“Don’t even think about it,” Aunt Hope warned when she saw my taste buds getting the best of me.
I laughed. “Just one?”
“I’m about to start docking your pay.”
“I’m okay with that,” I told her, setting the tray on the cooling rack.
Aunt Hope picked up the batch of key lime cupcakes she’d already frosted. The cupcakes were massive, the frosting a light green and decked with the cutest slices of lime candy and a sugared key.
She knocked her hip into mine. “Just keep doing what you’re doing, and we’re even.”
I fought for a grin. She had no idea how much I adored her. How much I wished that I could erase the pain she kept hidden in the warmth of her caring eyes.
Sometimes I wondered if it was my fault.
If maybe I’d pushed him too far and too fast or maybe if I’d loved him too fiercely.
If he would have stayed if it hadn’t have been for me.
“Thank you, Auntie,” I whispered low.
She smiled and started for the swinging door that led out to the main lobby. “I better get these restocked and check on Jenna. She’s probably ready for a break by now. Can you grab some fruit tortes and vanilla crème cakes? Last time I was out there, we were running low.”
“Sure thing,” I told her, shaking off the mitts as I headed for one of the warming ovens at the back.
The sound of customers filtered in through the thin walls, and the aroma of freshly brewed coffee filled the space—vanilla and hazelnut and sweet cream—all mixed with the mouth-watering scent of the confections baking in the oven.
It was no wonder A Drop of Hope was just as popular on people’s trips home at the end of the workday as it was to help them get their days started.
Aunt Hope disappeared through the swinging door, and I situated the things I needed before I started to head out behind her.
A satisfied smile was taking to my mouth as I listened to the bustle of activity right outside. Voices carrying, the bell on the door dinging every few seconds.
No doubt, the line would be building up.
Half the time, we had people winding all the way out the door.
We always went from dead to completely slammed in a second flat.
It was go time.
I started to step out, then froze for a beat when I heard a sudden crash. Metal clanged as it slammed on the floor, and a gasp shocked the air.
It was followed by a sticky-sort of silence that bled through.
Climbing into the atmosphere.
Apprehension and distress.
My chest fisted tight, and a sense of dread came over me that made me feel like I was stuck in quickly drying cement.
My pulse hit a sluggish thud, thud, thud.
It took about all I had to push the rest of the way through the swinging door, my feet so heavy I might as well have been wading through a vat of liquid steel.
But my eyes? They raced. Quickened to take it all in.
The customers at the counter looked around in confusion, cupcakes rolling around at their feet, and Jenna’s eyes had doubled in size where she stood stock still with a twenty clutched in her hand.
Aunt Hope was frozen right outside the door.
Her hands pressed to her mouth like she was trying not to weep.
It didn’t matter how hard I tried to keep it locked in my throat.
A sob broke free.
Echoed through the room while my heart nearly failed where it thugged and hammered and clenched in my chest.
Three years. Three years. Three years.
That was the amount of time that had passed since Evan had gone away.
Three years since a part of my heart had stopped beating.
Three years since the last time I’d seen his gorgeous face.
And now, he was there, standing inside the entrance with a flood of sunlight pouring in through the bank of windows behind him.
Lit up like an apparition.
A ghost roused.
Before he’d left, he’d long since grown out of being a boy. But now? He was all man.
Changed in every way, and somehow exactly the same.
Lean but rippling with strength.
Tall but no longer gangly.
Healthy.
Beautiful.
But I was pretty sure the biggest change was the tiny child he had hooked on his right hip, this little thing with his fist clutched at the neck of Evan’s shirt, the child clinging to him like a little froggy sticking to a tree.
Grief gusted and blew.
My hand darted out to the wall to keep myself standing beneath the weight of the green eyes that were