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SADIE

H e doesn’t just walk in. He invades the café, taking up space… a lot of it. This has to be the man Mayor Burton hired as the new sheriff, Zeke MacAllister. The rumor around town is that he’s a former Navy SEAL, and he has that look about him.

He’s not the loud kind of big, either. Not like the loggers who swagger in smelling of diesel and frozen sweat, or the out-of-towners who talk too much to make up for being out of their element. No. Zeke MacAllister is the kind of big that doesn’t need noise. He walks like someone who knows the floor will move for him. He doesn’t just take up physical space, he takes up the air and everything else around him. He has shoulders that look as if someone carved them from stone. He’s all clean lines and tactical stillness. His mere presence shifts the whole feel of the café, like the room adjusts around him without his even having to ask.

I watch him like a hawk from behind the counter. His eyes, in turn, sweep the room. Just once. That’s all it takes. It’s not casual. It’s not curious. It’s clinical. Calculating. He’s checking for exits, threats, faces. Like he’s still on a mission and this is enemy territory.

My pulse jumps.

He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t introduce himself. Just orders black coffee and a blueberry muffin like it’s a command.

And I give it to him.

Neutral. Clean. No eye contact longer than it needs to be. I’m proud of that. It’s been a long time since a man shook me up like that, and I hold the line.

Or at least I thought I did—until I realize I’m still gripping the edge of the counter after he’s long gone. My knuckles are white. My palms are damp.

I release the counter and shake my hands out like I’m flicking off the tension. Like it’s just one of those things. A reaction . Nothing more.

He’ll be gone soon, anyway. Men like that don’t stay.

“You good?” Jenny, my part-time employee, peeks over from her side of the espresso machine, eyes narrowed. She’s seventeen, sarcastic, and blessed with the kind of radar only teenage girls have for male hotness and emotional dysfunction.

“I’m fine,” I say, reaching for the tray of clean mugs to stack.

“You sure? Because that dude was...” She fans herself with a receipt slip. “Like... wow. Intense.”

“Military,” I say.

“Yeah, like the sexy Navy SEAL in that streaming show where he never smiles and somehow ends up shirtless every other scene.”

I shoot her a look.

She shrugs. “I’m just saying. If he wants a cup of coffee, I’ll bring it straight to his shower.”

“Out.”

She laughs and disappears into the kitchen to grab more cinnamon rolls. I take the moment to steady myself. To breathe. He’s just a man. A new sheriff. Passing through.

I’ve seen worse. Hell, I loved worse. But still... Zeke MacAllister doesn’t feel like a man who passes through anything. He feels like a man who claims a space and keeps it for his own .

Even the way he looked at me—calm, cool, unreadable—like he already knew things about me I hadn’t said out loud. Like I was a book he was already halfway through.

That should scare me, but it doesn’t. It... unsteadies me, which is far worse. Scary would repel me, unsettling draws me like a moth to a flame.

The bell chimes again, and I flinch, almost spilling an entire pot of coffee on my boots. Just an old man, Walter Barnes, in for his usual stack of pancakes and an hour of not-so-subtle gossip. I smile, wave him to his seat, and fill his mug without asking.

Routine. Predictable. Safe.

“New sheriff looks like he bites,” he mutters into his cup.

“Bites?”

Walter nods. “All coiled up and ready to snap. Like one of those trained dogs they don’t let kids pet.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t like people,” I say, setting down the cream.

“Then why come here?” he counters. “Why take the job?”

That’s a good question, and I don’t have a good answer.

When I finally get a breath alone in the back hallway, I press my palms to the wall and close my eyes. I shouldn’t be thinking about him. Not this much. Not when all he did was look at me and order coffee and a muffin like it was part of some covert op.

But something in me stirs. Something I thought I’d buried so deep it hasn’t seen daylight in four years.

The new sheriff isn’t the kind of man to flinch. He’s the kind of man who doesn’t let others get hurt. He’s the kind of man, whether I like it or not, who just walked into my world and rocked it hard, as if he had every right to.

* * *

I close up and head out the back door of the café and into the alley. I make my way around to Main Street’s sidewalks and walk to the end of town. The cottage I bought two years ago is no longer a rundown, ramshackle shack. I’ve spent a lot of time, effort and money bringing it back. It and the two cottages on either side serve as the leading houses to gentrify the small neighborhood that juts out onto a small peninsula.

The cottage faces the bay, so I don’t see the note taped to the door until I walk up onto my front porch. There it is bold as brass in red ink and all caps:

KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT.

No signature. No explanation. Just that.

