Chapter 20 Sage
SAGE
The new sign still does something to my chest.
Bean & Bloom curves across the painted wood in my mother’s old script, though the updated lines and deeper colors betray Luka’s involvement.
He may swear he didn’t interfere, but I know his fingerprints when I see them.
The wood is new. The glass is new. The door is new.
Everything is new, and somehow, it still feels like home.
I stand on the sidewalk in the early light, my hands wrapped around a to-go cup I poured myself from the first pot of coffee this morning.
Steam curls up into the cool mountain air.
Aspen Ridge is just starting to wake up.
The street is quiet except for a truck rumbling in the distance and a couple walking their dog on the opposite side.
Behind me, the café hums. The grinders. The soft clink of cups.
Voices. Laughter. Jenny singing something off-key in the back.
A smile spreads slowly across my face. I let myself soak it in for another second, because this is the moment I used to picture when the nights were too long, and the fear pressed too close. The doors open again. The sign is shining. The smell of coffee and cinnamon is pouring into the street.
“Penny for your thoughts, printsessa.”
Luka’s voice slides over my shoulder a split second before his hand does. His palm comes to rest at the small of my back, warm and familiar. I tilt my head and look up at him.
He fills the doorway like he was made to stand there. Against his chest, in a navy carrier strapped across his torso, our son sleeps with his cheek mashed against Luka’s sternum and one tiny hand clenched into a fist.
I reach for that fist. My thumb brushes over the soft, dimpled knuckles, and my heart does that thing it keeps doing now. That small, stunned drop. I still can’t fully believe this is real.
“Just making sure I’m not dreaming,” I say.
Luka glances up at the sign. His mouth tips. “If this is a dream, it is very well catered.”
I laugh quietly. “And very well staffed. Are they all here already?”
He nods toward the inside. “Your sister is trying to teach Nikolay how to use a milk frother without baptizing himself in foam. Anya is organizing pastries as if they are soldiers on parade. Misha is doing his best to look like security and failing because Jenny keeps bringing him muffins.”
I can picture it perfectly. “And Isaak?”
A muted change passes through Luka’s eyes, hovering between tension and comfort.
“He is at the corner table by the window,” he says. “He claims he wants to watch the town walk in. I think he wants them to see him here.”
The idea of Isaak Barinov sitting by my front window in a way that feels strangely natural now would have shaken me once, but time has changed things between us.
Life rarely fits into the clean lines of the us-versus-them I used to rely on.
The man who ordered my father’s death now watches my son with a quiet reverence, and somehow, I understand it.
It doesn’t erase the past, but it acknowledges the complicated truth of the present.
“There is space for him here today,” I say, “as long as he behaves.”
Luka’s hand presses a little firmer at my back, the bare suggestion of a smile shaping his lips. He leans down, kisses my temple, then straightens.
“Doors open in ten minutes,” he says. “Ready?”
I look at the sign one more time, then back at the windows. Inside, I can see movement. Hope’s dark blonde hair as she passes by with a camera strap across her chest. Anya’s bright scarf as she leans over the display case. The edge of Nikolay’s grin as he jokes with someone.
I take a breath that reaches all the way down. My fingers curl around the cup. Somewhere behind Luka’s chest, our son makes a tiny noise in his sleep.
“Yeah,” I whisper. “I’m ready.”
By nine o’clock, we’re packed. The bell above the door rings over and over, a steady chime that becomes its own sort of music.
People filter in slowly at first, their eyes sweeping over the changes.
New tables, a wider counter, the reclaimed-wood wall with framed photos of the old Bean & Bloom, layered with shots of the rebuild.
Then the caution melts away into a warmth that feels like relief, maybe even joy.
Mrs. Henderson is one of the first through the door. Her cane taps against the floor, her white hair curled into its usual helmet around her head. She stops in the entry, presses a hand to her chest, and lets out a sharp, wet inhale.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she whispers when she sees me. “You did it.”
My throat tightens. I wipe my hands quickly on my apron and round the counter to meet her. She folds me into a hug that smells like floral perfume and powder, her cheek pressed against my shoulder.
“I had a lot of help,” I tell her when we pull back.
Her eyes move to Luka, where he stands behind the counter, pulling espresso shots like he has done it his whole life. Then they drop to the baby carrier now strapped to my front, our son dozing with a pacifier slack in the corner of his mouth.
