The Switchback Café smells like cinnamon and butter,and something warm Idon’thave a name for yet.By the time I make it three steps past the door, someone says my name.
“Tess, right?”
I pause with my hand on the strap of my bag, like if Idon’tmove, maybeI can rewind the last ten seconds and walk back out before this becomes a thing.
“Sweetheart.”A woman with a silver-streaked braid and flourdusted up both forearms leans across the counter as ifshe’sbeen expecting me all morning.“You’re the new girl on Rosa’s ridge.”
“Newstravelsfast here,” I say because it feels like the safest possible response.
She smiles, slow and satisfied. “News doesn’t travel here. News is born here.”
That should feel like a joke.
It doesn’t.
“Mae Whitlock. This is on the house.” She sets the mug in front of me likeshe’sclosing a deal. “Sit.”
I slide into the booth by the window because saying no would require more backbone than I currentlypossessat nine in the morningin a café where the owner is acting like she knows me.
The vinyl seat sighs under me.Outside, Hollow Peak is bustling: four trucks, a man in a red plaid jacket loading something into a tailgate, a woman walking a small dog. A church bell from somewhere down the valley makes a single, soft chime.
Inside, I’m being assessed.
Mae pours coffee, watching me over the rim as ifshe’swaiting for something specific to show up on my face. “How’s the cabin?”
I wince. “Standing.”
“Optimistic. I like it. You eaten?”
“Um, I had a cinnamon roll at five this morning.”
“You need more than that, sweetheart,”Mae says fondly.“I’llbring you breakfast.”
The pancakes that show up are bigger than my face.A second mug of coffee shows up alongside them, and then Maeslidesinto the booth across from me without invitation.
“All right.”She folds her hands on the table.“Talk to me.”
“About what?”
She gives me a look that saysshe’shad this conversation a hundred times and always wins. “What brings someone your age up to Rosa’s ridge to live in a cabin that should’ve been condemned in 1998?”
I wrap my hands around the mug. It’s too hot, but I don’t let go. “My aunt left it to me.”
“Mm.”She nods.“And what made you keep it instead of selling it sight unseen the way most kids do?”
There’sa right answer here. A normal one. Something about opportunity or fresh starts or always loving the mountains.
“I…”I look at her. Her eyes are blue andpatientand kind.“I don’t know.”
“Mm.” She nods again. “That so.”
I shrug as if it doesn’t matter.
“The cabin’s a wreck,” she says.
I sigh. “Yeah.”
“You got any people?”
