The next morning, Willow stood in line for coffee at the same little coffeehouse she went to every day for her caffeine pick-me-up. Normally she and Luna met there to sit for a moment and bitch about life, but there was no sign of Luna. And anyway, Willow didn’t want to see her.
So why are you here at your usual time?
The line was long, but it always was. That was the price she willingly paid for coffee that tasted better than anywhere else on the planet. In front of her stood a woman with two little girls wearing matching candy-striped leggings and bright red sweaters streaked with dirt. Their ponytails were loose, their hair wild. And they were arguing.
“Mommy, she touched me!” Thing One said.
“Mommy, she’s looking at me!” Thing Two said. “And I gotta go potty!”
Mommy seemed like maybe she needed coffee more than her next breath. When she caught Willow looking at her, she sighed. “‘Have kids,’ they said, ‘it’ll be fun,’ they said.” She shook her head. “I haven’t gotten to the fun part yet. I think they lied about the fun.”
“Mommy! Hurry!” Thing Two was now doing the potty dance.
The woman looked at Willow with desperation. “I’m sorry, but you look like a nice person, and I’ve got a bathroom emergency. I’m going to leave Charlotte to hold my place in line. Can you keep an eye on her?”
“Uh . . .” Willow looked around for an adultier adult, but the girls’ mom was already vanishing into the restroom. Panic filled her as she eyed Charlotte, aka Thing One.
Charlotte eyed her right back. “Where do babies come from?”
Willow choked on her gum. “Seriously?”
Charlotte shrugged. “I asked my older brother and he said babies come from trees.” She gestured out the window at the trees lining the lot. “But I don’t see any babies in them, do you?”
Dear God. This was so above her pay grade. “Uh . . . maybe they’re up higher than we can see.”
When Charlotte’s mom showed back up with Thing Two in tow, Charlotte was still craning her neck to see higher up in the trees.
“What are you doing?” her mom asked.
“The babysitter said babies do come from trees, and maybe we can’t see them because they’re too high up.”
The woman turned to stare at Willow.
“Okay, that’s not exactly how the conversation went,” Willow said, but it was too late. The woman grabbed her girls’ hands and marched out of the shop.
Willow made a mental note to buy Shayne a case of condoms.
Several customers received their coffees and everyone in line shuffled forward. So close now. She glanced at her watch. Normally, this was her favorite part of her day, but not today. Today she felt hollow inside, like she was missing something as important as a limb. And that limb’s name was Luna, dammit.
Everyone at Apple Ridge had easily accepted the news about the new ownership. And it wasn’t like Luna had done anything wrong, but . . . well, to be selfish about it, it negated their dream, the one that Willow had been carrying in her back pocket for a really long time.
But both Luna and Shayne had their own dreams now, their ducks lined up in a row all nice and neat.
Willow didn’t even have a single duck.
The door to the coffee shop opened and in waltzed Luna, wearing jeans, work boots that had seen better days, and a sweatshirt that had a tractor on it and read: Keep Calm and Farm On—looking cute and pretty, and absolutely clueless about it. And as she did every single day, she headed right for Willow.
Willow stared at her. “No cutting.”
“Love your sweatshirt,” someone behind them said.
Luna beamed. “Oh, thank you. We sell them at Apple Ridge Farm.”
“I love that place!”
Mandy, the barista, was waving at Luna. “Your order’s up, hon!”
Of course it was. Luna always ordered hers ahead of time because she hated to wait. Willow didn’t because she hated her coffee not piping hot. But the real truth was that Luna’s people skills knew no bounds, and even though she was a complete mess half the time, people always embraced her with open arms. Always.
That wasn’t the case with Willow, and she sighed, knowing she needed to try harder with people. A lot harder.
Luna ran up to the front to get her coffee, then came back to Willow holding two cups. “Here,” she said. “I got yours too. Let’s go.”
Willow took the cup—she was angry but not stupid—and followed Luna outside, but stopped short of going to one of the open tables with her. “I’ve got to get to work.”
Luna stopped too and turned to face her. “Look, about yesterday—”
“No.” Willow shook her head. “Not going there.” She took a sip of her coffee and made a face. As always when Mandy was working, her order was completely wrong.
“I got us scones,” Luna said, and waved the bag.
Willow’s mouth watered. “Blueberry?”
“Pumpkin.”
Oh, thank God. Blueberry would’ve swayed her and her hips couldn’t afford it. “No thank you.”
Luna’s smile faded. “Please, will you sit for a minute?”
With a sigh, she sat.
Luna looked relieved. “I wasn’t sure you’d be here.”
“Yeah, well, I wasn’t sure either.” Willow shook her head. “No, that was a lie. I wanted to come because I wanted to see you grovel.”
Luna’s expression never changed. She’d walked into the place worried, and she still was. “Would that help?”
“Yes.” No. Willow knew it wouldn’t, but damn. Her emotions about the situation went so much deeper than she’d realized. And it wasn’t even about being angry. It was the hurt beneath it that killed her. They’d had each other’s back now for over two decades, through thick and thin, and there’d been a lot of thin. Their childhoods had bonded them, and while they didn’t always agree, Willow couldn’t remember a single time when they’d fought. The thought made her feel a little sick.
