Chapter 20 Wren
Wren
The town square looks different in the morning. Quieter. Softer around the edges. The shops are just starting to open, and there’s a hush over everything, like the town hasn’t had its first cup of coffee yet.
I park in front of Iris & Ivy, Natalie Dinsmore’s boutique, and take a second before I get out. Atticus is at day camp until four, which means I have seven hours of me-time and zero excuses to avoid being social.
I’m also in desperate need of a distraction because I’ve spent the past sixteen hours doing my best not to think about what happened in the shop with Hunter McCrae last night.
I failed, miserably.
Because it’s all I’ve been thinking about.
The way he looked at me—like I was something he hadn’t let himself want in a long time.
The way he touched me—like it wasn’t about sex: it was about need.
The way he plunged himself deep inside me, urgent and punitive—like he was almost upset with himself for wanting me the way that he did.
Of course, I don’t know that any of this is true .
. . I’m an author. I make up stories for a living.
But last night could’ve easily been a scene from one of my books, and if he were the hero in my book, that’s what he’d have been thinking.
I drag in a long, slow breath and let it go.
It was a release. That’s all.
Nothing more.
I remind myself of that again as I walk through the glass door of Natalie’s shop.
A little bell tinkles above me. The air inside smells like eucalyptus and vanilla, and Natalie herself is behind the counter, adjusting a mannequin in a gauzy linen romper.
She glances up, eyes lighting as a mile-wide grin captures her face. “Wren. Jensen. Shut. Up.”
“Hey, stranger.” I stride her way, laughing. “It’s been a minute.”
“A minute? More like fifteen years,” she says, breezing around the counter to give me a hug that smells like expensive shampoo and argan oil lotion. “God, you look amazing. You’re even prettier than you were in your twenties, and I didn’t think that was possible.”
I smile. “Oh, stop. You’re too sweet. And you? This place is adorable.”
She waves a hand like she’s swatting away a compliment but beams anyway.
“Thanks. I’ve been open about two years now.
I’m trying to keep it small and curated—you know, little capsule pieces, indie brands.
Colton Valley doesn’t always know what to do with me, but they’re coming around.
I like to treat every customer like they’re my only customer.
Everyone who walks in here gets the full Natalie treatment.
Speaking of, could I interest you in some sparkling mineral water? Maybe some oolong jasmine tea?”
“I love that,” I say, running my fingers along a display of straw hats and linen scarves. “And I’d love some tea. I might be here a while . . . you’ve got quite the place here and I haven’t really shopped for myself in ages.”
The last thing I bought was a seersucker dress I intended to wear on my honeymoon with Nick. After everything went down, buying myself things I didn’t need suddenly didn’t feel like a priority.
“I miss when you used to style me back in high school,” I say, gently inspecting a rack of blouses. “I never had to think about what to wear. You’d come over on Sundays and put together all my outfits for the week.”
Natalie laughs. “Styling people is still my favorite thing to do. Twenty years later, nothing’s changed. I still drive a Honda Pilot. Newer model, of course. I still know every Alanis Morissette song by heart. And I still have terrible taste in men.”
We chat for a few minutes—easy conversation about old classmates, local school board drama, the retired couple who just opened a smoothie place down the street.
Nat’s still single, which doesn’t surprise me.
She always had a rotation of admirers. Pretty, chatty, magnetic, she could sell ice to a polar bear.
“Where are you living now?” she asks, looping a necklace onto a bust near the register.
“Down on Riverstone. That white farmhouse near the river.”
Natalie’s head pops up. “Oh, I know exactly where that is.”
“Of course you do,” I say, chuckling. Natalie was also our prom queen and class president.
I don’t blame her for never leaving a town that’s only ever been good to her.
I try on a handful of outfits before checking out with three new tops, a peplum skirt, and a pair of denim shorts.
“I’d stick around and shop more, but I’ve got a million things on my to-do list today.
You free tonight? Atticus goes to bed early—usually around seven thirty.
If you wanted to stop by . . . maybe bring a bottle and catch up?
I feel like we’ve barely scratched the surface. ”
Her grin widens. “I’d love that.”
Spending the evening doing mom things and playing outside with Atticus followed by catching up with Natalie means I’ll be too busy to stare at Hunter’s farmhouse.
A little wine and some good conversation might keep me from thinking too hard about that moment in the shop that keeps looping in my brain like a scene from a movie I shouldn’t have watched.
It didn’t mean anything.
It was a thing that happened.
That doesn’t mean it has to change anything.
And it won’t.