"Jaxon," I sigh, not sure what to say. I mean, obviously, he came in to get a pastry. He probably had no idea this place was mine, and I have to consider that this is just as shocking to him as it is to me. But he looks so calm, and so goddamn handsome. I lick my lips, press a hand to my belly, and shake my head. "What are you… I mean… What can I get for you?"
Keeping my composure is clearly out the window. I'm awkward and stiff, feeling like I may vomit any second. And I have three more customers in line behind him already. This isn't good. He isn't supposed to just walk back into my life like this. I have a life now, a full life with a bakery and things to do, responsibilities. I can't get wrapped up in drama, which will inevitably happen when he learns where life has taken me the past eight years.
"Can I just get a blueberry muffin…?" His eyes are just as steely grey as they've always been, but the framework has changed—my God, has it changed. Jaxon isn't some puny, wiry twenty-something anymore. Those biceps are almost as big as my thighs, and holy fuck, the ink peeking out from under his T-shirt makes my mouth water.
"Uh… yeah, sure," I mutter, feeling like a total idiot, and as I run a hand through my hair, pushing the blonde locks off my face, I watch his eyes lock on my hand.
Dammit… He's got no ring on that finger either, and he's watching me like he thinks I'm edible. But I'm not on the menu. "Do you want it warmed up?" I call over my shoulder, fumbling with the wax paper to pull the muffin out of the display case. Never in my life has serving a customer made me feel so fidgety, but I'm not sure what to even think about this. It's so out of the blue, his showing up here. I find myself feeling angry and betrayed, but scared and panicked at the same time.
"Nah, just normal is fine," he says softly, and I catch Leah's eyes through the pass-through. She shakes her head and offers a look of confusion. She can tell all the way back there in the kitchen that something's off, maybe because no one in this town knows my secret, not even Jaxon.
Turning, I set the muffin next to the white paper bags we send to-go orders out in, but before I can snatch one up to bag it, Jaxon picks it up and holds it, one hand on the muffin, one with a few bills dangling. His shoulders square, stretching that thin cotton tee over rounded, hardened pectorals, and my eyes lock on the sight, unable to look away. If I thought he was a good-looking man before he left, now he's a god.
"How much?" he asks, waving his money around a little, but I'm too distracted.
"I, uh…" I swallow hard, trying not to act like a fool and blurt, "Nothing. No charge… On the house for military men."
"Ex…" he says, slapping the bills on the counter and pushing them toward me. "And I insist."
"Ex?" I stare at his face blankly, wondering what he means. Like, ex-boyfriend, or ex?—
"Ex-serviceman… I'm home, Em."
A twinge of pain pinches my chest, making my throat constrict while currents of anxiety and frustration ride through my body like waves. I may as well be a snowman in July on the Spanish fucking coast, because every ounce of life melts out of me, puddling on the floor at my feet.He's home?
"Yes, of course… But it's still on the house." I nod, refusing to even reach toward him as his eyes sink to my left hand again, then rise to my face. The risk of our fingers brushing and his making this agitation I feel worse is too high. I won't take his money even if he pays triple the going price.
"Alright," he mumbles, taking a step back. “I, uh… I guess I'll see you around?"
"Yeah… See you around," I mutter, already backing away before he gets to the door.
I can't serve another customer until I calm down, and Leah must sense it. Her face is right there in the pass-through as I turn with wide-eyed horror and mumble, "I need a break."
"Of course," she says, nodding, and as we pass each other in the hallway, she touches my hand. "Everything okay, babe? You look like you've seen a ghost."
I pause for a second with no words to utter other than, "I have." Then I slink back into my office and plop into my chair.
Jaxon left me high and dry with so many promises left unfulfilled, and now he just waltzes in like he hasn't missed a thing? This is so insane.
We talked about marriage and children and having a family. I was only twenty years old and naive. I honestly thought his enlistment was a good idea. I knew how much he hated the idea of partnering with his dad and working at Cole and Sons. And I knew how angry Roger was when Cole proudly announced he would be a Marine.
But I supported him.
He'd told me it would be six weeks and he'd come home for a while, then he'd be gone for a few months at a time, home for holidays and at least one month a year. But I never heard from him again. Not a letter, not a postcard, not a phone call. And believe me, I waited for them.
After six months, the hope started to fade. After a year, I had a broken heart.
And after I decided to go off to Raleigh to school, I gave up hope because not even Jaxon’s parents had heard from him, and we wrote him off as gone for good—or dead.
But unless I really had seen an apparition, Jaxon Cole is anything but dead.
He's back in the flesh, and I am fucked.
Because I have a secret no one has even questioned until now, but his appearance changes everything.
3
JAXON
