Chapter 45
By Friday morning, the rain had stopped for the first time in a week, and the Oregon coast outside Sugar & Salt was doing that thing it did after a long storm — scrubbed clean, colors too bright, the air so sharp it tasted like a decision.
Cara found Gabe on the bakery’s back steps.
He sat facing the water with his elbows on his knees and a mug of coffee going cold beside him, Agent the cat draped across his boots like a fur stole.
From what he’d told her, this was the first time in his life he had no badge, no title, and no desk to report to. He was still technically chief for another few months while the town council found his replacemen.
Cara stood in the doorway with flour on her hands and watched him not drink his coffee, and her chest did the thing it had been doing for months—the tight, complicated thing that was half warmth and half terror and had no business being both.
He was leaving. That was the obvious read.
A man like Gabe didn’t walk away from law enforcement to sit on bakery steps and pet a cat.
He’d go back to Sacramento, or D.C., somewhere that made sense for a man like him, and Cara would stay here behind her counter selling scones to tourists, and that would be the right thing, because she was still Carly Reid.
Still a felon. Still running. And a man who’d spent his whole life on the right side of the law did not need a woman who’d spent hers on the wrong one.
She could never tell him. He’d have to choose between the law and her, and she would not make him do that. She would not be the reason Gabe Sawyer compromised the thing that had defined him.
“So I guess you’re leaving,” she said, suddenly wanting to get the looming conversation overwith.
Gabe looked up. Agent shifted on the boots without opening his eyes. “Leaving?”
“The job. Haven Cove. All of it.” She struggled to keep her voice light. “You’ve got options. Los Angeles. D.C. Somewhere that needs a man with your résumé.”
Gabe looked at her for a long moment. “I’m not leaving,” he said.
“You’re not?”
“No. I’m just—” He rubbed the back of his neck.
The gesture of a man who’d been thinking about this for a long time and still hadn’t found the smooth version.
“I’m tired of working inside the lines. I’ve been watching you and the guys for months now.
You help people. Actually help them. I file reports about helping them, or request authorization to help them, or wait for a warrant so I can help them next Thursday. You just do it.”
“We do it on a shoestring,” Cara said. “Part-time. Volunteer. When we’re not earning a living doing our real jobs.”
“I’ve got money set aside. I don’t need a salary.”
“Gabe—”
“And if I need income later, I’ll figure something out.
” He looked at her. Steady. The look that wasn’t anger and wasn’t worse than anger and was something else entirely—something she’d been afraid to name since the cabin.
“I want in. On the team. On whatever this is. On—” He stopped.
Started again. “I want in on the action, Cara. And I hope it involves you.”
Legs suddenly wobbly, she sank down beside him on the steps. Agent relocated to the space between their feet and resumed purring.
The alley smelled like rain and baking bread and the faint salt edge of the Pacific. Cara looked at Gabe’s hands on his knees—big, steady, still bruised across the knuckles—and thought about all the lines she couldn’t cross, all the things she couldn’t tell him, all the reasons this was impossible.
She leaned toward him anyway.
He leaned toward her.
“Maybe not today,” he murmured. “But we will. The Lord will show us a way.”
He leaned closer. She could feel the warmth of him. Could count the inches. Could—
The back door slammed open.
“I PASSED MY DRIVER’S TEST!”
Piper stood in the doorway, permit in hand, incandescent. Behind her, Tom was trying hard to look thrilled rather than terrified.
Gabe pulled away from her. Agent jumped off the steps and vanished around the dumpster with the dignity of the deeply offended.
Gabe winked at Cara and took her hand. She let him.
They followed Piper inside.
“So…celebration?” Piper asked, her voice uncharacteristically small.
Cara hugged her. “Already planned. The bakery. Tonight.”
“Awesome!” Piper waved the truck keys in the air. “Come on, Dad. We’ve got places to go.”
With a last beseeching look, Tom followed his daughter back through the bakery and out the door.
Less than eight hours later, the bakery was full.
Tom and Reagan sat at the corner table—Tom’s arm around the back of Reagan’s chair.
