Cara
Ihadn’t slept badly, which surprised me.
I’d expected to lie awake replaying everything—the clue packets, the reveal, the moment Eric’s fingers had closed around my wrist—but instead I’d fallen asleep almost immediately, the cats arranging themselves around me in their usual territorial way and woken up to pale morning light and the quiet of a Saturday after something significant.
I got dressed and texted Lucy to make sure we were still on for coffee.
Gravel crunched beneath my tires as I pulled into the Coffee Cabin parking lot.
The morning had that hazy, washed-out quality that came with early hours in Honeybrook Hollow—sun up but not doing much yet, the sky the color of bleached denim.
The Coffee Cabin sat at the front of the lot like a weathered sentinel, its dark log walls softened by years of rain and sun, the walk-up window already open and releasing the sharp, welcoming scent of freshly ground espresso mingled with warm vanilla and cinnamon.
A short line of cars idled in the drive-up lane.
Two stools at the counter were already occupied.
By my sisters. Of course.
I parked and crossed the lot, the brisk air nipping at my cheeks.
The hiss of steamed milk and the low sound of Eliza’s voice calling out orders drifted toward me, and the tightness that had been sitting quietly in my chest since I woke up eased by a fraction.
This was what Saturday mornings were for.
Eliza glanced up from behind the espresso machine the moment I came into view, her hands never slowing. “There she is,” she said, already pulling a fresh shot. “What are you having?”
“Vanilla latte. Some things never change,” I said, sliding onto the empty stool beside Lucy.
A warm ceramic cup appeared on the counter moments later. I wrapped both hands around it and let the heat seep into my fingers.
Lucy turned to look at me, studying my face for answers. “You seem happy,” she said, nudging my shoulder lightly with hers.
“It went well,” I said. “Didn’t it?”
She let out a quiet laugh and tilted her head. “That’s one way to put it.”
“It was more than that.” Piper leaned forward from Lucy’s other side, catching my eye.
She’d come in already flushed from the bakery, a faint dusting of flour still along her forearm that she hadn’t noticed.
“People were talking about it this morning. Two separate customers mentioned it.” She paused. “You might have to plan another one.”
I stared into the swirling foam of my drink, watching the steam curl upward and vanish. Another one. The thought landed somewhere between exhausting and thrilling, which was probably how I knew it was a good idea. “I just wanted people to have fun,” I said.
“They did,” Lucy said, turning toward me on her stool. Her voice was simple and certain. “Because of you.”
I didn’t know what to do with that, so I took a sip of my coffee instead and let the warmth of it settle alongside everything else.
Piper was quiet for a moment, both hands wrapped around her cup, watching me patiently; she was good at waiting without pushing. Then she said, “How are you feeling? Really?”
“Good,” I said, and meant it. “Tired, but—good. I feel like it went well and I’m still shocked that it did.”
“It totally did,” Eliza called from behind the counter, not looking up.
Lucy set her cup down with a small, deliberate click. “So,” she said.
I exhaled. “No.”
“We’re talking about him.”
“We’re not. Okay, which him? I need to know which argument to start.”
“Jasper, of course. We need to talk about Eric, too, but that can wait.” She turned on her stool to face me fully, one elbow on the counter, the picture of patient determination. “He stayed. After everyone left. He didn’t have to do that.”
“He was helping clean up.”
“Uh, uh. No. You texted me when you got upstairs. He waited for her,” she informed everyone. “Outside. While she locked up. That is not just clean up help. That is something else entirely.”
I looked out across the parking lot, watching a car ease forward in the drive-up line. A crow landed on the hood of the truck two spaces down, regarded the situation, and flew away. I understood the impulse. I was not good at being the center of attention.
“He’s nice,” I said weakly.
Piper made a quiet sound beside Lucy. Not quite a disagreement. More like an addendum.
Paige shook her head once from her spot by the railing. “He’s more than nice.” I turned back to her. “He’s reliable,” she said. “Shows up on time, does the work right, doesn’t cut corners. And he pays attention. He’s a good guy. A rare, legitimate, good man.”
Lucy nodded in agreement. “He listens, too.”
“That too,” Paige added.
“He is one of the good ones,” Lucy said.
She picked up her cup and held it with both hands.
“He watched the whole room last night. Every time Eric got near you, he noticed. I was watching him watch you, and he was—” She paused, choosing her words.
