But recently, especially over the long, cold winter, I started wondering what it would be like to come home to someone at night. To have someone waiting for me to end my shift and ask how my day was. To have someone I could care for and spend time and energy on.
The idea of finding someone like that here in Cedar Bluff was slim to none, though. Five years ago, I answered a recruitment call to join the Cedar Bluff Fire Department, but in a way, I didn’t realize how small the town was when I agreed to a new start somewhere fresh. I only paid attention to the fact that it was one of the few paying contract departments within an hour's drive.
But the dating pool was almost nonexistent.
Sure, there was no shortage of available bachelors around to date, the problem was I worked with most of them, and the other few options were cops.
Ew.
I may have hated the dating pool in Cedar Bluff, but I absolutely adored everything else about the quaint little town. Driving through the sleepy streets on my way to the town center, I admired the way the first signs of new life were already popping up, fresh flower buds on the trees, and the shimmer of dew on the grass that was turning greener by the day.
I had lived in major cities before coming here, doing a circuit of different metropolitan landscapes, but it never warmed my heart the way the simplicity of Cedar Bluff had the moment I drove down the cobblestone main street.
As soon as I neared the town center, the sleepy little town showed how lively it was. Cars and trucks lined the streets, and people milled around the walking paths to the one business that had become the heart and soul of Cedar Bluff for many people.
Honey & Hearth.
Community members worked in tandem, pulling waterlogged tables and chairs from inside and starting a pile of ruined furniture on the curb. The front door stood open, letting the smell of wet wood and stale water air out into the world.
Against the side of the building front was a folding table, piled high with coffee carafes and boxes of fresh donuts from another bakery in Johnsonville down the main highway.
My heart squeezed a little, knowing that even in the middle of her worst day, Goldie still insisted on taking care of everyone who mattered to her.
As I walked up, I glimpsed her inside, deep in the middle of it all with her hair pulled back in a messy knot secured with her cute little chopsticks, her t-shirt clung damply to her back as she pushed a massive bookcase across the floor.
When I walked through the door, her right-hand man, Jasper, whistled loudly from where he was directing people as if he owned the place. “No, no, no, sugarplum! That table goes outside. Outside! We can’t turn this place into a public swimming pool.”
Goldie snorted at his dramatic directions and then came up short when I walked around the side of the bookshelf, leaning my shoulder into it. “Rhea?” She stammered, and I tried to ignore how bright her blue eyes looked up this closely as they stared at me. Twice in a few hours I was within touching distance of Marigold James, and I hated that it took me this long to make that happen. She was intoxicating. “What are you doing back here?” she asked.
“Helping you.” I nodded to the bookshelf and pushed it with my shoulder, making it move much further than she had managed on her own. “Unless you don’t want me here.”
“No!” She rushed, scrambling to help me push it through the front door with both of our shoulders braced against the side of it, our faces right next to each other. I let my eyes roam over the constellation map of freckles covering her nose and cheeks. “I mean, I want you here—” She let out a sound of embarrassment as we got the bookshelf to the enormous pile of destroyed furniture, and both stood up. “I mean,” She took a deep breath, wiping her hands on her jeans. “Thank you for coming.”
I grinned at her with a soft nod, “There’s no place I’d rather be right now.”
“Really?” She whispered, and then a blush bloomed on her cheeks before she swiped at an errant curl on her forehead, “I mean, thank you.”
I followed her back inside and paused to take a look around the shell of what used to be the most inviting place ever, even if I didn’t walk through the front door nearly enough. Goldie caught me looking around and grimaced with a sigh.
“I know, it’s terrible.” She shrugged, looking at the walls. “But I’ll get it back to what it was, I know it.”
Looking away from the walls to look at her, I waited until she made eye contact again. “Honey & Hearth isn’t just your bakery, Marigold. It’sours. The town’s. You built something people care about. Something that matters. And we’re going to help you get it back. You aren’t alone in this.”
Her lips parted, a little breath caught between them. For a second, she looked as if she didn’t know what to say.
And damn if that didn’t tug at me in a way I wasn’t expecting.
“You’re full of surprises,” she murmured finally.
I looked away, twisting one of my silver rings as Jasper let out some kind of judging sound from the back of his throat, and Goldie glared at him. “Don’t spread it around,” I said. “Might ruin my reputation as a hard-ass.”
She looked back at me, and warmth filled her bright eyes as they twinkled. “Your secret is safe with me.”
From behind her, Jasper wiped his hands on a towel and leaned over her shoulder, close enough for only her to hear, but I caught the whisper anyway. “She’s into you. My gaydar never lies.”
Goldie’s cheeks flushed pink, and she quickly pushed him off and picked up a crate of ruined books off the floor.
I let it slide, keeping my smile to myself as she walked away. When it was just Jasper and me alone in the nearly bare room, I nodded to him as I picked up another crate, “You’re not wrong.” I said on my way past him.