Chapter 1
Sage
"What are you doing here?"
The words come out before I've set the boxes down. Before I've done anything except push through my grandmother's back door, drag in two crates of coffee beans, and turn around to find a man leaning against my counter like he owns the place.
Not a stranger. I wish he were. Strangers I can handle. Strangers don't know my name, don't know my brother, don't look at me like they've already calculated every exit in the room and decided I'm not a threat.
Jackson Cross looks exactly like trouble and absolutely nothing like a contractor.
He's taller than I remember. Broader. Dark hair cropped close, a few days of stubble along a jaw he probably forgot to shave.
His eyes are the same gray green I remember; the kind that don't miss anything.
He's got a worn jacket over a dark henley, work boots with actual mud on them, and the kind of calm that doesn't come from being relaxed.
It comes from training. From knowing that if something moves wrong, he'll already be moving first.
I haven't seen him in nine years.
"How did you get in here?" My voice comes out steadier than I feel. Good.
"Door was unlocked."
"It wasn't."
One corner of his mouth lifts. Not quite a smile. "Your brother gave me a key."
Of course he did. Of course, Caleb handed a key to my bakery to his best friend without a single text to warn me. I'm going to have words with my brother. Several words. Loud ones.
"Caleb doesn't own this property." I set the second box down with more force than necessary. "I do."
"He mentioned you might need some help with repairs before the reopening." Jackson doesn't move. Doesn't shift his weight, doesn't cross his arms. Just stands there like he's been here the whole time and I'm the one who walked into his space. "I'm a contractor now."
"I know what you are."
"Do you?"
The question lands flat, with no edge to it, and somehow that's worse. I turn away from him and pull open the nearest cabinet. Half the hinges are loose. Wonderful.
"I didn't ask for help," I say to the cabinet.
"Caleb did."
"Caleb worries."
"Yeah." A pause. "He's got reasons to."
"You want to talk about reasons?" The words are out before I can stop them. "You were gone for a year, and you didn't write me. Not once. Caleb got letters. I got nothing."
Jackson's jaw tightens. For a second the calm cracks. "Sage—"
"Forget it." I pick the box cutter back up off the counter. "It doesn't matter anymore."
I close the cabinet. Open the next one. I grip the edge of the counter instead of saying what I actually think. This was supposed to be simple. Show up, clean up, bake things, exist quietly. Small town. Familiar ground. Safe.
Safer than the city, anyway.
"I've been managing on my own for eight years, Jackson."
"I know."
"Then you know I don't need a babysitter."
"Contractor." He says it like a correction and like a joke at the same time. "I'm here to look at the plumbing and the electrical. That's it. You don't have to talk to me."
I face him then, because ignoring him clearly isn't working and because I need him to understand something. He's watching me with that careful, measured look. Like he's taking inventory. I hate it.
"If Caleb called you," I say, "he told you I wanted to handle this myself."
"He did."
"And you came anyway."
"I did."
I stare at him. He stares back. He doesn't look sorry.
"Fine." I pick up my box cutter from the counter. "Plumbing's in the back. Don't touch anything in my kitchen."
"Wasn't planning to."
"Good."
I turn back to my boxes.
"You still take your coffee with too much sugar?"
I stop cutting.
"I was nineteen," I say without turning around. "People change."
"Sure." I can hear the non-smile in his voice. It's infuriating. "Still know how to make a raspberry latte, or did you forget that too?"
I spin around. "Are you serious right now?"
He raises both hands. Slow. Easy. Like he's surrendering, except nothing about Jackson Cross has ever looked like surrender. "Just making conversation."
"Don't."
"Okay."
"I mean it."
"I know you do, kid."
There it is.
Kid.
He says it the same way he said it thirteen years ago, standing in my mother's kitchen, all twenty-something certainty while I trailed behind him and Caleb trying to matter.
Like the years between then and now are nothing.
Like I'm still seventeen with flour on my apron and too many feelings I didn't know what to do with.
I set the box cutter down before I do something stupid with it.
"Don't call me that."
He tilts his head. Studies me. Something shifts in his expression, just briefly, something I can't read before it locks back down.
"My mistake," he says. Quiet. No edge to it.
I hold his gaze for another second, then look away first. I hate that I look away first.
"While I was waiting," he says, "I had a look at the back prep area. There's a slow leak under the secondary station. Grout around the sink is cracked too. I can seal both today if you've got caulk."
"Third shelf, supply closet."
"There's also a cracked junction box near the back entrance. Shouldn't run the kitchen without getting that looked at."
"Add it to the list."
"Wire Watkins does good electrical work. I can call him."
"I can call him myself."
"I know." He doesn't move for a moment. There's something behind his expression, something he's not saying. With Jackson there's always something he's not saying. "It's good work, what you're doing. Coming back. Reopening this place."
I don't know what to do with that. So I don't do anything with it.
"Third shelf," I say again, and turn back to my boxes.
He pushes off the counter. He moves the way he always did, quiet for someone his size, economical. Like every step is a decision. He passes close enough that I register the smell of sawdust and something faintly like cedar.
I wait until he rounds the corner.
Then I breathe.
I press both hands flat to the counter and stare at the scratched surface and remind myself why I'm here. Order. Routine. Familiar walls. This bakery is mine now, and it needs me, and that's what matters. Not old history. Not a man I haven't thought about in years.
Liar.
I shove that thought somewhere dark and get back to work.
I scrub the front display case. Check the espresso machine for scale buildup.
Make a list of supplies I'll need by the end of the week.
Jackson works in the back without talking, which is the best thing he's done since I arrived.
I can hear him moving, the occasional sound of a wrench or a cabinet opening, but he stays out of my kitchen.
Small mercies.
I pull the old chalkboard menu off the wall and start sketching the new one on a notepad: seasonal offerings, the raspberry latte front and center because this is my shop and I'll put it there if I want.
I make coffee in the little backup machine I brought from my apartment because the big one isn't calibrated yet, and I drink it standing at the front window looking out at Main Street.
Millhaven looks the same. Smaller than I remember, or maybe I just grew. The hardware store is still on the corner. The pharmacy still has the crooked sign. A woman I half-recognize walks past with a stroller and doesn't look up.
I could disappear here. That's the point. That's always been the point.
My phone buzzes. Caleb.
Did Jackson show up?
I type back: We're having a talk later.
Three dots appear, then: He's good at what he does, Sage.
I know what Caleb's really saying. He's been saying it in different ways since I called him three weeks ago and told him I was coming home. That I needed somewhere quiet. That I needed to put some distance between me and the city.
I didn't tell him everything. I never tell him everything, because telling Caleb everything means watching him panic, and watching him panic means the thing I'm afraid of becomes real.
I pocket my phone.
I carry my coffee back toward the prep area to check the supply closet myself. Force of habit. I like to know exactly what I have, exactly where it is. Control what you can. Everything else, you figure out.
I'm almost at the counter when I stop.
There's something sitting in the center of it.
I didn't put it there. I would remember putting it there. I remember every single thing I've set down in this room today — both boxes, the box cutter, my notepad, my coffee cup, which is currently in my hand.
It's small. Plastic. A cheap little barrette in the shape of a star, the kind you'd find in a drugstore multipack for three dollars.
The kind I had a dozen of when I was eight.
The kind that went missing the morning after I woke up to a window that had been open when I'd locked it shut.
I don't move. I don't breathe. I just stare at it sitting there on my counter, in my grandmother's bakery, in the town I came to because it was supposed to be safe.
It's not a coincidence.
I already know it's not a coincidence.