8. Annie
Chapter eight
Annie
The morning of the grand re-opening of my bakery starts before the sun. I’m downstairs before the sun is up, but I’ve already received a text from Dottie.
Dottie: a dozen cinnamon rolls, extra glaze.
By five, the ovens hum like happy beasts, and my kitchen smells like a heavenly combination of cinnamon, browned butter, and sugar.
Cal moves quietly through my space like he’s always belonged here.
He lifts trays, swaps racks, and nudges my hip with his when I hover too close.
We don’t talk much. We don’t have to. The easy, steady kind of quiet that lives between people who chose each other settles over everything.
“Timer?” he asks.
“Two minutes.” I lean up, kiss his jaw. “Thank you. For all of this.”
He rubs his thumb over my wrist, grounding. “Proud of you.”
That does something fizzy to my chest. I slide the first trays to the front: a tight spiral of glossy rolls, apple hand pies, cheddar- chive biscuits. Cal flips the sign to OPEN while I loop the chalkboard outside.
PINE HOLLOW, I MISSED YOUR FACES.
— free mini cinnamon knots with every coffee —
By six-thirty, a line snakes down the sidewalk. Dottie’s at the door before the bell can finish its first ring, bright orange vest over overalls, cheeks pink from the cold.
“Make way for an old woman who knows where the good stuff is,” she crows, then folds me into a hug that smells like cedar and oatmeal cookies.
“Look at you, Annie girl. Back from the dead and better than ever.” She tips her head, eyes sparkling.
“And—hello, Cal Redmond. You brought that smile with you, I see.”
“Morning, Dottie,” Cal rumbles, which counts as a speech for him.
She pats his arm like she helped raise him, which, honestly, she basically did with half this town. “One Dozen with extra glaze. And I’ll take that big Thermos you promised.” She winks at me. “String lights and sugar keep a town running.”
“On it.” I bag rolls, tuck in two extra because she loves freebies, and slide the Thermos over. She leans in, conspiratorial.
“People thought I was joking when I said Pine Hollow gives folks exactly what they need,” she says softly, eyes flicking between me and Cal. “Happy to be right.”
The bell sings again, and then the little bakery becomes a reunion.
Tessa breezes in first, her city-sharp coat over a flannel she’s trying very hard to pretend is hers, hair in a high ponytail, that reporter sparkle in her eyes.
She sets her phone on the counter like it’s a tape recorder and grins.
“Annie, I came for the cinnamon rolls that smell like sin. Also, Sawyer says if I don’t bring him two maple pecans, he’ll chop something out of spite. ” She wiggles her brows.
As if summoned, Sawyer steps in behind her—big, quiet, a nod for Cal that says thanks without words. “Coffee. Black.” I slide the rolls across; his gaze softens a millimeter when Tessa bumps her shoulder against his.
“Next!” I call, and the next turns out to be Juniper, in a soft sweater, cheeks rose-bright, the kind of calm that comes from loving and being loved right.
She balances a tray of herb seedlings with practiced grace.
“Housewarming gifts,” she says, setting a little basil and a pot of thyme by my register.
“For the new-old kitchen.” Her husband, Elias Boone, fills the doorway behind her—tall, quiet, a steady hand at the small of her back.
He offers Cal a brief clasp; they trade a whole conversation in one look.
“Two apple hand pies and a cinnamon roll for Wren when she gets out of school?” Juniper adds, smile turning private when she glances up at Elias.
“On the house,” I say, tucking in an extra maple sugar cookie because she once told me sugar makes hard days gentler.
Dottie, hovering, chimes in to the room at large, “Would you look at it—Elias Boone in public twice in one month. Miracles never cease.” Juniper laughs; Elias absorbs the teasing with a grunt and a look that says everything is fine as long as Juniper’s hand is in his.
The door swings again, and Sadie barrels in on a gust of cold air and joy, braided hair under a knit hat, one gloved hand already reaching for the case. “If I don’t get a pecan sticky bun in me in the next thirty seconds…”
Reid comes in behind his wife, big and scowling and so obviously gone for her.
He takes up space beside Cal like a mountain and tips his chin in greeting.
“Two coffees. Hers with cream and too much sugar.” Sadie rolls to her toes to kiss his jaw.
He pretends it doesn’t melt him. It does.
We all pretend we don’t see it. Dottie doesn’t bother pretending.
“Man’s as cuddly as a cactus,” she stage whispers to me, “and Pine Hollow loves him anyway.”
Somewhere between refilling the drip and boxing donuts, my little shop turns into the beating heart of the square. Linda from the post office takes a dozen cheddar biscuits “for the crew.” Miles promises firewood for my back stoop. Hazel sends over a bouquet of flowers.
Cal moves through it all, catching a tray before it slides, resetting the bell on the back door, taking an overflowing trash bag out with one hand while pulling a kid’s knit hat back over his ears with the other.
People clock it. The way he’s here not as a contractor or a hermit or a ghost, but as my man.
I feel it in every look.
I feel it most when the morning rush crests and the noise thins to a warm hum, and Dottie climbs up on the little stool by the community board like a general about to launch a parade.
“Pine Hollow,” she calls, and we all answer, because we always do. Conversations soften. Chairs scrape closer. Even Reid’s mouth twitches as if he’s considering smiling.
Dottie clears her throat, blue eyes twinkling.
