Chapter 1 #2
“Yup!” Julia chirped, fully aware of the fact that both she and Maggie knew how she normally woke up at five a.m. to bake the breakfast pastries and treats.
“I just feel like getting it in now,” she added in an attempt to avoid raising too much suspicion and having Maggie start asking questions about why, exactly, she needed the distraction of baking to help her out that evening.
The phone felt heavier in her back pocket at the thought.
“I’ll save the last rise for the morning, and I’ll do some of the muffins then as well,” she added almost as a consolation.
“Do we need all that?” Maggie asked hesitantly, watching as Julia dug out a tablespoon and started to scoop yeast into the bowl. “I mean, aside from us, it’s just the Petersons and that lady doing the wine tour.”
“Yes,” Julia responded, barely able to unclench her teeth as she went to the fridge to get some milk, “we do. We also have another early check-in tomorrow, and I’m sure they’ll want some breakfast, too.”
Maggie continued to eye her dubiously as her available counter space got smaller and smaller with the ingredients she added.
“If you say so.”
“I do say—” Julia inhaled sharply, cutting herself off as she heard the escalating harshness in her tone, before willing a big smile on her face. “Why don’t you head on home? I can take things from here. Come tomorrow whenever you like for dinner prep.”
“Are you sure?” Maggie carefully unwound her apron from her plump waist, setting it on the unoccupied counter across from Julia. “I can stay and help you. Would you like me to brown the butter? For the cinnamon rolls?”
Julia felt a surge of affection for the young woman rush through her, replacing the flicker of annoyance that had only just been there.
The truth was, Maggie was her saving grace.
Julia had first met her years ago, in what felt like the unlikeliest of ways: when she’d learned that Maggie’s parents had purchased the Schaeffer cottage, her family’s old vacation spot.
The one where Julia had spent every summer of her childhood before her father sold it—an attempt to rid the family of the memories that haunted them anyway.
It was a bittersweet connection, but one that quickly became a comfort.
When word spread that Julia was restoring the neighboring property, Maggie’s father had been one of the first to offer a helping hand, her mother often appearing at the door with home-cooked meals when Julia was too busy to feed herself.
And once they had found out about her connection to their property, they hadn’t inundated her with questions or tried to piece together the history of the families who had once held cottages side by side.
Instead, they invited her over, encouraged her to spend time at her former summer home to see what it had become.
Julia gently refused each time. She bore no resentment—not toward the family, of course, or from how it had been sold.
But imagining it under someone else’s care stirred a quiet ache she rarely let herself dwell on.
She was glad it had found a good family, truly, but the thought of stepping inside again always felt like reopening a door she’d carefully closed.
Eventually, they’d stopped asking, respecting her need to keep her distance.
In the years since, Maggie’s parents had grown older, as time often dictates, and Julia knew most of the responsibility at home now fell to Maggie.
Still, they remained the same kind, dependable family, and Julia was as grateful to them as she was to Maggie herself.
It made her think of her own father—elderly now as well, but with none of the nurturing genes that Maggie’s parents exhibited.
She and her father loved each other, of course, but it was a love best displayed from a distance.
It had taken him a while to come around fully and be supportive of what she was trying to do. He hadn’t quite gotten it at first. He’d barely come to visit. She tried to be understanding. To recognize that, for him, it all still felt fresh and too soon despite the years that had—
Ignoring the twinge in her chest, she turned back to Maggie with a genuine smile.
“I’m good, don’t worry. I’ve got this from here.”
With a nod that hesitated only slightly, Maggie quickly finished tidying her area, including quickly loading the dishwasher, before hanging her apron up, and leaving after saying good night.
Julia turned back to the dough. Cinnamon buns were her favorite to make—not just for the sweet reward at the end but for the ritual of it, the physicality.
The steady rhythm of punching and folding, kneading until her forearms ached.
Julia’s recipe in particular, with the addition of the brown butter, demanded patience to turn the dough from a sticky mass into something soft and malleable.
She knew it would take time—the dough had to rise twice, and there were a few hours of quiet tending ahead—but there was comfort in that.
In giving herself over to a process that rewarded both time and touch.
I really need your help.
The words came back to her then, unprompted, sharp and merciless. Her phone suddenly felt like it was burning a hole in her back pocket, the phantom heat of it pressing against her uncomfortably.
Scoffing to try to dismiss the pounding of her heart, Julia took the milk to the stove and turned on two of the gas burners, one for the milk and the other for her butter. She had set out to make cinnamon buns, and that was what she was going to do. Ethan Duchamp and his requests be damned.
It didn’t take long for her to get the milk to a good temperature for the yeast, so she poured that into her glass mixing bowl as she kept an eye on the butter. Browned was the key, not burnt.
Another thought came to her then, this time of the memory of her and Ethan at NYU, Ethan watching as she tried to make Rice Krispies squares on the little portable stovetop in her dorm room—
She shook her head to clear the unwanted memory just as the sharpness of almost-burning butter filled her nostrils.
She quickly took the pot off the burner and swirled the butter around, coating the bottom of the copper pan, before placing it back on the heat, slightly lower now, and stirring it efficiently with the wooden spoon as the rest melted down.
A few more minutes and countless stirs and it was done, the rich, nutty smell of it filling her nostrils as she put the pot aside to let cool.
Fitting the bowl to her stand mixer, she did a quick stir of the milk and yeast, sprinkling a bit of flour in there to let it bloom before adding the rest of the ingredients.
I really need your help.
There they were again, those five words that Julia couldn’t get out of her head. The ones that tightened her chest and narrowed her vision and caused her breath to shorten.
No, she thought, closing her eyes and taking long, measured inhales and smooth, lengthy exhales. Not now.
The feeling dissipated slowly, and the knee-weakening relief she felt helped to dissolve it further. She continued to breathe deeply until she felt her heart rate go back to normal.
Picking up the pot with the cooling butter, she swirled it around a bit more and then poured about a third of a cup into her bowl with the yeast, milk, and flour before switching her stand mixer on to a slow rotation. As it turned, she added two eggs, a pinch of salt, and about half a cup of sugar.
Julia had a knack for determining the amounts of ingredients—partly due to experience, but also because she had just always been good at seeing something and knowing what it could hold.
Nowadays, she rarely measured anything, and she hadn’t had a problem yet—or at least no complaints—so she continued with the method that worked.
And baking worked for her. All the pieces put together, then made into a whole.
The tangible result of hard work, perseverance, and a bit of intuition.
As long as a person didn’t stray too far from the plan, things usually turned out when it came to baking.
Julia liked that, the predictability of it.
Baking rarely disappointed.
I really need your help.
Julia’s breath caught again and she swore fiercely. Was this going to keep happening? Every time that godforsaken text—those fucking words—came up in her mind?
Maybe…She bit her lip. Maybe she should just reply? See what he wanted, so she could move on—for the second time.
When the thought of responding eased the tightness in her chest a little, she bit back a groan.
Traitor, she thought, fuming at the way her body betrayed her. She turned back to the swirling mixture slowly churning in the bowl, waiting for it to bring her the calmness that it usually did.
Instead, she felt the heaviness of the phone in her back pocket still, its presence unwavering.
With a bone-deep sigh, she pulled the phone out, heart pounding, but this time without the miserable panic that usually accompanied it.
She opened Ethan’s text once more, cursing at the way her fingers shook slightly.
Before she lost her nerve, she typed out a quick response and clicked Send.
Then she put the phone back in her pocket, took a deep breath, and returned to her mixer, trying not to think of the words she’d just sent and what they might mean for her going forward. What they might mean for both of them.
What do you need?