Chapter 12
Taylor
Valentine’s week at the café always felt like someone had shaken a glitter bomb over her life and then handed her a mop.
Pink napkins. Heart sprinkles. Boxes tied with ribbons that never stayed put.
The pastry case gleamed with chocolate-dipped strawberries, red velvet cupcakes, and sugar cookies iced within an inch of their lives.
The whole place smelled like cocoa and vanilla and a little bit of panic.
“Cupid called,” Jenna announced from behind a mountain of meringues. “He wants you to stop making him look lazy.”
Taylor snorted and kept piping tiny roses on a cake shaped like a heart. “Tell Cupid he can clock in and help close, then we will talk.”
The bell jingled. A cluster of teenagers swooped in for lattes, giggling over a printed list of class crushes. Mr. Nelson claimed his corner booth and his crossword. Mrs. Abernathy gave Taylor a wink so saucy that Taylor nearly dropped her pastry bag.
“Your cheeks are pink,” Jenna sing-songed once the rush settled. “Is that from the oven or from a certain town debate that ended with a public kiss?”
“Steam,” Taylor said primly. “From the dishwasher.”
“Right. Steamy Ryan Carter.” Jenna fanned herself with a stack of to-go lids.
Taylor laughed and reached for the box of satin ribbon she kept under the counter. One roll had slipped free and tumbled into the open space where she usually tucked extra pastry boxes. She knelt to fish it out and saw something that was not ribbon at all.
A white envelope lay flat against the wood, edges smooth, her name on the front in that same careful handwriting.
Her heart pitched. For a moment, the café sounds drifted into a blur. She slid the envelope out and stood slowly, shielding it with her body like someone might snatch it from her hands.
“Is that what I think it is?” Jenna whispered, eyes going wide.
Taylor swallowed and slipped the edge of her thumb under the flap. Inside was a single card.
When the day felt loud with other people’s love, you made a quiet place for your own. Go there now, to the spot you kept only for yourself on Valentine’s Day. Come alone.
Beneath the words sat a tiny pressed violet, taped to the card with care.
Her breath caught. Her secret place. Not the fountain.
Not the lookout. The little footbridge by the river where she used to sit every February fourteenth with a thermos of cocoa and a brownie from yesterday’s batch.
She had watched the water slide under the wooden slats and told herself that not having flowers did not mean she was unworthy of them.
No one knew she went there. Not Emma. Not anyone.
Except someone did.
Jenna leaned on the counter, chin in her hand, shameless. “So. Are you going to tell Ryan and let him be your terrifyingly handsome bodyguard again?”
Taylor traced the pressed violet with her fingertip. “It says to come alone.”
Jenna wrinkled her nose. “That sounds like the beginning of a horror movie.”
“It is a public park,” Taylor said, though her stomach did a small flip.
“Public parks are where raccoons live. And also men with trench coats in mystery novels.” Jenna pointed a frosting spatula at her. “Text Ryan. He will lurk at a respectful distance and pretend he is not lurking.”
Taylor stared at the note again. Come alone.
The words sparked and stung in equal measure.
The scavenger hunt had been tender and a little wild and sometimes a little scary, but always it had felt like someone had placed a hand at the small of her back and guided her forward.
Part of her wanted to honor the instruction.
The other part heard Ryan’s voice in her head listing every reason isolated places after sundown were a bad idea.
“Jenna,” she said quietly. “My secret place. How would anyone know?”
Jenna softened. “Maybe because he knows you. The way you think. Where you go when you need air. And maybe that should give you the biggest hint as to who your secret admirer is. Maybe he isn’t so secret after all.”
Taylor folded the card and slid it back into the envelope. The pressed violet felt fragile, like a truth she had not given herself permission to keep.
Taylor pulled her phone from her apron and typed, Deleted a second later. Typed again. Deleted. She tucked the phone away with a sigh.
“I will go before sunset,” she said. “There will be joggers.”
“I’ll watch the clock,” Jenna replied. “If you aren’t back in an hour, I am calling Emma, the mayor, and possibly the National Guard.”
“Please do not call the mayor.”
“We follow protocol in this house.”