Luna blew out a breath. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you at the tavern. I meant to.” She set down her coffee and looked away. “I guess I wasn’t ready to tell anyone about it.”
“Since when am I just anyone?”
“You’re not.” Luna turned back, putting her hand on Willow’s. “You’re not,” she repeated softly. “I’m just still trying to process it all.” And then her eyes filled.
Damn. Luna never cried, never, and Willow ached for her. Turning her hand over and entwining their fingers, she took a deep breath. “Okay, I guess my hurt feelings can take a back seat for a hot minute, but only because I get that this is life changing for you.”
Luna swiped away her tears with her free hand, never letting go of Willow, and she felt her eyes sting. Luna’s adoptive parents were well-meaning but older, and though they’d loved her in their own way, her life had been filled with stringent requirements to achieve in areas important to them but not to Luna. As a result, she’d often been seen as a failure. They’d never understood why she wouldn’t want to be in the medical world, as they were. Willow had watched Luna spend her teenage years struggling to fit into the role they wanted her to fit into. She’d been there when Luna had tried to get her sealed birth records opened, but couldn’t. She’d seen Luna get her heart broken by men because she didn’t understand unconditional love. Still didn’t.
Not that Willow had learned that from her parents either.
They were two peas in a pod in that way. In most ways. But there was one major difference. Luna operated on emotions, giving in to her feelings for every decision. Willow was the opposite. She did her best to completely ignore her emotions, especially now that she and Shayne were done. She gently squeezed Luna’s hand. “Do your parents know about Silas?”
“I don’t know. I also don’t know why Silas didn’t tell me,” Luna said softly. “According to the attorney, he was sick for months and knew the end was near, and he never told a soul. What could possibly have kept him from telling me?”
At a loss, Willow shook her head.
Luna tossed up a hand, but only one because she still had a death grip on Willow’s. “Why didn’t he want me to know? If he’d told me even after he’d first gotten sick, we could’ve at least had a few months to get to know each other as family.”
Willow thought of her own mom, who’d also been tough and distant like Silas, no reason given. “Sometimes we don’t get to know the why. And maybe when Silas hired you, he planned to tell you, but somehow the moment never came, and then it was too late. Maybe . . . maybe his gift of ownership was him trying to apologize for his shortcomings and hoping you could get to a place where you understood.”
“Maybe,” Luna said, clearly doubtful.
“When you received his job offer, you were floundering. Remember? You’d been unable to find a job that suited you, and you were unhappy. He fixed that for you.”
“Yeah, he did. But all the things he didn’t tell me are sort of overshadowing that now.” Luna stood up.
“You’re leaving?”
“Have to get back to work.”
“You’re the boss now,” Willow reminded her, and ignored the little stab of jealousy, because being the boss, being her own boss, had been all she’d ever wanted. “You’ve got another few minutes. After all, you wasted all our time making everything about you.”
Luna snorted, but sat back down. “You mean after you told me to stop pitying myself?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It’s what I heard.”
“Okay, fine,” Willow said. “You’re pitying yourself, when you’ve got everything you could ever want right now.”
Luna started to open her mouth, but Willow held up a finger. “Including your new guy. I mean, I get it. He’s hot in a very sexy nerd sort of way.”
“He’s not my new guy.”
“Uh-huh. Is that why you’ve been wearing mascara?”
Luna flushed. “Hey. Once you start a new tube, you gotta use it up.”
“I saw you kiss him, remember?” Willow said.
“Yeah, and it’s awful.”
“He kisses awful?”
Luna laughed ruefully. “Worse. He’s the best kisser on the planet, even if he wouldn’t sleep with me. Still won’t, because now we’re partners.”
Willow grimaced. “Ouch. But . . . you becoming owner of this place certainly is not the worst thing that could happen to you. Although, it is the worst thing that could happen to me.”
“What? What do you mean? You’ve got total job security.”
“I didn’t take this job for job security, Luna. I took it as a holding place for what we’d do next. Or did you forget about that, about our dream of the B and B?”
Luna paused for a beat, then leaned in, eyes earnest, voice soft as she gripped Willow’s hand. “We made that dream when we were what, sixteen?”
“Fifteen.”
“Fifteen,” Luna repeated. “And no, I didn’t forget, but people grow up, Willow. Things change. I know you like routine and don’t like change, but—”
“Need,” Willow said. “I need routine and I hate change.”
“I stand corrected,” Luna said, then hesitated. “As for our B and B, we always said we wanted to do that so we could live there together. We knew it would be a 24/7 job. But you’re married now, and have a house, which means it’d be me living there, taking care of the guests. So now who’s putting whose life in a holding place?”
Nope. She wasn’t going to go down that rabbit hole. “In case you haven’t noticed, Shayne and I are on the outs. And you didn’t believe in me so much that you didn’t even ask Silas if I could get a promotion.”
Luna squelched a grimace, but not before Willow caught it. “What?”
Luna sighed. “He said no. And I didn’t know how to tell you.”
