Page 27 of Broken Reins (Whittier Falls #4)

Sixteen

Lily

C ampfire Bakery was already at maximum decibel when I walked in.

I could smell cinnamon rolls from a block away, the whole place radiating warmth and noise even before sunrise.

Sutton was behind the counter, pouring a coffee with one hand while slapping a pan of sticky buns on the cooling rack with the other, moving like she’d been born in an apron.

I slipped behind the counter and got to work on the first flood of orders.

“Grande vanilla latte and two maple bacon bars,” I called out, then lined up espresso shots like a marching band.

I could do this job half-asleep—and some days, I did—but today I kept losing track of where I was.

Every time the bell over the door chimed, my head snapped up.

Just a stranger. Or a regular. Or a stranger again.

It wasn’t until the third bell that I realized what I was actually looking for: Ford.

Which was insane. We’d only had a handful of nights and one life-altering makeout in a stable, but apparently my brain had decided that was enough to start growing a permanent Ford-shaped expectation in my morning routine.

It had been three days since Eryn’s dinner and he hadn’t called. Hadn’t stopped in for coffee. Hadn’t driven down Main Street in his monster truck.

And today, he still didn’t show. The bell kept ringing, and each time my heart did a little skip, but he never walked through the door.

I told myself it was fine. He had bigger things to worry about.

Like his name being smeared across every phone and Facebook page in Whittier Falls, courtesy of this week’s most viral true crime podcast.

I stacked bear claws in the display, counting backwards from thirty, then jumped when a voice cut through the noise. “Excuse me? Are you Lily?”

I turned, hands sticky with icing. The woman at the counter was a stranger—early sixties, hair like a cotton ball, eyes sharp behind oversized glasses. “I am,” I said, defaulting to customer-service mode.

She leaned in, dropping her voice to a stage whisper. “Did you know they’re talking about you on the podcast, too?”

My mouth went dry. “What? No, ma’am, I haven’t listened.”

The woman blinked, surprised, then shrugged. “It’s all over town. My daughter says she heard your name in the teaser for next week.” She said it with the tone of someone who was already scheduling the popcorn for when the episode goes live.

I nodded, then grabbed a rag and started wiping a perfectly clean corner of the counter. “Guess it’s a slow news week.”

Behind her, Sutton caught my eye, eyebrows raised to the stratosphere. I mouthed “later,” and tried to keep my hands from shaking as I finished an order. The woman left, and I tried to get back to the flow, but my thoughts were already twenty miles away.

The next three customers barely registered.

I moved on autopilot, making drinks, handing out scones, answering the same questions about the weather and the farmer’s market and which bagels were gluten free (none of them, and yes, we were aware of the lawsuit potential).

But under it all was this relentless hum—a little electric current that ran from the tips of my fingers to the inside of my skull, buzzing with the knowledge that Ford was probably in hell right now, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Halfway through the shift, I ducked into the back room to swap out a tray of cookies. I checked my phone for the twentieth time in as many minutes. No new messages.

Sutton caught me as I came back through the swinging door. “You expecting a call from the Pope, or just the billionaire?” She grinned, but there was a note of something else in her voice—something careful.

I almost said, “Just checking the time,” but the clock was mounted right above my head. I shrugged. “Maybe he lost his phone. Or he’s busy. Or he realized this was a bad idea.” The last part slipped out before I could stuff it back down.

Sutton looked at me like I was made of glass. “Hey. Don’t go there.”

I forced a smile. “Where?”

“That place where you assume you’re too much trouble. Or not worth it. If he didn’t want you, he wouldn’t have driven all the way into town to fix your damn sink. Or take you to Eryn’s dinner.”

She wiped her hands on a towel and lowered her voice, even though the kitchen was empty. “He’s just dealing with some shit right now. Don’t make it about you.”

I nodded, even though it was absolutely, 100% about me in my own head. I wanted to text him. I wanted to call. But I didn’t want to make things worse. Or sound needy. Or give him another thing to worry about, when the whole town was already watching every move he made.

“I’m not trying to make it about me?—”

“I know, that came out wrong. I just know that you doubt yourself way too much. And that man is super into you. He’ll come back around. And when he does, you can tell him off for ignoring you instead of letting you in.”

