Chapter 15
Gabby
The grand opening is three days away and we’re moving through the space like we’re choreographed, which we’re absolutely not.
I’m supposed to be perfecting the soufflé recipe—the one that’s been giving me trouble since June—and Jace is supposed to be building the shelving for the retail wall.
We’re both supposed to be doing separate things in separate spaces.
Instead, we’re doing everything in the same room, and that makes it all better and harder at the same time.
He’s been building shelves since eight this morning.
I’ve been here since five-thirty, stress-testing the oven, which has miraculously decided to cooperate for the first time ever.
The shelves are coming together with a precision that makes me watch him more than I watch my own work.
Joints fitting like they were made to go together.
His hands move with a certainty I’m still trying to find in my own.
By two o’clock, I’ve made four dozen soufflés and rejected three of them.
The fourth batch is sitting in the cooling racks, perfect golden domes with the slight jiggle in the center that means they’re not overdone.
This is good. This is good. This is good enough to make me want to dance around the kitchen like I’m in a movie, except I’m in a kitchen with a man watching me measure out saffron.
“You’re humming,” Jace says.
“I’m not—” I stop. I absolutely am humming. I was humming the theme from Moana, which is both very Alaska and embarrassing. “I’m celebrating internally. Doing a full dance number in my head.”
“Do the dance number externally,” he says.
He says it like it’s a statement of fact instead of a request. Like he’s already decided this is happening.
I don’t do the dance number. I smile until my face hurts. Hide it by adjusting the thermometer again. The oven is perfect. I’m not. The oven is fine. The oven is perfect. I’m the one who’s not fine.
The plane comes in just after three.
I don’t hear it at first because the mixer is running, but then it’s there—the sound of a bush plane’s engines, that particular low rumble that seems to vibrate through the whole town.
It’s distinctive. It’s a sound that means something is arriving that can’t come any other way, and for a moment, I’m thinking about Marvin and the specialty vanilla bean that’s supposed to get here before the opening.
Then I look at Jace.
He’s gone completely still. His hands are on the shelf he’s installing—his fingers against the wood checking the grain, the fit, the structure. But his face has changed. The usual calm has gone somewhere else. It’s been replaced with something that looks like a memory he didn’t consent to having.
The plane circles. Coming in. His jaw tightens.
“Hey,” I say, and I’m moving toward him without deciding to, like my body has recognized something is wrong before my brain has caught up. “You okay?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. The plane is landing—I can hear the engines change pitch, the sound of something big coming down to earth. And Jace is standing in my kitchen looking like the walls are closing in.
“Fine,” he says. His voice is different. Smaller. “It’s just a plane.”
It’s not fine. He’s not fine. But I don’t know him well enough to push on this, and I’m terrified of pushing and watching him disappear into whatever version of himself he goes to when something gets too real.
The plane has landed. The sound stops.
“Marvin,” I say, trying to fill the silence. “That’ll be the vanilla bean. For the soufflés. He was supposed to—”
“Yeah,” Jace says. He’s moved away from the shelf. He’s back to it now, but his hands are different. Tense. Like he’s fighting the wood instead of working with it. “That’s good. That’s good for the opening.”
The door opens before I can ask anything else. Marvin comes in buzzing with the enthusiasm of someone who just landed a plane in Alaska and is pleased about the whole situation.
“Gabby!” He’s holding the specialty vanilla bean like it’s gold. “Three days early. Got in the shipment sooner than expected and flew it right out. This is going to change your whole game.”
He sets it on the counter. It’s beautiful—the bean is plump, rich, exactly what I need for the soufflés. I should be celebrating. I should be thanking him. Instead, I’m aware of Jace behind me, aware that the bush plane’s arrival has broken something I didn’t know was fragile.
“You’re a miracle,” I tell Marvin, and I mean it, but I’m also trying to track what’s happening in my peripheral vision. Jace is putting down his tools. Carefully. Like each placement takes intention.
Marvin stays for about fifteen minutes. He talks about the flight conditions, the weather patterns, the way the light is this time of year.
He’s animated in the way of people who’ve chosen a life where they deliver things to small towns by plane.
