My stomach twisted into a series of knots as I stared, frozen, at the man striding down Main Street outside the window. The glass trembled faintly when the door swung open for a new customer, and for a moment I thought he’d somehow already seen me. His coat—dark wool, shoulders hunched against the October wind—was so familiar that I felt like puking.
I wanted to pinch myself. It had to be some kind of nightmare. My grip on the edge of the table slicked with sweat until my palms left damp half-moons against the wood. As his face turned my way, a hollow roar filled my ears. I wasn’t sure if I needed to throw up or hijack a car and drive until I hit the state line.
“Margot?” Georgie’s hand landed on my forearm. The pressure of her fingers barely shook me out of it.
I blinked as the skull-squeezing sensation receded and the café slid back into focus: the low hum of conversation, a spoon scraping against porcelain, the sharp bite of roasted coffee beans in the air. Then, he was gone. Or maybe he’d never been there in the first place. My pulse thundered as I shook my head, as if to knock the image loose. “I’m fine. I just—”
Georgie’s color drained until she was a pale sheet framed by copper. Acid burned the back of my throat as I followed her gaze to the window, where a man stood in line for the bakery next door. The wind lifted his hair, and for an instant the world tilted.
So, it hadn’t been a ghostly aberration.
He was real and in the flesh. A handful of feet away, unaware of my existence.
My father was back in Bluebell Cove.
CHAPTER SIX
2015
I was fifteen going on forty. At least, that’s how it felt when I stood at the kitchen counter, slicing apples into perfectly even wedges for the Fallfest pies. Mom had stopped reminding me to do my homework, stopped caring if my shoes were scuffed or my hair was knotted. She carried on like nothing had changed, humming off-key while she missed deadlines and forgot appointments. So I picked up the slack. If she wasn’t going to keep everything together, I would.
The knife slipped once, nicking my thumb, and I nearly cried—not from pain, but from the dot of blood staining the neat circle of slices. I tossed it into the trash and started again. Everything had to look how it always did.
“No one’s going to measure the apples.” Teddy leaned against the kitchen threshold, grinning in that infuriating way.
“They’ll notice,” I muttered, realigning the wedges until they formed a perfect ring.
He sobered, stepping closer. “Nobody’s grading you, M.”
Teddy was right, but for the reason he would never come to understand: nobody waited in the wings for me. Nobody was coming to double-check the work or step in when it went wrong. That was thepoint. The only person I could count on now was me.
So I straightened my spine, wiped the counter clean, and kept slicing.
I had no room to fail.
???
PRESENT DAY
The glass on the Morning Bell’s door was cool as I pushed it open.
It was the only part of my body that wasn’t flushed with pure, unbridledrage. Without my coat, the wind bit my skin in an unpleasant clash of temperatures, probably sizzling on impact and leaving tiny puffs of steam.
Georgie followed behind me, wordless for once, something between terror and panic coloring her features. I stood on the cobblestones, hands balled into fists at my sides, waiting beneath a swaying tree as a crowd of tourists passed between us.
My heart slammed against my ribcage as they finally dispersed. Our eyes met, as if I was looking in my reflection. Only, I hated what I saw.
I lunged across the sidewalk, Georgie hanging behind like a silent but supportive shadow. Or maybe she was just petrified of what I might do.
He opened his mouth, gaze flying wide as it shot between his daughter, mid-rampage, and someone beside him. I stopped in my tracks. Someone else blinked back at me. In that single,frozen moment, the hot air was swept from my body, and all I wanted to do was curl up in a dark hole.
“Who’s that, Daddy?” She hugged his leg and looked up at me with my own chocolate eyes.
I forced my clammy fingers to unfurl. My knees did an admirable job of keeping me upright, even if the ground seemed to be rapidly shifting underfoot.
Andrew Wade—I’d never taken the time to change my last name—scooped her from the ground and into his arms. It took everything in me not to curl my lip in disgust.
“What are you doing here?” I said, fighting to control the vitriol.
