest room next door made my hands shake as I shaped another batch of dinner rolls.
The image was so vivid—sliding under those navy sheets, feeling the warmth of his body, letting myself curl against his solid chest—that I had to grip the counter’s edge and force myself to count backwards from ten.
This was dangerous territory. I’d married him for practical reasons, legal reasons, survival reasons. Not for the way his laugh rumbled low in his chest, or how his eyes crinkled when he was trying not to smile, or the careful gentleness in his touch when he cupped my face.
Adalyn walked in at 7:20. The morning sun streamed through the windows behind her and caught the copper highlights in her hair.
The first spate of customers had thinned to just Mrs. Bailey browsing the day-old rack and a construction worker nursing his second cup of coffee while scrolling through his phone.
She waited until I’d finished ringing up an order for a pair of tourists with matching “I Survived the Flood” t-shirts and New Orleans accents thick as molasses before leaning her elbows on the glass case and giving me the look I’d been dreading.
“You look like you slept… not at all.” Her voice held no judgment, just the careful observation of someone who’d known me since we were fourteen and stupid.
“Coffee? Or is that like bringing sand to the beach?”
I smirked, wiping flour from my hands on my apron. “My standards aren’t as high as yours. Pour mine first—and make it strong enough to wake the dead.”
She circled around behind the counter with the easy familiarity of someone who’d helped me through more morning rushes than I could count, her bangles jingling softly as she went about starting a fresh pot to brew.
She poured us each a cup from the good blend—the one I usually saved for her—as I rang up the next customer, a regular who ordered the same blueberry muffin and black coffee every morning.
Once I’d cleared the small line, Adalyn handed me a mug and bumped my hip with hers in a gesture of solidarity. “Drink before you turn to dust and blow away.”
“Bossy.” But I wrapped both hands around the mug and took a swallow that scalded my tongue in the best possible way. The caffeine hit my bloodstream like a blessing. I seldom resorted to coffee, but I needed the extra hit of caffeine after a night spent tossing, waiting for Bodie to get home.
She tipped her head, studying me with those sharp hazel eyes the way only someone who’d known me long enough to see through every mask I wore could manage. “You okay?”
I kept my voice deliberately easy, arranging apple turnovers in the case with more precision than they required. “Early morning. Busy hands. You know how it is.”
“Mm.” She didn’t buy that explanation, not entirely, but she had the grace to let me have it without pushing.
“Well, the cinnamon roll scent has reached at least three businesses down the street, so you’ll have a line out the door by eight.
I should demand hazard pay for walking through that cloud of temptation without face-planting directly into your display case. ”
“Take one before you do.” I slid a tray toward her, the gesture automatic after years of friendship. “Employee discount.”
She snorted, a sound of pure amusement. “I don’t work here.”
“Friend discount then. Best friend discount. Take whatever you want.”
She chose a lemon poppyseed muffin instead of the cinnamon roll I’d expected, broke it open with careful fingers, and steam curled out like a contented sigh.
The bright scent of citrus and vanilla joined the symphony of bakery smells.
“Saw Bodie this morning,” she said around her first bite, tone so carefully casual it made my spine straighten.
“Looked like the job tried to take a piece out of him.”
My fingers tightened around the coffee mug hard enough that I worried the handle might snap.
The ceramic was suddenly too hot against my palms. “He’s fine.
” I said it as much to remind myself as to reassure her, because my traitorous brain had readily supplied all the ways that domestic call last night could have gone very, very wrong. “Just a few bruises.”
“I figured. He’s built like a brick wall wrapped in Kevlar.” She chewed thoughtfully, swallowed, and softened the gentle tease in her voice. “And also—he’s… you know. Him.”
I didn’t answer because I didn’t trust my voice to stay steady. The image of my palm against his bruised cheek kept sliding across the surface of my mind like light on water.
Adalyn wiped a crumb from the corner of her mouth with her thumb, then flicked a meaningful glance at the little white paper bag I’d tucked off to the side of the register—one cinnamon roll, iced a shade thicker than usual and still radiating warmth, his name written in my careful script across the front. “Special order?”
“Something like that.” Heat crawled up my throat and bloomed across my cheeks when she arched one knowing brow. The weight of her attention made me want to fidget like a teenager caught passing notes.
“Uh-huh.” She lifted her coffee mug in a small toast that somehow managed not to ask for confessions I wasn’t ready to make. “For what it’s worth, the town chatter’s mostly decent. Plenty of nosy speculation, sure, but people are genuinely rooting for you two.”
“That’s almost worse.” The words slipped out before I managed to catch them, raw and honest in a way that made me want to take them back.
I grimaced, setting my mug down harder than necessary.
“I mean—” I broke off, because what was there to say?
That kindness was like a pressure I didn’t know how to bear?
That their hope for my happiness felt like another weight I might fail to carry?
That I didn’t know how to believe I was worthy of that kind of goodwill?
Adalyn’s expression gentled, understanding flickering in her eyes. “I get it, honey. Sometimes other people’s expectations feel heavier than your own.”
She set her cup down and drummed a short, syncopated rhythm on the counter with her fingernails. “Okay, I’m going to pretend to be a responsible adult and actually show up to my job on time. I’ll swing back around lunch, if I can. Text me if you need backup or someone to hide bodies.”
“Deal. And thanks for the coffee intervention.” I lifted the mug in acknowledgment.
“For once, you didn’t make it yourself,” she said with fake mystification, pressing a hand to her chest in mock shock, and slipped out with a flash of her old grin just as the doorbell jingled again.