one
. . .
Sophie
The espresso machineat Roz’s has a grudge against me.
I know this because it works fine for everyone else. For Roz, it purrs. For her part-time girl Dani, it cooperates. The second my hands touch the dial, it gurgles, spits, and produces something that smells like burnt grounds.
I tap the portafilter twice against the knock box and try again. This time the machine gives me what I want. Barely.
Nothing comes easy this early in the morning, especially when I’ve been awake since four-thirty checking the locks. I’ve done the rounds twice already: front door, back door, and the narrow hallway that leads to the storage room. Old habits die hard, and some habits I don’t want to kill. Not yet.
I pull the shot, set it on the saucer, and slide it to the row of morning orders. Roz works the floor, moving between tables with the efficiency of a woman who’s run this diner for decades and knows which opinions to keep to herself.
Most of them.
The diner hums at seven forty-five. Flat, cold March light slants through the front windows, catching dust motes in theair and making everything feel a little too exposed. Mud season has started, which means the road up the ridge is open again, and the regulars have returned. I know all their orders, which tables have sightlines to the back hall, and the exact minute the propane truck backs into the alley on Tuesdays.
The bell over the door chimes.
I don’t look up. I don’t have to. The compass needle in my chest already knows.
Logan King settles onto his usual stool, the third from the left with the best view of both doors. I pour his coffee before he asks. Two sugars, no cream. Neither of us acknowledges that I know this about him. We’ve been calling it nothing for months. Longer than that if you want to get technical.
“Morning.” Logan wraps his big, capable hands around the mug. Those strong, steady hands have always done something to me. They look like they could fix anything or hold someone safe through the worst of any situation.
“Morning,” I say.
I’m already moving away, but I feel his gaze follow me—it always does—dragging heat down my spine and making my stomach tighten with an emotion I refuse to name.
Last month I stood in this same diner with my arms crossed while half the women in town bid on his Valentine’s date night basket. The place had been packed, decorated pink and red with Nora running the auction like a seasoned auctioneer.
Logan stood on the low riser in his deputy uniform, looking calm and steady and unfairly good in that charcoal gray. The basket was perfect for him: a high-end first-aid kit, a topographic map of the local trails, and a handwritten voucher for a year of free pie from Roz’s.
Bids climbed fast. Seventy-five. A hundred. A hundred and twenty. The new schoolteacher kept raising her paddle with a hopeful little smile.
Logan’s gaze never left my face. Not once.
Everyone was watching us. The longer I stayed silent, the more I was sure people could see my pulse in my throat. My chest felt too tight and my hands too cold. I wanted to bid. God, I wanted to. I wanted to claim that basket and finally let myself have something good in this town I was trying to come back to.
But I couldn’t.
Not with what I’d brought back to Lush Hollow. And bidding would have meant standing in front of everyone and saying:I choose this man who broke my heart, I choose this town, and I’m staying.
Not when I didn’t know whether staying would get him hurt… or worse.
So, I kept my arms folded tight across my chest and let the schoolteacher win him for a hundred and eighty dollars. I didn’t watch her collect the basket. I turned away and mixed cocktails until my hands stopped shaking and the noise of the crowd blurred into a distant roar.
Now, I refill syrup bottles and try not to think about his hands or how he looked at me the night of the auction, like the only bid he wanted was mine. The bittersweet memory still burns sometimes.
The morning rush thins by nine. Logan leaves for whatever a newly acting sheriff does with his day, and the diner quiets.
Nora arrives at nine-fifteen, thirty-eight weeks pregnant and still moving like she’s running a board meeting. She lowers herself onto Logan’s stool with a sigh. “Please tell me there’s still a cinnamon roll.”
“I saved you the last one.” I slide the plate across the counter.
She takes the plate with both hands like it’s sacred. “Sophie Wilde, I will name this baby after you.”