The bell chimed again. Orders flowed. Taylor moved with muscle memory while the note throbbed like a pulse against her ribs.
She boxed cookies, frosted cupcakes, laughed when Mr. Nelson declared himself the official taster of chocolate-dipped strawberries.
She told herself she would tell Ryan afterward.
She told herself this was hers for a moment.
Not the town’s. Not her coworker’s. Not even Emma’s.
When the afternoon lull finally arrived, she pared the pastry case into neat airtight tubs, washed her hands, and hung her apron on its hook.
The envelope went into her coat pocket. The pressed violet slid safely into the tiny notebook she kept for inventory notes that were not inventory notes at all.
Jenna watched her tie her scarf. “Text me when you get there.”
“I will.”
“And if you see anyone in a trench coat, throw a cookie at them and run.”
“I am not wasting cookies on criminals.”
“That’s my girl.”
Taylor smiled, small and nervous and excited all at once. She stepped into the winter light, the doorbell chiming behind her, and turned toward the river where a wooden footbridge waited like a secret she used to keep only for herself.
Taylor smoothed her hand over the folded note again, tracing the words as though they might rearrange themselves into something less dangerous. Come alone.
Her secret place. Her ritual. Her one corner of the world where Valentine’s Day had belonged to her alone. Nobody knew about it. Not Emma, not her coworkers, not her mom when she was alive. It was hers.
Except…someone knew. Someone who had been watching close enough to see beyond the cheerful barista smile and the quiet manager routines. Someone who saw the girl who slipped away with cocoa and a brownie and wished on river water.
Her chest squeezed. In her heart of hearts, she already knew.
Who else would go to this much trouble? Who else would know her favorite seat, her favorite author, the shade of ink she liked in her journal?
Who else had been shadowing her through these clues, half-protective, half-irritated, but never really letting her out of his sight?
And yet the note’s words pulled her in a different direction. Come alone. A rule. A promise. A dare.
Taylor pressed the violet to her lips, then tucked it carefully back into her notebook. For once, she didn’t text, didn’t over-explain, didn’t look for someone else to give her permission.
This time, she would play the game exactly as it was meant to be played. Alone.
And maybe she’d find the one person she’d been wishing for on the other side.
* * *
Taylor’s boots crunched softly over the gravel path, the February air biting at her cheeks. She hugged her coat tighter. The pressed violet was safe in her pocket, and the words of the note beat like a pulse in her head. Come alone.
Taylor followed the path by instinct more than sight, guided by the soft ribbon of moonlight that spilled between bare branches and turned the river into a sheet of silver.
Frost squeaked under her boots. In the distance the town glowed, a low necklace of windows and streetlamps.
Here it was quiet. The kind of quiet she had always come to on this week in February, when the rest of the world felt loud with other people’s bouquets and candlelit dinners.
She had almost texted him. Twice in the kitchen, once by the pastry case while Jenna whistled something suspiciously like a wedding march. She had typed his name and erased it each time, palms damp, the note in her pocket thrumming like a second heartbeat. Come alone.
The little footbridge appeared the way it always did, a silhouette first, then a shape, then the familiar slats that creaked in the third and sixth boards.
Her bridge. Her spot. She had stood here on cold nights and warm ones, with a thermos of cocoa and a brownie pilfered from yesterday’s batch, feeding herself softness because no one else had thought to.
She knew the splintered place on the rail that caught mittened wool if you were careless.
She knew where the light pooled and where the shadows tucked themselves in to listen.
Tonight there was something new. An envelope rested against the railing at the center, anchored by a flat rectangle wrapped in clear plastic.
Even from a step away, her body understood before her mind did.
The same careful handwriting curved across the envelope.
Her name. Not the polite version she used for formal introductions, but the one Emma yelled through a house.
The one Ryan used when he forgot to be careful.
The world narrowed to the size of her hands.
She slipped the plastic free, slid a nail beneath the envelope flap, and breathed through the tremble in her fingers.
Paper whispered. Inside was another envelope, heavier, official, the kind with perforated edges and a barcode.
She opened that too and then everything tilted for a second, as if the river had shifted its course.
Round trip. Paris.