“Oh my,” she says softly. “Is this the little miracle everyone keeps whispering about?”
I look down. The word miracle used to belong to stories in church and fairy tales. Now it belongs to the small rise and fall of this chest, the curl of these fingers around my shirt.
“This is Leo,” I say. “Leonid Matthew.”
She smiles. “A strong name.”
She reaches out, lays one crooked finger on Leo’s tiny sock-covered foot. He stirs, sighs, then goes still again.
“He has your nose,” she says. “I’m so happy for you, dear. For both of you. Your mama would be… She would be over the moon.”
The ache comes quickly and deep, but it’s softer now than it once was. The edges are worn down by time and layers of new memories that sit atop the old.
“I think so too,” I say.
She squeezes my hand, then moves on to let the line grow behind her. More faces. Some familiar, some new. People who used to crowd the tables on Saturday mornings. People who brought flowers after the fire. People who braved the construction zone just to peek in and promise they would be back.
Hope weaves through them, her camera moving from hand to hand as she adjusts settings and angles. Every so often, she glances over at me with that look. The one that says she’s still here. That she’s okay. That she remembers everything and is still choosing to move forward.
Her hair is longer now. Her shoulders no longer fold inward at every loud noise. The scar along her wrist is pale and thin under the sleeve of her sweater. When she pauses at the reclaimed wood wall and lifts her camera, I see the way her jaw sets.
“This one,” she says later, showing me the screen.
It’s a shot of Luka behind the counter, laughing at something Nikolay just said, Vega at his feet with a bandana around his neck, and Isaak in the background by the window, his profile reflected faintly in the glass.
Leo’s blanket is visible in the corner where his carrier sits beside the register.
“It’s all here,” she says quietly. “Past and present. The things that tried to break us and the things that didn’t let them.”
I swallow hard. “Send me that one.”
“Already did.”
Jenny moves like she was built for days like this. She takes orders with a bright smile, chats with customers, and proudly points to the new chalkboard menu she helped design. Her hair is up in a messy knot, there is flour on her cheek, and she looks happier than I have ever seen her.
“Table four wants extra whipped cream on their hot chocolate,” she calls to me at one point over the crowd.
I arch a brow. “Did you promise them that, or did they ask?”
She grins, unrepentant. “They’re six. I’m not the monster who says no to extra whipped cream on reopening day.”
“They will never leave,” I laugh. “They’ll set up camp in that corner.”
Her eyes slide to the cluster of kids already spread around table four, coloring on Bean & Bloom activity sheets we printed last night. “Exactly,” she says. “We hook them young.”
Misha stands near the door with a cup of black coffee in his hand, his gaze sweeping the room.
He has his usual resting glower in place, but every once in a while, it cracks.
Like when Hope hands him a muffin with a little flag stuck in it that says Security in her messy handwriting.
He stares at it for a full three seconds, then his mouth betrays him. The corner tips up.
“Very funny,” he mutters.
Hope just beams. “You’re keeping it. I made that by hand.”
“I can see that,” he says. He tucks the flag into his pocket, where it sticks out like a ridiculous badge.
Anya flits from table to table, checking on people, arranging flowers, straightening chairs that no one needs straightened. She stops at the small retail shelf near the door and rearranges bags of beans until the display is perfect, then steps back with a satisfied nod.
“You should have seen your face when we rolled in that new roaster,” she tells me, linking her arm through mine. “I thought you might cry.”
“I did,” I reply. “I just waited until you all went home.”
She squeezes my arm. Her eyes drift to Leo in my carrier. He’s awake now, eyes unfocused and blue, his mouth working around his pacifier. She brushes a gentle finger over his forehead.
“Hello, little lion,” she murmurs in Russian. “You picked a good kingdom to be born into.”
At the corner table, Isaak sits in his wheelchair with a cup in front of him. He watches everything with an intensity that has not dulled, not even in this setting. The lines around his eyes seem deeper, and his hair is more silver.
When I finally make my way over, my heart picks up the pace. Not with fear, exactly. With awareness.
“Do you need a refill?” I ask, nodding toward his cup.
He looks up at me. For a moment, something unreadable passes through his gaze. Then he glances down at the logo on the mug and runs a finger along the curve of the B.