Chapter 47
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Abilene
Friday
The honey house smells exactly the way I remember.
Warm wood. Old wax. Smoke that’s soaked so deep into the beams it’ll probably outlive the building itself. There’s a sweetness under it all.
I’ve walked this space a thousand times in my life. As a kid, as a teenager, as an adult who told herself she was only here to work.
But I’ve never walked it like this.
Not with my heart beating in my throat. Not with my grandmother’s riddles echoing in my head.
Not with the maybe pressing in on every breath.
The back door is exactly where Caleb said it would be. Plain. Unremarkable. If you didn’t know to look for it, you wouldn’t look twice.
“Grandma,” I whisper, my fingers hovering over the latch. “You were sneaky.”
Behind me, the room is quiet in that careful way people get when they don’t want to spook you. I can feel them there without turning around.
Marshall solid and steady, Jesse vibrating with curiosity he’s pretending to leash, Wyatt calm in that watchful, observant way that makes me feel I won’t fall apart even if I want to.
I open the door.
The storage space beyond is narrow and dim, lined with shelves that bow slightly under the old equipment. Rusted smokers. Empty frames. Crates that haven’t been touched in years.
It’s exactly as boring as everyone always said it was.
Routine.
Workers’ rest.
My pulse stutters anyway.
“Okay,” Jesse murmurs. “So far, anticlimactic.”
“Give it a second,” Wyatt says quietly.
I step inside.
The floorboards groan, a familiar complaint. I move slowly, running my hand along the shelf like I’m greeting an old friend.
Dust coats my fingers. The past lives thick in here.
And then I see it.
A crate pushed flush against the wall, half-hidden behind a stack of empty supers. Smaller than the others. Older. The wood is darker, smoother, worn by hands that touched it often and carefully.
My breath catches.
“That one.”
Marshall shifts the stack aside with gentle efficiency, like he’s handled fragile things his whole life. The crate looks heavy. He sets it down between us, then steps back, giving me space without asking.
I kneel.
The lid isn’t nailed shut. Just sealed with a thick line of old wax, yellowed with age.
Sealed.
My hands shake as I press my thumb into it. The wax cracks softly, giving way with a sound that feels too loud in the quiet.
Inside, there are no jewels.
No velvet. No sparkle. No drama.
Just paper.
A stack of carefully folded pages tied with faded twine, the ink browned with time. Beneath it, a slim leather-bound notebook, its corners worn smooth.
My brain refuses to process it.
“Oh,” I whisper.
Jesse blinks. “That’s… it?”
Wyatt crouches beside me, close but not crowding. “What do you see?”
I lift the top page with fingers that don’t feel like mine anymore.
At the top, in my grandmother’s neat, looping script, is a title written with quiet confidence.
Mabel Kentwood’s Jewel Honey Infusions
The world tilts. Not because it’s loud or shocking, but because it’s so simple.
Jewel.
Not treasure. Not wealth.
Not something worth dying for.
Just… a name.
A metaphor.
A promise.
I swallow hard, my throat burning. “It’s a recipe.”
Marshall exhales slowly. Jesse lets out a sound that’s half laugh, half disbelief.
“You’re kidding,” Jesse says. “All that buildup for… honey?”
I shake my head, tears blurring the page. “Not just honey.”
I flip through the pages, my hands moving on instinct now. Ratios. Notes. Variations. Handwritten reminders in the margins.
Let it rest longer in cold weather.
Wild mint bruises easily, be gentle.
This one brings calm. This one brings courage.
My chest aches.
These aren’t instructions for profit. They’re instructions for care.
“This is what she stopped making,” I whisper, realization crashing through me. “After Mom died.”
Wyatt’s voice is soft. “Because she understood then.”
I nod, tears slipping free. “Mom died chasing a rumor. A word. Something that wasn’t real.” My breath shudders. “And Grandma realized the only jewel she ever had was already here.”
Silence wraps around us, heavy but kind.
I press the notebook to my chest, grief and love tangling so tight I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.
What do I do with this?
Carry it forward? Turn it into something public? Or let it rest, the way Grandma chose to after it cost her daughter everything?
I picture my mom’s letters.
Her desperation. Her love.