“Careful. Present. Like he’d decided something and wasn’t making a production of it.
” She looked at me. “That is huge, Cara.”
“I know.”
I tried to focus on the present. But I found myself thinking about the reading nook, the two mugs on the table between us, the way he’d looked at me when he said it was real, like he needed me to actually believe it.
I’d spent all these years talking myself out of something that had apparently been true the whole time, and now I was standing here in the morning light, trying to act like that information was sitting quietly inside me and not doing what it was actually doing, which was making it very difficult to think about anything else.
An involuntary shiver moved through me.
“And then he just—did it,” Lucy continued. “Stepped in, like it was nothing. Like doing the right thing was just something he regularly does.” She looked at me. “That is huge, Cara.”
I knew. I did know. What I couldn’t tell her, what I couldn’t tell any of them without opening a door I wasn’t sure I was ready to open, was that it wasn’t just the stepping in that had gotten to me.
It was the way he’d asked before he touched my wrist, then held it as if it were something worth being careful with, and how he’d stayed close for just a second after to make sure I was okay.
I was trying very hard not to hope too much.
I knew what happened when I hoped too much where Jasper Dean was concerned—I’d spent the better part of a decade on the other side of that particular lesson.
But last night he’d said things I hadn’t let myself imagine him saying, and now I was standing here in the morning with my sisters watching my face like it was a text they were trying to decode, and the hope was there anyway, quiet and stubborn and refusing to be sensible.
“I know,” I said again, because it was the truest thing I could say without saying everything.
Lucy studied me for a long moment with the focused patience of someone who already knew more than she was letting on. Then she picked up her cup and looked back out at the parking lot. “Okay,” she said simply.
I looked at her. “That’s it?”
“For now.” She took a sip. “I’ve said what I needed to say. The rest is yours.”
Piper patted my hand once and said nothing, which from her meant everything.
I wrapped both hands around my cup and looked out at the street, at Honeybrook Hollow going about its morning like nothing had changed, and thought about a man waiting on a sidewalk in the dark to make sure I got upstairs safe. The hope didn’t go anywhere. I stopped asking it to.
She rolled her eyes. “So stop calling him nice like he’s a golden retriever.”
Piper pressed her lips together. Eliza, from behind the counter, made a sound that was definitely a laugh disguised as clearing her throat.
“He’s—” I stopped. “Okay, yeah. He’s something,” I said finally. “But I don’t want to talk about it now. Not yet.”
Lucy’s expression was satisfied and carefully restrained. “Yes,” she said. “He is definitely something.”
Piper’s hand brushed lightly against my arm, warm and brief. “You deserve something,” she said quietly. “Just so you know.”
I didn’t answer. I looked down at my coffee and thought about the light in the upstairs window, and the figure on the sidewalk below, and the way I’d stepped back from the glass and still known he was there.
Movement at the edge of the parking lot pulled me out of it.
Eric.
He stepped out of his car and started across the lot, his gaze sweeping the area until it landed on me. His steps slowed for just a fraction of a second, then continued with purpose.
Lucy noticed him a second after I did. “Of course,” she said under her breath, quiet enough that only I could hear it. “Of course he’s here. He can’t take a damn hint.”
My shoulders tightened. I set my cup down and pressed my palms flat against my thighs, feeling the denim rough beneath them.
I didn’t want another conversation. I didn’t want the careful dance, the exhaustion of trying to be kind and clear at the same time in a town where everyone knew everyone and nothing stayed private for long.
But the alternative was letting it sit. Letting him continue to interpret my silence as something it wasn’t.
Better to handle it now. Make a clean break. Before it got worse.
“I need to talk to him,” I said quietly, already sliding off the stool.
Lucy’s hand brushed my arm. “You don’t have to—”
“I know.” I looked at her once. “But I need to. This has to be done.”
I crossed the lot before he reached the window, meeting him halfway, far enough from the counter that my sisters couldn’t hear.
Gravel shifted under my boots as I stopped, leaving enough space between us that I didn’t have to step back to hold his gaze.
The cool air pressed against my face. My pulse was a little faster than I’d like.
Be clear, I reminded myself. Kind, but clear. Don’t leave the door open.
“Hey,” he said. His voice was low and careful.
“Hi.”