Jasper #3
“The knee means I can’t re-enlist,” I said. “That’s—” I stopped, started again. “That’s not something I’ve said to many people. Everyone knows I was injured. Not everyone knows it’s permanent.”
Cara didn’t react the way most people did when they heard something heavy—she didn’t rush to fill the space with reassurance or questions. She just looked at me and nodded slowly, giving it room. That was the thing about her. She’d always known how to hold space for something without crushing it.
“I’m sorry,” she said, after a moment. Not overdone. Just true.
“Yeah.” I looked at the shelves. “I’ve been sitting with it. Trying to figure out what comes next.” I glanced back at her. “Honeybrook Hollow stopped feeling like somewhere I was waiting to leave..” I held her gaze. “You’re the first person I’ve said that clearly to.”
Something in her expression went soft. She looked at me the way she used to look at a passage in a book that had caught her off guard—like she was reading it twice to make sure she’d understood it right.
“I’m glad you told me,” she said quietly.
“I’m glad I came tonight,” I said.
The light from the street lay soft across the floor between us, and neither of us seemed to be in any hurry to move toward the door.
She uncurled herself from the chair first, reaching for her mug, and I took that as the signal and stood and picked up mine.
We carried them back to the small sink behind the counter without discussing it, moving around each other in the narrow space with the easy quiet of people who’d said everything important and didn’t need to fill what came after.
She rinsed both mugs and set them on the rack, and I handed her the dish towel without being asked, and she dried her hands and folded it over the edge of the sink, and then just stood there for a second looking at the counter.
“I’m glad you stayed tonight,” she said. She said it simply, without loading it with anything extra, and that was so entirely her that I felt it somewhere behind my sternum.
“Me too,” I said.
She walked me to the door, and I stepped out onto the sidewalk and turned back.
The night air was cool after the warmth of the shop, and the street was empty and, all porch lights and stillness.
She stood in the doorway with her arms crossed loosely, the dress and the late hour and everything we’d said in the last two hours between us in a way that wasn’t uncomfortable at all.
“I’ll see you,” I said.
Something in her expression settled warmly. “Yeah,” she said. “You will.”
I stepped outside onto the sidewalk, clearing the threshold, and turned back toward the shop.
Inside, Cara hadn’t moved yet. She stood there for a second, looking at me like she was trying to figure out what I was doing.
Then it clicked, and a faint flush crept up her neck, quick and warm, and she looked away almost immediately, like she didn’t want me to see it.
She stepped to the door, and I heard the lock turn—metal clicking firm and final.
Her hand lingered on it for a second, fingers pressing in, like she was double-checking something she already knew was secure. She looked at me through the glass.
“You’re waiting,” she said, a little unsure, like she already knew the answer.
I leaned one shoulder lightly against the doorframe. “Yeah.”
“You don’t have to.”
I tipped my chin toward the staircase behind the counter. “Set the alarm, Cara. Get upstairs.”
She huffed out a small breath that almost turned into a laugh, shaking her head as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, the color in her cheeks not quite faded.
“Okay,” she said, softer as she set the alarm.
Then she turned and headed for the stairs, her steps steady but just a touch quicker than before.
I stayed where I was, watching through the glass as she moved through the dim shop and disappeared up the staircase.
A light came on upstairs. I stepped back from the doorframe to see better.
Movement crossed the window, and then Cara appeared in the frame—her hair down now, loose around her shoulders.
She looked out and found me on the sidewalk below, and for a moment she just watched me, her expression doing something complicated that I couldn’t fully make out from this distance.
Then she pressed one hand lightly to the glass and lifted it in a small wave.
I raised mine back before I’d made any conscious decision to.
She lingered there—long enough that it wasn’t accidental—and then stepped back from the glass.
A moment later, three shapes materialized on the windowsill with the serene authority of creatures who considered themselves the primary residents of any space they occupied.
One stretched long and deliberate along the glass.
Another wound behind it, tail flicking once before settling into place.
The third jumped up last and sat perfectly square in the center of the sill, looked straight down at me, and appeared to be conducting an assessment of my character.
I huffed a quiet breath. “Yeah,” I muttered. “All right. I get it.”
I shook my head, still smiling, and turned toward my truck.