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It’s always been for the best.
Remaining in place and firming my jaw, I let her walk toward a man who is a million times safer for her, if only because of his plainness and ability to stick until she’s a little old lady who lived a good life.
Ten feet from me, she glances over her shoulder with a look of pain, instead of fire. With heartache, instead of the rage I was hoping she’d hold onto.
Time to go, asshole. You got what you wanted. Now follow through and save her from feeling what Ruiz does.
My body wants to drag me back to her. To wrap her up and tell her I’m sorry. To beg for forgiveness and give her everything she’s ever asked for.
But my mind knows better, replaying images of Ruiz’s pain.
So I turn my ass around and make my way to my truck. Then I climb in and close the door, turn the engine over, and shove the stick into drive.
I amble out of the local cemetery in the shiny truck my paltry salary bought me, head home, and let myself inside to cold, dead air.
Silence. Loneliness. Ugly carpet she doesn’t like, and brown walls she loathes.
Worst of all, no Hannah.
Because that’s my penance in life.
It’s time to let the good go, even if we never truly got started.
Fuck, but it’s time to let her live her life and find her pocket of happiness inside this shitty-ass town in the middle of forest and mountains.
“Settle in, bitch.” Grumbling to myself, I drop into my recliner and flip the footrest up so my throbbing leg can catch a break. “This is your life now.”
Hannah
7 MONTHS LATER
“Threedozentrays?” I charge across the back of Juniper’s Bakery with my phone pressed to my ear and frantically search for a pen.
A pencil.
Jesus, I’ll take a stone and chisel at this point.“Of the quiches? Or, like, a variety?”
“Of the quiches. And an additional two dozen mixed appetizers. Do you do cakes too?”
“My business partner does, yes.” I steal the pencil straight from Nicole’s hand and use her baking paper to write on. “I’ll take care of the savory. Nicole deals with the sweet. Together, we’ll make your big day happen.”
“Excellent. It’ll be a winter event, so we might even discuss soups, if you can take care of—”
“I can do soup, too.” In capital letters, I scrawl, S-O-U-P, and end it with a dramatic period that chips the lead of Nicole’s pencil. “How about I write up a proposal with everything I intend to supply for your day, and shoot it over in an email? Then you can approve or adjust what you’d like?”
“Sounds great.”
My client—hopefully—chatters for a minute more and ends our call with a smile, then I turn to Nic and stare into her eyes, mine round like saucers. “That’s, uh…” I slip my scratched, dented, mostly destroyed phone in my apron pocket and wrinkle my nose. “Well, there was something about ten thousand dollars mentioned in there.”
“Paidtous, hopefully.” She snatches her pencil back and continues sketching a wedding cake design. “I’d really like to stop paying other people for these things. So if you’ve promised money in the wrong direction…”
“Ha-ha.” I dart toward the industrial-sized oven when the timer beeps, and swing the door open to reveal trays and trays and trays of baked treats. “The contract is for December twelfth. Some big family reunion. They’re not worried about cost, so long as we can deliver what they’re asking.”
I grab a pair of oven mitts and slide them onto my hands—learned that lesson a long time ago—then I pull the massive, twelve-level trolley from the heat and take a deep whiff of pastry and herbs. Spices. Sugar. It’s a veritable cornucopia of deliciousness that has landed us a glowing reputation not only in this town, but far enough out to mean we long ago needed to hire more delivery drivers.
More vans.
More staff.
