Page 97 of Stolen for Keeps
“Then you clearly don’t want it enough,” Mrs. Appleby replied from the register.
“Take a picture,” I called from behind the counter, “then eat it. Trust me, it’s better that way.”
By ten, we were sold out of the blueberry cinnamon rolls and down to three huckleberry-stuffed croissants. My cheeks hurt from smiling, and my hair smelled like sugar, vanilla, and the faintest whiff of burnt almond from that one tray that Iswearwasn’t my fault.
But I was happy. Giddy, even.
By noon, we were a sugar-fueled circus.
This town had given me a second shot, and I hadn’t just taken it. I’d baked it into every layer of cake I set on that shelf. And I couldn’t wait to go home to Noah, tell him about the old couple who argued over whether I’d used sea salt or “that flaky stuff,” and maybe, just maybe, fall asleep beside him with the scent of cinnamon still clinging to my skin.
This life? It wasn’t the plan.
It was better.
27
NOAH
“I think this is the last of it,” I told Elia, lifting the small duffel I’d filled with the scraps of my fifteen-year-old self.
I hadn’t owned much back then. Clothes mostly. I’d donated the nicer ones. And not many toys either. We lived our fun outside, with saddle sores and scraped knees, not action figures.
“You know you always have a home here,” Elia said.
“I know.”
He gave me that look brothers give when they want to say more but figure a man doesn’t need words to know he’s loved.
“Hey, I haven’t forgotten about Whiskey & Barrel,” he added.
“Whenever you’re free,” I said. Claire was in the thick of her veterinarian exams, and Elia had been stretched thin. I wasn’t about to press.
“Gimme a couple of days. Claire’s almost done. After that, we go?”
“Works for me.”
I drove back to The Sundown with my bag in the passenger seat. Reko greeted me at the door, his eyes full ofquestions. I scratched behind his ears and walked straight to the coffee table, setting the bag down.
I sat on the couch, leaned forward, and unzipped it sluggishly.
My hand hovered inside, my fingers brushing the edge of the thing I’d packed last. I didn’t take it out. I just sat there with my elbows on my knees, staring at the floor like maybe the answers were hiding in the rug fibers. Maybe they’d always been.
The front door opened.
“Hey, baby,” Maya called out.
I looked up, and there she was, car keys still in her hand, her hair mussed from the wind.
There’d never be a better time to hear her call me that. Or a worse time to feel like I didn’t have the right to it.
“What’ve you got there?” she asked.
“Some stuff from my old bedroom,” I said. “Come sit with me.”
She dropped down beside me, warm and close. I reached into the duffel and pulled out the old folding knife. The handle was scuffed, the metal dulled and spotted. Still, it sat heavy in my hand the way things do when they once meant something.
“My sister gave me this for my tenth birthday. It used to make me feel like a proper cowboy, not some kid tagging after his older brother.” I smirked, turning it in my palm. “Even though the only things I ever used it for were peeling apples and carving a girl’s name into a tree.”