The bell rang again. My heart did its now-customary leap, but it was just two teenagers arguing about who was paying. I took their order, gave them change, and pretended I didn’t notice the way they kept sneaking glances at me over the display case.

It was going to be a long day.

The town’s obsession with the podcast got more intense as the morning went on. Customers swapped theories while waiting for muffins. The table by the window—the one usually reserved for old guys with nothing better to do—became a low-key crime scene analysis lab.

“I heard the old sheriff was in on it,” said one, stirring his coffee like it was a pot of beans.

“Bullshit. It was the Brooks kid. You remember him? Always had a chip on his shoulder. Nothing good ever came out of that house,” said another, voice carrying farther than he probably intended.

“Wasn’t his dad the meanest son of a bitch in three counties?” said the first.

Sutton rolled her eyes, then leaned over to me. “Whittier Falls: come for the pies, stay for the character assassination.”

I tried to laugh, but it came out strangled. I focused on restocking the napkins, then alphabetized the tea bags for the third time that day.

My phone buzzed, and I snatched it up so fast I almost launched it into the sink. Just a text from daycare: “Noah is loving show and tell today! See you at cookie time.”

I hearted the picture of Noah, standing in the front of the classroom, showing off his favorite—and most beat up—toy truck. The smile on his face reached both ears and my heart swelled with pride.

But I couldn’t deny the disappointment that sprang up from the text not being from Ford.

Then reminded myself for the hundredth time that Ford had a lot on his plate.

Sutton was right. Maybe he needed time. Maybe he was dealing with his mom, or the fallout from the podcast, or the million other things I couldn’t begin to understand.

And maybe, just maybe, he was thinking about me, too.

But until he called, I had cupcakes to frost and customers to serve and a life to keep living, even if it felt like I was waiting for a shoe to drop with every step I took.

By two, the rush had slowed. Sutton ducked into the back to call her coffee distributor.

I leaned against the counter, staring out the window at Main Street and the slow trickle of traffic.

My reflection caught in the glass—hair pulled back, blue apron streaked with flour, the faintest hint of dark circles under my eyes.

I tried to imagine what Ford would say if he walked in right now. Probably something sarcastic about the bear claws. Or a compliment I wouldn’t believe. Or maybe just “hey,” in that way of his that made it sound like a promise.

The bell chimed again. I looked up, heart on a hair trigger.

Still not him.

Just a guy in work boots, his hands stained with motor oil. He ordered black coffee and a plain bagel, then sat down at the bar to eat in silence.

I watched him for a moment, then turned back to my phone. No messages.

I typed out a text, thumb hovering over the screen: Hey. Hope you’re okay.

I stared at it, then deleted the whole thing. He’d call when he was ready.

Sutton attacked the countertop with lemon spray, humming along to an old pop song on the radio, while I picked stray crumbs out of the cookie display and lined up the biscotti so they all faced the same direction.

The sunlight coming through the windows was different now, flatter and more gold, slanting long shadows across the tile. The regulars had all cleared out. The air smelled like yeast and vanilla and fake lemon cleaner.

Sutton eyed my work and shook her head, mock exasperated. “You know you’re the only person on the planet who lines up cookies like they’re in boot camp, right?”

I shrugged. “They taste better when they’re organized.”

She rolled her eyes, then softened. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I lied, popping up on my toes to wipe a smudge from the top of the glass.

She paused, then said, “I listened to that podcast while I worked in the back. The first episode, at least. Bunch of yapping about nothing.”

I stopped wiping. “Seriously?”

She shrugged. “They just rehash all the same stories. Ty’s truck, the bonfire party, the rumors about your billionaire. They didn’t say anything everyone around here hasn’t heard ten times.”

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. “I don’t even want to listen to it.”

Sutton watched me, then nodded slowly. “Don’t blame you.”

I went back to scrubbing the same spot, not because it was dirty but because I needed my hands to be doing something.

The front door chimed, and both of us snapped to attention. It was just the mail carrier, dropping a few envelopes on the counter and grabbing a coffee to go. When the door closed, the silence came back even thicker than before.

I wanted to call Ford. I wanted to drive out to the ranch and bang on the door and demand to know what he was thinking. But all I could do was stand there, holding my cleaning rag like a lifeline.