It is a good life. It is a life where you’re always delivering good news.
When he leaves, the sound of the plane lifting off is different. It sounds like something leaving, instead of something arriving.
Jace is in the back of the kitchen by then, pretending to check the electrical for the new cooler, which he definitely doesn’t need to check. I can see his shoulders. I can see the way he’s not turning around.
I make a choice. I walk over to him.
“So,” I say, trying to find the tone that will make this okay. “That was exciting.”
“Yeah,” he says.
“Marvin’s a character.”
“He is a good guy.”
“He is. He—” I stop. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to ask what’s wrong without asking what’s wrong. “Jace, are you—”
“I’m fine,” he says. He turns around. And he looks fine. His face is neutral in the way it usually is, except I’ve learned his neutral now. I can see the difference between his calm and his absence. This is absence.
“You don’t look—”
“The shelf is coming along,” he says. And he’s moving back to the work, back to the wood, back to the thing that keeps his hands occupied and his mind somewhere else. “I’ll have it done by tomorrow. Ready for the opening.”
I could push. I could stand here and insist that something is wrong. But I’ve also learned something about Jace in the weeks we’ve been working together—pushing him is like pushing a door that might not open. It might stay locked. It might lock harder.
So I let it go.
The rest of the afternoon moves like we’re both pretending we didn’t see something we weren’t supposed to see.
I work on the soufflés. He works on the shelf.
The vanilla bean sits on the counter, perfect and waiting.
By six o’clock, the shelf is installed and it’s beautiful—clean lines, exactly the right height for displaying the pastries, looking like it belongs in this space.
It looks like it was built by someone who understands both architecture and hope.
By seven, Patrice comes by with the updated business plan.
She’s holding copies and looking official, which is Patrice’s default state.
She’s been helping me get the numbers right, making sure I understand the actual financial picture instead of just the dream version.
Financials were always something Marco handled so I could focus on the baking.
It’s what made us a good team, until it didn’t.
“Okay,” she says, spreading the documents across the table.
“The soft opening exceeded projections by about forty percent. If the grand opening matches that trajectory, you’re looking at—” She taps the paper.
“—you’re looking at real sustainability here.
The 60-day clause gives you a window to prove it, and you’re proving it. ”
I look at the numbers. They’re good numbers. They’re numbers that say maybe I don’t have to leave. Maybe I can stay in this town with the moose and the midnight sun and the man who builds furniture like he’s building permanent things even though we’ve never discussed permanence.
“What about the contingency?” I ask.
“The contingency,” Patrice says carefully, “is that you have about two weeks left on your 60-day clause. After that, either you renegotiate with the attorneys, or you make a decision about selling the business and moving forward with—” She doesn’t finish the sentence.
She knows I know what comes after. Portland.
Portland where I can start my life over sans Marco and Valentina.
Where I can be whoever Gabby Diaz is without a cheating ex-husband and a back-stabbing best friend.
Jace is listening to this conversation while he’s pretending to examine the shelf for imperfections. I can see him not-looking at me. I can see the muscles in his jaw working like he’s chewing something bitter.
“I don’t have to decide today,” I say to Patrice, and I’m also saying it to the room, and I’m also saying it to him.
“No,” Patrice agrees. “But you’ll have to decide soon. That’s the reality of the clause.”
After Patrice leaves, taking her spreadsheets and her gentle reminders about timeline and choice, there’s a different kind of quiet in the kitchen. The working kind of quiet turns into the waiting kind. The kind where something is obvious and neither of us is acknowledging it.
Jace finishes checking the shelf. He walks back to me. He’s moving like someone is pulling him forward on a string he can’t see.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey,” I answer.
He reaches out. His hand goes to my waist. It’s not tentative—it’s certain. Like he’s been planning this gesture and has decided on precision over hesitation.
I’m suddenly aware of everything. The flour dust on my apron.
The way the late evening light is coming through the kitchen windows.
The fact that Patrice just delivered a timeline that feels like a countdown and Jace’s hand is warm on my side and neither of these things should go together but they do.
“The soufflés look good,” he says.
“They’re perfect,” I say. “I finally got them right.”
“Yeah,” he says. “I can see that.”