Page 47 of Honeycombs & Homecomings

Her heart thudded wildly in her chest. Something was wrong. “Of course.” She stood back so they could enter.

“We’ve been looking through security footage from stores up and down the block, and last night, we found something,” Roger said.

Cash came over.

Roger pulled his phone from his pocket and queued up a video that looked like it was coming from across the street and aimed at her shop. He held his phone out to her. She took it as the video began to play. Cash leaned over her shoulder to watch.

Movement came from within her shop, a dark figure knocking things over. Jars of honey sparkled in the camera as they fell to the floor, and her stomach lurched. The figure moved to the front of the store and to the register, coming into view of the camera. The man with shiny black hair, opened the register with the punch of a few buttons, then removed all the cash. He took a hammer from his side then, and smashed the register, bending its side to make it look like it’d been pried open.

She sucked in a gasp.

Roger stepped closer and placed a hand on her shoulder. “We have a bolo out for him now. We’ll find him.”

“Who is this?” Cash asked.

She looked up at him, hurt warring inside with a bright white fury. “It’s Tony.”

Chapter 16

The moment the deputies said they were leaving, Jo had announced that Cash was on his way out as well. She’d all but let the door slam behind him the moment he stepped outside. He’d sped walked past the old men hanging out behind Harold’s Harvest Market, ignoring the teasing as he went.

“What’s with the sour face,” someone asked.

“Jo’s got him all worked up,” another said.

“She always did,” a third said. “That girl has him wrapped around her little finger.“

He made it to his rental and slammed the door behind him. Paper crunched from his back pocket—he removed her recipe, wadded it, and threw it on to the seat next to him. He punched the steering wheel, making the horn honk, then hit it two more times. This is why he’d avoided her every time he’d come home since leaving. He’d known things would end up like this. After what he’d done, how could they not? She hadn’t forgiven him, and he couldn’t blame her. But she was so stubborn. She hadn’t even given him the opportunity to explain. Simply kicked him out as if everything that’d happened over the last couple of days hadn’t.

He threw his car into reverse and took a couple deep breaths.

She was right to do it. There was no happy ending in this for them, and the way they’d been headed only had the potential of digging up feelings long since repressed. He’d almost kissed her! What had he been thinking?

He shook his head and sighed. He hadn’t been thinking. That was the problem.

She lived here. He lived in Santa Ana and both had very successful and satisfying careers in their separate locations. She wouldn’t leave this place any more than he could abandon his restaurants. And aside from that was years’ worth of hurt between them. And he couldn’t do anything about that either. He couldn’t make her forgive him. He couldn’t even explain why he’d run off.

Glancing over his shoulder, he slowly backed out of his spot and headed home.

***

Cash didn’t sleep that night. Couldn’t. He called the airline and changed his ticket again to later Saturday afternoon, then packed, puttered around, and finally, when it wasn’t so early in the morning he’d wake anyone, he made his way into the kitchen and prepared a feast fit for a king. His parents stumbled in thirty minutes later, still in their pajamas and noses in the air.

“Cash, honey,” his mom said, “What is all this?”

He glanced over his shoulder at his parents. His mom stood staring at everything he’d made: bacon, eggs, sliced potatoes and onions, waffles and homemade syrup. His dad was already belly up to the table, dishing food on his plate.

Cash grinned. “Sausage?”

His dad nodded. “You have some?”

“Of course.” He lifted the pan on the stove, and came to the table, dumping several pieces of sausage onto his dad’s plate next to the bacon.

“That’s my boy.” His dad took a piece and put it straight into his mouth.

Cash pulled a chair out for his mom. “Sit, grab a plate.”

She did, but kept staring at him.

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