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The lump in my throat feels like a cactus.
We haven’t talked about it, of course.
It just happened.
We tumbled into this together.
And I’m in such free fall that adding another layer of uncertainty doesn’t help anything.
But I still think of Redhaven as home.
Some childish part of me thinks that if I just hope hard enough, everything will turn out fine.
Mom will pull off a miraculous recovery.
Ros will come to her senses, or somehow, I’ll find out that Aleksander’s a pretty decent, misunderstood guy underneath his creeper façade.
Grant and I, we’ll—I don’t even know.
Settle down and live happily ever after?
Maybe little Nell wouldn’t mind that when she’s already got me wrapped around her little finger.
Then I won’t have to sell the family house because Mom will be there, growing old, clucking her tongue at me because I haven’t brought my man and kid around for dinner in a few weekends and... and...
Sweet Jesus.
I’m deluding myself, aren’t I?
Weaving a ridiculous fairy tale so I don’t have to face the hard truth that everything I love is falling apart and the only thing stable right now is Grant.
I wonder if he’d mind if I called him.
Just to hear that slow, drawling voice, that gruffness that’s so gentle when you learn his language.
The thought makes me feel better, like he’s reaching out to comfort me.
I wish I could be home with Grant right now, curled up on the sofa with a bowl of popcorn and a goofy movie and Nell snuggled between us, demanding our attention.
Then the bell over the shop door jingles.
It hits like a gunshot, but it’s what I need—a reminder to get out of my own head, keep it together, and take on life one minute at a time.
And right now, I have a customer, so I splash my face with water from the little sink in my mother’s work area, take a deep breath, and put on my best smile before I walk to the register.
“Welcome to Nobody’s Bees—”
I freeze.
This time it’s not a gunshot to my chest.
It’s a cannonball.
The door swings shut with a rattling jingle before my vision stabilizes.
My stalker takes several reeling steps into the shop with blood dripping past his stained lips and running down his chin.
I stare at him, my mouth trembling, my body rooted in place.