Her hope that something, anything, could buy us freedom.
I picture Grandma sealing this away, out of grief.
And I picture myself, standing here now, holding generations of women who loved fiercely and quietly and did the best they could with the knowledge they had.
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” I say honestly. “I don’t know if honoring them means continuing… or stopping.”
Wyatt meets my eyes. “Maybe it means choosing for yourself. Not out of fear. Not out of guilt.”
Marshall nods once. “You’re not them. You get to decide what legacy looks like now.”
Jesse crouches beside me, gentle for once. “Whatever you choose, it doesn’t erase them. Or what they went through.”
I breathe in the scent of honey and wood and memory.
This isn’t treasure. It’s something better.
Wyatt shifts first, quiet but purposeful. “You don’t have to decide today.”
Marshall nods. “But you can try.”
I blink at him. “Try…?”
Jesse’s eyes light up like someone just suggested a party with snacks. “Make it.”
I stare at him. “Make it?”
“Yeah,” he says, already standing. “You’ve got the recipe. You’ve got the space. You’ve got…” he gestures vaguely at the honey house, “generations of emotional pressure.”
“That’s not reassuring,” I say weakly.
Wyatt’s mouth curves. “He means you have everything you need.”
I look down at the pages again. The careful handwriting. The margin notes that feel more encouragement than instruction.
Let it rest.
Be gentle.
Listen.
“I don’t even know if I still have all the ingredients,” I say.
Marshall’s already scanning the shelves. “I bet you do.”
I frown. “How do you know that?”
He shrugs. “You’re a Kentwood. You’re bound to have everything.”
Before I can overthink it, Jesse claps his hands. “Okay. Roles. I’m morale.”
“Obviously,” Wyatt says.
“I’ll help with prep,” Marshall adds. “You tell me what to do.”
Wyatt looks at me. “I’ll read.”
My throat tightens again, but this time it’s not grief.
“Okay,” I say, surprising myself with how calm it sounds. “Okay. Let’s give it a go.”
Caleb perks up instantly. “We get to help?”
Jesse opens his mouth.
Wyatt answers first. “You can observe.”
Eliza plants her hands on her hips. “That’s not helping.”
Marshall crouches to their level, serious as a judge. “Observation is very important. Especially when there’s hot stuff.”
That seems to satisfy them… mostly.
It turns out making honey infusions with three men and the twins is exactly as insane as you’d expect.
Marshall takes directions seriously. Too seriously. If I say “slow,” he moves like he’s defusing a bomb.
“This is bruising the mint,” I say gently.
He freezes. “Am I hurting it?”
“No,” I say quickly. “You’re just… intimidating it.”
Jesse snorts. “Same.”
Wyatt reads from the page in his calm, measured voice, translating Grandma’s shorthand like it’s scripture.
“‘Warm, not hot. If you rush, it will know.’”
Jesse squints. “The honey knows things now?”
“Yes,” I say. “It absolutely does.”
“I knew it,” he mutters. “Judgmental condiment.”
At one point, Jesse tries to taste test directly from the spoon.
“Do not…” I start.
Too late.
He grimaces. “Wow. That’s… sharp.”
“It hasn’t rested,” Wyatt says mildly.
Jesse points at him. “You sound like you’ve been personally offended.”
“I respect process,” Wyatt replies.
I laugh. Out loud. The sound startles me with its ease.
We move around each other in the small space, bumping shoulders, trading tools, arguing lightly over temperatures and timing.
Marshall steadies the pot. Wyatt adjusts the flame when I miss it. Jesse somehow ends up with honey on his elbow and no explanation for how it got there.
Time does what it always does when people stop rushing: it stretches.
The twins drift in and out, boredom giving way to curiosity and back again. Someone opens the door for fresh air. Someone else closes it when the scent gets too thick.
The honey warms. The herbs steep. We wait.
“Hold still,” I say, grabbing a cloth and reaching for Jesse’s messy arm.
“I feel like I should apologize,” he says.
“You should,” I agree, wiping him clean. “To the bees.”
When it’s finally ready, when the heat has done its quiet work and the room has settled into that deep, drowsy calm that only comes after patience, I ladle the infusion into a small jar. My hands are steady now.