My heart doesn’t just drop—it slams against my ribs and goes cold. My fingers hover over the paper, but I don’t touch it right away. I scan the surrounding area—instinct, not logic. Of course, there’s no one there. The neighborhood is always quiet at this time of day.

But still. I feel it. That skin-prickling sense that someone’s been close. Too close. I don’t call the sheriff—not yet. I’d called MacAllister’s predecessor, and it had done no good. Basically, he’d patted me on the head and told me not to worry. Instead, I unlock my door, reach up to take down the note, step inside, and shut it behind me like I’m bracing for a storm. The walls feel too thin now. The shadows are longer than they should be. I pull down the blinds and press my back to the door.

The note is still in my hand. I should burn it. Or seal it in an evidentiary baggie, but I don’t. Instead, I slide it into the back of my top dresser drawer and cover it with a rolled-up pair of socks.

It’s not the handwriting that does it. It’s the slant. Aggressive. Familiar in the worst kind of way. I’ve seen that kind of rage scrawled across bills, sticky notes, grocery lists. The kind of writing that doesn’t just say what it wants—it dares you to ignore it. For a second, I swear I can smell his cologne again. Musky. Cheap. Suffocating.

But this isn’t him. Different handwriting. Same message. Same sick feeling in my stomach.

The sheriff was probably right. It was nothing… is nothing. Merely a prank or a message meant for someone else. Only it isn’t… and I know that. Because this is what he used to do—Brent.

Small, sharp warnings when I started getting too brave. A cracked glass. A slammed door. A ‘joke’ that wasn’t funny at all. This feels the same, but it’s different handwriting. The problem is that I’m not that girl anymore.

I go inside, fix dinner and sit curled up in one of my chairs by the fire—a shotgun laid across my lap. The next morning, I rise, lock myself in the bath and shower. Then I fix my hair in the mirror, touch up my makeup, and head back down to the café like everything is fine. Because if I stop now—if I show it’s working—then whoever it is will know they have won.

By six-thirty, the café is humming as usual. Ada, from the library, comes in wearing one of her knitted owl sweaters and orders her usual: breakfast quesadilla with eggs, chorizo sausage, cheese, peppers and onions and a can of Diet Coke. She gives me a look like she wants to say more, but then just squeezes my hand and heads to her table.

“Storm’s coming,” she says over her shoulder.

Weather or otherwise? I don’t ask.

Joe from the gas station rolls in next, shoulders hunched from too many years spent underneath SUVs, trucks and the occasional car. I don’t care what time it is, he always smells like rubber and gasoline, but he tips well and eats slow, like he needs time to stretch the quiet and ease into his day.

“I heard we got ourselves a new sheriff,” he says as I pour his coffee. “I’ve seen him around town.”

“We do.”

He raises an eyebrow. “He real, or another rent-a-badge like that last guy the mayor brought in?”

“He didn’t strike me as the rent-a-badge type.”

Joe huffs a dry chuckle. “No, I bet he didn’t. That man looked like he’s got sniper eyes. Like he sees through people.”

I think about the way Zeke looked at me. Not in a way that made my skin crawl. In a way that made me feel exposed, but not unsafe.

“I think he sees a lot,” I say, handing him his plate with a breakfast sandwich with scrambled eggs, ham, onions and cheese on slabs of sourdough.

“Yeah,” Joe mutters. “That’s what scares me.”

I go back to wiping down the counter, pretending my hands aren’t still trembling from last night’s encounter with someone’s sick idea of a joke—the note. The difference between the new sheriff and my ex is a contrast that hits hard.

Zeke didn’t threaten. He didn’t hover or leer or try to shrink me with silence.

He just was. A presence. Solid. Quiet. Watchful. Like he’d taken in everything about me in thirty seconds flat and hadn’t found a single reason to look away.

I don’t know what that means. But I know what it doesn’t feel like. It doesn’t feel like Brent, and that alone is enough to shake me.

At seven-fifteen, the door opens again and for a split second—just one—my pulse spikes like it might be him. It isn’t either of the men who have been occupying my thoughts since last night. Not Brent and not Zeke. It’s just the delivery guy with groceries. He takes them into the back and heads out, leaving the room feeling cold again.

It’s a dangerous thought, the way I catch myself wanting Zeke to walk back in. The way I feel safer when he’s nearby—even though I barely know him. That should scare me more than the note did, yet oddly, it doesn’t.

* * *

It’s nearly dark when I see him again.

The sun’s dropped behind the ridge, casting Glacier Hollow in that steel-blue shadow it wears so well. I’m wiping down the counter—again—because I don’t trust idle hands anymore. Not with everything I’ve learned about what creeps in when you stop moving.