“Now, I’ve been around a long time. I’ve seen snow that squatted over this town for six weeks straight.
I’ve seen the power go out in July, and the mayor propose to his wife on the back of a tractor.
I’ve seen some of you menfolk finally pull your heads out of your asses long enough to notice the women meant for you.
” Laughter bubbles; Sawyer stares at the ceiling.
Reid glares at the floor. Elias looks at Juniper like she hung the moon.
“But today,” Dottie continues, voice warming, “we get to celebrate Annie Monroe. Our girl who feeds us when we’re hungry, caffeinates us when we’re mean, and remembers how every one of us takes our coffee—even when we don’t deserve it.
” She nods toward my scorched wall, now tiled straight and bright.
“She stared down a kitchen fire and an inspection sheet and October’s chaos and came out smiling.
And—” She tips her chin toward Cal. “—she found herself a good man to help her through it all.” A pause, then a satisfied, “About time.”
The room erupts—whistles, cheers, someone banging a wooden spoon on a table. My throat goes hot; my eyes go hot; everything goes hot. Cal’s hand finds the small of my back, a quiet anchor.
“Make room,” Tessa says, popping up with her phone, already filming, journalist instincts and friend-heart warring adorably on her face. “I need the grand-reopening speech. Suitable for viral content. Possibly with Sawyer holding a baby or chopping wood in the background.”
“Absolutely not,” Sawyer says, which only makes the room laugh harder.
Sadie threads through the crowd, palms warm on my forearms. “You did it,” she says, eyes bright.
“You look happy.” Reid stands behind her, a wall at her back, and the look he levels at Cal says Hurt her, and I’ll haul you into the woods and make you help me stack firewood for a week, and then burn you on the pyre you’ve built .
Cal’s answering look says over don’t worry . They both seem satisfied.
Dottie thumps her mug on the counter. “All right, lovebirds. Kiss your girl proper so I can tell Judge Peterson’s sister’s cousin’s neighbor I saw it with my own eyes.
” I laugh so hard I wheeze. Juniper whoops.
Tessa cheers. Half the town chants, “Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!” like we’re at a high school pep rally.
Cal’s mouth curves. He turns me, palms framing my face, and kisses me like we’re alone in the alley on a quiet night—soft and sure, a little smile hidden in it. The room sighs. Somewhere, Dottie dabs at her eye with the corner of her apron and mutters, “My Annie,” like a benediction.
When we come up for air, Cal doesn’t step away. He looks at me like I’m something he gets to keep and then looks out at the people who made him, me, and this place home.
I clear my throat, cheeks aching from grinning.
“Okay, okay. Before I start sobbing, I have one more thing.” I reach beneath the counter and pull out a little jar with a hand-lettered tag: Community Tab .
“Pay what you can. Take what you need. If you’re having a tough week, if a kid forgot lunch money, if you just need a win—tell me.
Dottie’s right. This town takes care of its people.
Let me help.” Dottie’s soft oh bless swells the room by three sizes.
She reaches for the jar like she’s going to hug it, but instead drops a wad of cash inside.
Juniper starts the clap. Sadie joins. The whole room follows. Cal squeezes the back of my neck, thumb stroking once, and I have to blink hard to keep the tears from smearing my eyeliner.
We ride the morning like a warm tide: orders and hugs and refills and “good to see you, honey” on repeat. Wren dashes in after school, snags a treat, and tells me she might run for class rep. For a girl who wasn’t sure where here place was, Wren has made Pine Hollow her home.
By late morning, we’re wiped and glowing. The line’s finally a trickle. Cal leans a hip against the counter, forearm brushing mine.
“You okay?” he asks.
“I’m—” My throat tightens. “Yeah. I’m really good.”
He nods toward the windowsill, where the basil catches a little shaft of sun. “We should build you planter boxes there. Tie into the tile. Make it solid.”
“We should,” I echo, because I like the way we sounds coming from him.
Dottie returns with the empty Thermos, brandishing it like a trophy.
“Best grand re-opening I’ve ever seen,” she declares.
“Also the only one, but that’s beside the point.
” She sets the Thermos down and takes my hands across the counter, her voice dipping to something that hums. “I told you Pine Hollow would give you what you needed. Looks like it finally did.”
I glance at Cal. He’s not a storm cloud today. He’s steady weather, blue sky behind a ridge, a good forecast settling in my bones.
“It did,” I say.
Dottie’s smile goes bright and wet at the edges. She taps my knuckles, then winks at Cal. “You keep showing up like this, Redmond, and I might forgive you for refusing to model the flannel line for my bulletin board last winter.”
“No,” he says, deadpan.
She cackles, satisfied. “I love a man with boundaries.”
Tessa slides a business card across the counter. “When you’re ready to tell the ‘rebuilt the kitchen, and fell madly in love’ story, call me.”
Sadie hugs me again, then whispers, “I knew you’d get your happy ending.”
When the bell finally quiets, and the last box goes out, I turn into Cal, hands fisting in his shirt, forehead to his chest for a beat. He rests his chin on my hair.
“Proud of you,” he says again, and it lands the same way it did at dawn.
“Stay?” I ask, even though I know the answer now.
“Yeah.” His mouth finds my temple. “Always.”
Outside, the square keeps breathing—bluegrass on the breeze, kids laughing, Dottie’s laugh cutting through like a bright bell. Inside, my kitchen hums, my heart hums, and the basil leans into the light.