Wade leaned against the counter with a coffee he was examining like it contained state secrets.
Diane stood across from him, leaning against the counter with the easy comfort of an old friend, teasing him about the coffee.
Pastor Ben was in the armchair by the window with a bowl of soup.
That’s what Pastor Ben did—he showed up with amazing homemade soup and asked no questions and stayed as long as staying was useful.
While Reagan and Diane distracted Piper with questions about feline nutrition, Tom slipped out of the building. Cara had to turn away to hide her telltale smile.
Five minutes later, Piper stopped talking mid-sentence about her parallel parking score.
Tom pulled up to the curb in a faded Honda Civic with a ridiculous red bow covering the hood.
A hundred and forty thousand miles, and the paint job had seen better decades.
Wade and Gabe and Tom ran it down in Portland two days ago.
Reagan added the bow. It was enormous—the kind of bow that belonged on a car in a TV commercial.
Moving like a tentative fawn, Piper edged toward the door. Tom stood on the sidewalk, keys dangling from his outstretched fingers.
"No way," Piper whispered, and burst into tears.
She was out the front door before anyone could respond.
She circled the car once, fast, hands over her mouth.
Then she opened the driver's door and slipped behind the wheel, gripping it with both hands.
She got out. Opened the passenger door. Checked the back seat.
Popped the trunk. Closed the trunk. Sat behind the wheel again.
Tom watched from the sidewalk with tears streaming down his face. He didn't even try to hide them.
In the bakery doorway, Reagan had her hand over her mouth. Wade stood behind her, blinking hard at the ceiling.
Piper finally climbed out of the car for good and crossed the sidewalk to her father. She threw her arms around him so hard he rocked back a step. Tom held her tight, eyes closed.
When she pulled back, her eyes were swimming. "Is it really —"
"Yup. Yours. From all of us."
"Dad —"
"It's used."
She laughed, wet and surprised. "I don't care."
"I figured I'd let you wreck this one before we look at anything nicer."
"That is so romantic."
"Manual transmission."
"What."
"You're going to learn to drive a stick shift, kid. Builds character."
"Dad."
He gestured up the stairs. “Blame Wade.”
The big man grinned down at her. “You're welcome."
She hugged her dad again, harder, face pressed to his shoulder. "You're crying."
"I am not."
"You absolutely are."
"Salt air."
She pulled back and looked at him dead-on. "Thank you."
Piper turned, took the steps two at a time, and threw her arms around Wade. He stood still for a moment, like a man being hugged by a weather system, and then — slowly — put one hand on the top of her head. "Don't wreck it," he muttered.
Gabe caught Cara’s eye from across the room. He tilted his head toward the group—the question he’d been holding all day. She nodded. Now.
He stood up. He didn’t clear his throat, didn’t tap a glass. Just stood. “I have an announcement.”
Piper clapped her hands together. “You’re buying me gas for a year?”
He grinned, shaking his head. “Nice try.” He made eye contact with Tom, then Reagan, then Wade, and finally, Piper, who was already leaning forward like a dog who’d heard a treat bag rustle. Cara watched him take a huge inhale, then: “I’m joining the team.”
Silence. The good kind.
Tom spoke first. “About time.”
Reagan nodded once. Cara could already see her friend’s brain clicking over—logistics, protocols, the operational architecture of adding a former federal agent to a group of people who operated on instinct and pastry. Reagan would have a spreadsheet by morning.
Wade looked at Gabe for a long moment. The look of a man measuring another man against a standard nobody else could see. Then he nodded. Once. That was all.
Piper said, “Does this mean you’re going to be at every meeting? Because I have concerns about your effect on the vibe.”
“What vibe?” Wade said.
She rolled her eyes. “Exactly my point.”
Diane put her hand on Wade’s arm. Pastor Ben smiled into his soup. Tom pulled Reagan closer by the shoulder and said nothing.
Agent jumped onto the counter, because important moments required feline supervision. Cara scratched behind his ears and looked out at the room full of people she’d built a life around without meaning to, the life that had started as a cover story and become the realest thing she’d ever had.