“Picking out lace. In Boise. We’re now operating at a volume that requires bulk lace buying trips.”
“That’s amazing!” Grace exclaimed.
Tessa froze in the act of taking the rolls and coffee. “Are you okay?”
Sometimes she forgot just how perceptive Tessa was. The woman missed nothing.
“Reno told me something last night,” she said.
“Something big? Are you okay with it?”
“I think I am. I’d like to help him be okay with it, but I don’t think there’s anything I can do.”
Tessa nodded the way somebody nods when they have been there. It stinks not being able to help the people we love when they’re hurting. She squeezed Grace’s hand briefly across the counter. “Call me,” she said.
“I will.”
The shop was quiet after Tessa left. Mary watched her from the kitchen with a careful, sidelong look that Grace pretended not to notice.
She stood still and felt the warmth of the shop around her. She smelled yeast, the lemon polish she used yesterday, the faint vanilla that permanently lived in the air of Buns ’N’ Roses.
This is my happy place.
She’d talked with Liam about opening a bakery for a while, and he’d encouraged her to do it, saying he knew it would make her happy. But she’d been scared of the idea of running a business all by herself.
Funny how he’d known it way back then, and she was just now coming to know it now.
The thought of him came in the way it usually did, with no beginning or ending like a snippet of music she heard without really paying attention. She let it come and didn’t tell herself she was getting over him because she wasn’t. She’d stopped expecting that of herself a long time ago. She also didn’t tell herself she was betraying him because she wasn’t. She loved him. She would love him for the rest of her life.
What had changed was something smaller and quieter. Her center of gravity was no longer pinned exclusively to a memory. That, and she understood now that she could love someone else while she still loved Liam.
She thought of the man warming syrup at her stove and smiled a little to herself.
She wiped her hands on her apron and went back to work.
Reno picked her up when the bakery closed, and he surprised her by already having Lily in the truck. “I thought you might be tired since I heard you stirring well before your alarm went off this morning. I figured you’d appreciate getting to go straight home and relaxing. Maybe even take a nap.”
She groaned in delight at the thought.
“And that reaction to my comment, you’re definitely taking a nap, now,” he declared. “I’ll entertain Lily for a while.”
That was how she ended up sleeping until nearly dark and stumbling out to the back porch to see Lily sitting on the ground cutting a crown out of yellow construction paper. Reno already wore a crooked crown on his head. His was pink.
Lily had a sticker on her shirt that said I AM A HELPER! in red letters that hadn’t been there when they drove home, which meant Reno had gotten if for her and given it to her.
“Mommy! I made Mr. Reno a crown!”
“I see. Does that mean he’s an honorary princess?”
Lily giggled. “Uhh huh.”
Lily ran to her, and Grace bent down to catch her. Lily smelled like grass and paste.
Reno looked at her and Lily, and the smile that broke across his face caught her by surprise. It was warm and open and caring in a way she’d never seen before. It was a good look on him.
“Hi,” she said over Lily’s head.
“Hi. How was your day?” he responded.
