Page 105 of The Sugar Maple Inn

The drive to Solace Springs took two hours and forty-three minutes. The longest two hours and forty-three minutes of Reese’s life.

When they finally pulled up to Blossoms & Brew, it was nearly 10 PM. The café was dark. The whole street was dark.

But there, lined up on the sidewalk outside the café’s front door like a rebuke, were all ten dresses he’d sent. The shoes. The jewelry boxes. Everything arranged in a neat, deliberate row that screamed, I don’t want your charity. I don’t want you.

Reese’s chest felt like someone had reached in and squeezed.

He got out of the car, walked to the door that led up to the apartment above the café, knocked. “Grace? Grace, I know you’re in there. Please, just let me explain.”

No answer.

He knocked again, harder. “Grace, come on. I know I screwed up. I know I should have told you about the inn, about all of it. But I wasn’t using you. I swear I wasn’t using you.”

Still nothing.

“Please.” He pressed his forehead against the door, not caring how desperate he looked. “Please just talk to me.”

A light flickered on in a window above. Not the café, but the apartment next door. A woman with long red hair looked out. “Can’t you be quiet please?”

Great. Now he was that guy. The rich asshole yelling at a closed door in the middle of the night.

Reese straightened, looked up at the dark windows above the café. He could see a faint glow, like maybe a light was on somewhere inside. So she was there. Just refusing to come down.

“Fine,” he called up. “I’ll wait. I’ll stay out here all night if I have to, Grace!”

And he did.

He sent his driver home, settled himself on the front step between a pair of Jimmy Choo heels and a Carolina Herrera gown and waited.

The street outside Blossoms & Brew was dark except for a few streetlights throwing weak light across the sidewalk. Leaves scattered in the wind. Maple, mostly, gone brown at the edges.

A banner for the Harvest Festival hung crooked between two lampposts, flapping in the breeze. He thought about that night, Grace’s courage. Her fury and strength.

He clenched his fists and looked out at the lake, black beyond the buildings. Maple Island was just a darker shape against dark sky, the inn’s tower barely visible. That tower. Their tower.

Hours passed. People walked by, heading home from bars, walking dogs, generally giving him strange looks. He ignored them all, his eyes fixed on those dark windows, willing Grace to appear.

She didn’t.

Around 3 AM, it started to drizzle. Reese turned up his tux collar and didn’t move.

Around five, the rain stopped and the sky started to lighten at the edges. That pale pre-dawn glow that promised sunrise.

Reese was still there, soaked through, exhausted, when footsteps approached.

He looked up to find Zach standing over him, two paper coffee cups in his hands.

“Why are you sleeping outside my grandma’s café?”

Reese blinked at him. “I’ve messed things up with your mom, bud.”

“Yeah. Thought it might be something like that when I heard you whining like a dog outside.” He gestured to a bench overlooking the lake and Reese got up, following the kid to it. They both sat down and Zach handed him one of the cups. They sat in silence for a moment, watching the lake turn gold with approaching sunrise.

“Your mom okay?” Reese asked after a while.

“She’s not happy. I wasn’t happy either when she made me help her get those dresses down the stairs.” He gestured to the rack of dresses, which were now being explored by a couple of old ladies like it was a goodwill rack.

“Did she say anything?” Reese asked.