And then he’s just... there.

Zeke MacAllister. Standing inside the café like the bell above the door never made a sound. I glance up at it, almost accusingly. I’m sure it didn’t ring.

He’s still. Hands in his jacket pockets, jaw tight, eyes scanning the space like he’s reading every detail, every object. Not moving. Just watching. Like a stone that decided to breathe.

My pulse stutters. I’m not afraid—but I’m not unaffected, either.

I wipe my hands on a towel and walk over to the register. I could ignore him. Pretend I didn’t see. But we both know that’d be a lie.

Eventually, he steps toward the counter. The room fades out—the hum of the refrigerator, the scrape of a fork somewhere in back—all gone. It’s just him, walking toward me, eyes locked. Not casing the place like last time. Not looking around.

Just looking at me.

“Same?” I ask, fighting to keep my voice steady.

He nods. “Black. No sugar.”

That voice—low, steady, calm—but not the kind of calm that comes from comfort. It’s the kind that someone has earned. Carved out through storms and fire.

I pour the coffee, slide the mug across. Hands steady—until his fingers brush mine. The contact is brief, but it sizzles like a lit fuse.

The other customers filter out. Chairs go up. Lights dim. The quiet settles in like it always does when I’m closing up. Jenny’s already gone. The last pot sputters behind me.

Then he says it. “I’m here about the studio over the café.”

I blink. “How’d you hear about that? It’s not listed.”

“You mentioned it.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Then it must’ve been the mayor…”

“Did he tell you it’s small? Loud in the mornings? And?—”

“I’ll take it.”

I cross my arms. “You haven’t even seen it.”

“I’ve seen enough. It’s close. I’ll be around if anything happens. Your café’s clean, well-kept. I figure the apartment’s the same.”

My pulse skips. “You’d really live upstairs?”

He nods. “Short walk for coffee. Easier to keep things secure at night.”

I raise a brow. “Café doesn’t need a bodyguard.”

He steps in closer. Voice low. “Not offering to guard the café.”

My breath catches.

He doesn’t push it. Just glances toward the back hallway that leads to the stairs.

“I’ll pay over the rent to cover meals. I’ll cook when your kitchen’s closed. I’ll keep the place locked up every night. What do you say?”

I swallow. “You sound like you’re setting the rules.”

“I’m the sheriff. Comes with the badge.” A pause. “And I think you want someone to.”

I don’t answer. Not right away. Because maybe... he’s right.

Finally, I nod. “Fine. Keys are in the drawer. You start tomorrow.”

He shakes his head. “I start now.”

Before I can argue, he’s moving—locking the front door, making sure everything’s sealed up tight. Herding me toward the back. He doesn’t say a word as he picks up his coffee, setting it down on the newel post at the foot of the stairs.

Still nothing. Just sips. Watching me.

Not flirting. Not prying. Just... present. Like I’m something worth paying attention to. My throat tightens.

“I didn’t expect you to start so soon,” I say.

He shrugs. “I wanted to make sure the café was locked up and make sure you got home safe.”

I freeze. The way he says it—it’s not a suggestion. It’s a fact. Like it’s already his job. And somehow, I don’t hate it. I should. I want to. But part of me—maybe the part that still wakes up to echoes of slammed doors and broken glass—wants someone to care.

“You checking on everyone in town?” I ask.

“No.”

Just that. One word. Final. Unbothered.

“So I’m special?”

His brow ticks up. “You’re exposed.”

There it is. No fluff. No filter. Just the sheriff, cutting to the truth with a blade of steel.

“Right,” I say, softly. Not sure if I mean it as acceptance or surrender.

He finishes his coffee. Sets the mug down. Heads for the back door.

I expect that to be it—but it’s not.

He opens the door to the alley, waits for me to step out, then locks it behind us. His voice is quiet. Commanding. No space for argument.

“I’ll walk you to and from your place every day. I’ll open and lock the café with you. Every time.”

It’s not a request. It’s not even a conversation.

And I know—I know —I’ll follow it. Not because he scares me. But because something in his voice tells me I don’t have to be scared anymore.

He walks me to my door. Steps inside first. Sweeps the place like it’s protocol. Then moves to the front and looks at me one last time.

That look.

It settles somewhere under my skin, like he’s just left a mark there—something permanent.

He steps out as the wind picks up. I close the door, turn the deadbolt.

Just like he told me to.

I hear him walk away.

And I stand there, long after he’s gone. Heat crawling up my neck. Pulse racing in ways it hasn’t in years.