Page 27 of Never Your Valentine

Hugo exhales. “If I ever act like that man, please drown me in the lake.”

Michelle rubs her temples. “He’s not wrong about everything. We could use more business.”

I’m still thinking about the park project, and if my brothers can pull it off. My body churns with a mix of pride and pressure. My brothers go out and build visible projects with big ideas behind them. Me? I’m here making sure the town doesn’t collapse under the weight of expectations.

“Or maybe we just need better tourists,” Dove says.

That gets a laugh from Hugo. “Put that in your next ad.”

“Echo Creek: Home of Better Tourists,” Oscar says. “Catchy.”

Silence again. It’s heavier, but not hostile. Just real. The way conversations get when you stop pretending everything’s fine.

“This park project,” Lia says, tension leaking into her voice. “It’s going to work, right?”

“It has to,” I say. “The alternative is letting people like Ender decide what Echo Creek is.”

We finish our agenda, and the meeting breaks up the way it always does. Chairs scrape. Oscar offers to take the rest of the cookies off Dove’s hands. I clean the coffeepot. The janitor locks the doors behind us.

Outside, the cold hits hard enough to sting my lungs. I pull my collar higher. There’s pride in this place. The kind that makes people buy from their neighbors instead of online, and tell commercial developers to shove it. But there’s fear too, the kind that smells like debt and winter and maybe-not-enough.

If I could rage this problem into submission, I would. But Echo Creek doesn’t need someone to break things. It needs someone to fix them.

Chapter 11

Annabelle

Thursday, I pack orders and get them to the post office just before it closes. I could go back to my apartment, but I don’t know when the bass will start thumping through the floorboards. I’ve got plenty of supplies in my tote bag, and I’m hungry, so I decide to work at The Up and Away Café.

The bell over the door gives a cheery jingle as I push inside and I’m hit with the warm smell of bacon and burnt coffee. The diner’s name is whimsical, but the decor is pure Michigan, meaning wood paneling and a linoleum floor.

I seat myself in the last open booth, across from three old men in ball caps with various levels of sun fade. A handwritten sign on the wall behind them reads, “Reserved for the ROMEOs,” and somehow, I just know they put it up themselves. They’re each tucking into a different flavor of pie.

“You’re Annabelle,” one of them says when he notices me. He’s wiry, sharp-eyed, and definitely the ringleader. “Stan’s girl.”

“In a way,” I say.

“In every way that matters,” the man next to him leans over to say. “He bragged on you like you were his own flesh and blood.”

My chest warms. “I didn’t know that.”

The first guy tilts his head, appraising me with dark brown eyes. “You’re cuter than I imagined. You have…spark.”

Before I can figure out what to do with that, the server appears.

“What can I get you?”

I grab the menu off the table and give it a quick scan. I order soup and a small salad, since I want to save room for pie later.

While I wait for my food, I get out five colors of Sakura Moonlight pens and add to the birthday card I drew this morning. This one’s for Darla Lee. I hear she’s got a new rom-com coming out soon. I idly wonder how people watch movies here. Do they go to Escanaba or St. Ignace? Or is it more of a wait-for-Netflix situation?

I lift my head to ask the head ROMEO, and see him watching me. “I like your cards,” he says.

“You’ve seen them?” Are they already selling at Emerald Gifts?

“My wife showed me the card you made at the bakery.”

“Oh, you’re married to Dove.”