I twist the lid on and set it aside, just as Grandma wrote in the margin.
We don’t rush it.
The waiting feels intentional.
And then, when the time is right, and I open it, the scent blooms immediately.
Honey, yes, but deeper. Rounder. Wild mint and something floral I can’t quite name, like late summer just before dusk.
It smells of my childhood. Of my grandmother’s kitchen. Like my mother’s laugh when she forgot to be afraid.
My eyes sting.
“Well?” Jesse asks softly.
I dip a clean spoon in and taste.
The world doesn’t explode. There’s no lightning bolt or choir of angels.
But I settle.
It’s smooth. Comforting. Layered in a way that feels intentional.
Someone thought carefully about how this would land on another person’s tongue. How it would make them feel.
“Oh,” I whisper.
Wyatt watches my face. “Good?”
I nod, unable to speak. “It’s… right.”
Marshall exhales deeply. Jesse smiles, quieter than usual.
I taste it again. Slower.
And suddenly I don’t feel like I’m chasing ghosts or fixing mistakes that were never mine.
I feel connected.
To my grandmother, sealing jars with care.
To my mother, dreaming of escape and safety.
To myself, standing here now, choosing not out of fear, but out of love.
I set the jar down carefully, palms resting on either side of it.
“I don’t know what this becomes,” I say honestly. “If it stays just for me, or if I share it. Or if it turns into something new.”
Wyatt is gentle. “You don’t have to know yet.”
Jesse grins. “But if you do decide to sell it, I want first dibs.”
Marshall nods. “Second.”
I laugh again, wiping at my eyes. “Deal.”
I look at the jar one more time.
Mabel Kentwood’s Jewel Honey Infusion.
Not treasure.
Legacy.
In this moment, the question of what comes next doesn’t feel heavy.
It feels sweet.
It is sweet.
And suddenly, that sweetness doesn’t belong just to the jar.
I look up from the table and really see them, standing there with me, honey on their hands and patience in their posture and quiet pride softening their faces like this mattered to them too.
Not the recipe.
Me.
Emotion swells so fast it makes my chest ache.
“I…” I start, then stop, because the words pile up all at once and trip over each other. I press my palm flat to the table, grounding myself. “I need to say something.”
All three of them still.
“I don’t think I could’ve done this alone,” I say honestly. “Not found it. Not opened it. And definitely not made it.” I gesture helplessly at the jar.
Wyatt’s gaze is soft. Marshall’s jaw tightens a fraction. Jesse’s grin fades into something quieter, more real.
“That matters,” I continue, my words wobbling despite my best efforts. “Right now… this matters more to me than the mystery, or the legacy, or what comes next.” I swallow. “You matter more.”
I don’t overthink it.
I step forward and kiss Jesse first. Quick and soft, right on the corner of his mouth. He freezes. I’ve just rebooted his entire operating system.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
Then I turn to Marshall. He’s already lowered himself a little, like he knew I’d need the space.
I press a kiss to his cheek, just long enough to feel his breath hitch.
“For staying steady,” I murmur.
Then Wyatt.
He doesn’t move at all. Just waits.
I cup his face with sticky fingers and kiss him gently, right on the mouth. It’s soft and careful and somehow says “I see you” without needing words.
“For watching,” I breathe.
When I step back, my heart is pounding so hard I’m sure they can hear it.
“I care about all of you,” I say, the truth tumbling out now that the seal is broken. “More than I meant to. More than I expected. And I don’t know what this looks like yet, but I know I don’t want to pretend it’s not real.”
Silence stretches.
Then Jesse lets out a shaky laugh. “Well. That explains a lot.”
Marshall steps close. “I’m not confused,” he says quietly. “I’m in.”
Wyatt’s voice is calm, but there’s a fierceness underneath it. “I’ve been in. I just didn’t want to push.”
My eyes burn again, but this time it’s not grief. It’s relief.
“I don’t want to choose between you,” I say softly. “I want to choose this. Whatever this is. Right now.”
Jesse’s smile turns slow and tender. “Good. Because I don’t think any of us are interested in half-measures.”
Marshall nods. “We’ll go at your pace.”
Wyatt meets my gaze, unwavering. “Together.”