Hurt spiraled past the goodness of the caffeine. “And you couldn’t tell me that either. Nice.” She stood to go to her car.
“Willow—”
“No.” She whirled back. “Maybe next time a life-changing event happens, you call your new partner, Jameson.” She strode to her car and drove to work, where she stomped over to her workshop, tears still threatening as she tossed aside her coat.
“Hey.”
She nearly leaped right out of her skin at the sight of Shayne standing there with a little baggie and a coffee. Inside the baggie was . . . God help her . . . a blueberry scone. She looked up at him in his firefighter uniform and realized he looked even better than the scone, and she went to war with herself, because what she wanted to do was walk right into his arms.
But that kept sending them backward ten steps.
The whole point of this separation was for her to figure out what she wanted, and she couldn’t do that if she kept relying on Shayne’s strength.
Or if he kept bringing her blueberry scones, her favorite. “What are you doing here?”
“I was on a quick break and wanted to see you.” He frowned, then came closer, setting down the coffee and scone on her workshop table. “What’s wrong?”
“I just got in a fight with Luna.”
“You two never fight.”
A few tears escaped and she sniffed. “I guess there’s a first time for everything.”
His hands were on her arms, running up and down. “Oh, babe. I’m so sorry. Want to talk about it?”
She swiped at her tears. “No.”
“Because you’re still mad at me?”
“Because you’re being nice. And you know I hate when you’re nice while we’re arguing.”
Shayne sighed and dropped his hands from her. “I guess I’d hoped after the other night—”
“You thought because we had sex, everything would be fixed and we’d be happy?”
He gave her a small smile. “Babe, news flash. All you gotta do to make me happy is show up. Maybe naked. Maybe with food.”
She choked out a laugh that might’ve also been a sob.
“Hey,” he said softly, tilting her head up. “Talk to me.”
“Silas was Luna’s biological grandpa, and when he died, he left her half of the farm.”
“Wow. Nice. And . . . ?”
“And she didn’t tell me! Instead, she waited until the staff meeting and told us all at the same time. And then on top of it all, Silas said no to my promotion and she wasn’t even going to tell me about it.”
With a sound of understanding, he pulled her into his arms and she caught herself going willingly, then froze. What was she doing? When was she going to learn how to stand on her own two feet? Every man for himself and all that, and she stepped back.
“So we can’t even hug now?” he asked.
“The whole point of our separation is for me to figure out who I am, and yet once again I’m leaning on you as a crutch. Literally, in fact.” She turned away. “You know what? I can’t do this now.”
“Then let’s talk about it over dinner.”
“We don’t have dinner plans.”
“But we could.”
She could see in his eyes that he was hoping for a repeat of the bar incident, and she was tempted. Oh, so tempted. But that would only make things worse. Their problems had never been in the bedroom. “I feel lost, Shayne. And confused.”
“Join my club.”
She stared at him. “What are you confused about? You’re the one in the driver’s seat. You’ve never even asked me to be your copilot.”
He tossed up his hands. “This again? You wanted me to take a less dangerous job, and I did.”
“You could’ve taken it where we were, in New Mexico!”
Shayne’s patience was endless, always had been, but he shoved his hands through his hair. “You and I both know this was the better career path. And I thought we were honest with each other, no matter what.”
“What does that mean?”
“Do you have any idea how good you are at pretending nothing hurts you ever? I still can’t tell if you’re hurt that we’re not together.”
Her jaw dropped. “Shayne—”
But he was already walking away. “Enjoy your scone and coffee.”
Alone, she sank onto a bench and pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, her chest aching. It really pissed her off that she was crying. Like Luna, she wasn’t a crier. Never had been. Her childhood had beaten that out of her.
Someone sat next to her and she dropped her hands, her heart leaping with painful hope that it was Shayne, back to somehow help her fix them.
Instead, Stella handed her a small pack of tissues. “I warned you that the stars weren’t aligned in your favor, and that this week wasn’t the week to make any complicated decisions.”
Willow leaned back and stared up at the sky. “I didn’t make the decisions. The decisions cornered me.”
“Did the decisions corner you about having a baby?”
Willow sat up straight. “What?”
“Aren’t you pregnant?”
“No!” She put her hands to her stomach, which, okay, wasn’t exactly flat. “It’s called one too many scones, jeez.”
“Sorry. The cards told me—”
Willow relaxed back with a rough laugh. “You and your tarot cards.”
“They’re rarely wrong.”
“Well, they are this time.” Which she hoped was true because she didn’t want to be pregnant.
And since when she’d started lying to herself, she had no idea.
“Parenting isn’t bad,” Stella said. “I mean sure, it’s a lot like drowning except when you finally surface for air you immediately catch on fire . . .”
Willow snorted.
“No, but really, having a kid can be nice. Mine turned out to be a bit of an uptight asshole, but hey, no one’s perfect.” Stella met Willow’s eyes. “Not Shayne. Not Luna. And not you either.”
Well, wasn’t that the screwed-up truth. “What should I do?” she whispered.
Stella gave her a warm hug. “Sorry, baby. My cards don’t tell anyone how to live their life.”
Right. So she was all on her own then. She should probably get used to that.