Page 55 of The Cinnamon Spice Inn (Maple Falls #1)
FORTY-EIGHT
MADISON
After talking with her father, Madison walked to the lake.
The late-afternoon sun was beginning its descent, and the wind blew across the water, sending her hair back and rippling the surface.
She shivered as the waves rolled in and the wind slipped under her sweater.
Tucking her hands in her pockets, she stared out across the water.
So many memories were rooted here at the lake, at the inn. She thought back to her childhood, all the wonderful moments with Maurice, her mom in the kitchen, teaching her how to knead dough and make cinnamon rolls.
She’d played hide-and-seek with Zach and Emily, and a dozen other kids who came and went from the inn. The maple tree. The great room was full of memories—Christmas mornings, the big balsam fir dominating the room, and the fireplace crackling.
Every holiday, every birthday—everything had felt so magical, comforting, and cozy at the Cinnamon Spice Inn.
The memories turned bittersweet as the realization hit her all over again: her family had lost it. Madison pulled out her phone and stared at the text from Jo for the nine hundredth time. The job offer glared back at her. Her heart pounded as she reread the number.
But then her gaze drifted across the lake. Toward the apple orchard. The old farmhouse. Zach. The memory of his hands on her waist, the taste of apples and whiskey.
Madison’s chest tightened, and she felt like she couldn’t breathe.
Taking the job offer meant leaving Zach, leaving the life she was starting to want again.
The deep happiness she was just starting to believe she deserved.
All she had to do was reach out and take it…
but at what cost? The price was too high.
Was she strong enough to save the inn but lose Zach?
How was she going to talk to him about this?
The wind kicked up again, scattering more leaves across the path.
She gripped her phone tighter just as it started to ring.
“What, was your Spidey sense tingling?” Madison said, balancing the phone between her ear and shoulder as she zipped up her jacket.
The air was definitely colder, cloudier, which matched her mood perfectly.
“Well, let’s see,” Jo replied dryly. “This morning, you were staying in Maple Falls forever, and now you’ve got a job offer. Knowing you, you’re ping-ponging like crazy.”
Madison sighed and shoved her free hand deep into her jacket, her boots crunching over the gravel scattered along the path. “I swear you know me so well.”
She veered toward the lake’s edge, where the wind tugged her hair loose from her scarf.
Across the water, campfire smoke drifted lazily from the campground.
She could see it curling up into the air.
Somewhere, faint laughter echoed from a group of kids, and ducks quacked in the lake.
It all felt so Maple Falls—and yet there was an ache behind it like she was standing between two lives.
“Talk to me,” Jo insisted. “Unless you don’t want to, and in that case, I’ll leave you alone.”
“No, you won’t,” Madison said with a smile. Her first real one of the day.
“You’re right, I won’t.”
Madison slowed her pace, pausing near a bench where she and her mom used to sit with mugs of cocoa and people-watch. She leaned against the nearby birch tree.
“So…” Jo interrupted her thoughts, “let me guess. You’re in love with Zach, aren’t you.”
“Yes,” Madison whispered. She tipped her head back against the tree and closed her eyes.
“There it is,” Jo said gently. “So, stay. Live happily ever after. There’ll be other job offers.”
Madison blew out a breath and kicked at a patch of gravel near the path. “I was going to stay… but here’s the thing—I just found out my family doesn’t even own the inn anymore. My parents sold it to the mayor to send me to college.”
Jo sucked in a sharp breath. “Oh, Maddie. That’s rough.”
“I know. And that job offer would give me enough money to buy it back. You should’ve seen the look on my dad’s face. He feels so guilty that he wasn’t able to provide everything for me. I know he wants it back. I want it back.”
“So what are you going to do?”
Madison started walking again, this time faster. “If it’s the only way to save the inn and secure its future, then walking away from Zach now is the right call, isn’t it?”
There was silence for a moment. Then Jo asked, “Do you want me to just agree with you?”
“Right now? Yes.” Madison laughed bitterly. “Because if I do this, I’m doing it for my dad. For the inn. For my family.”
“For you, too?” Jo asked softly.
Madison ignored that part.
“So…” Jo pushed, “you’ll be back here in about a week?”
“Yeah. I’ll stay through the grand reopening on Halloween, then head back.”
As much as Madison tried to stay steady, her heart ached just thinking about it. She could already see it—handing in her key to the inn, leaving Zach behind, letting go of this happy small-town version of herself.
“Well, good talk,” Jo said, clearly trying to lighten the mood. “I gotta run—I’m heading to the market to fix yesterday’s oyster disaster. Let’s just say thank goodness New York’s most acclaimed food critic wasn’t in town to get word of it,” Jo said with a laugh.
It felt good to talk about work. Madison pushed for more details and let Jo take the conversation away—to life in New York, the restaurant, and all their mutual friends.
The more Jo talked, the more Madison realized she was making the right decision.
It was just going to be really hard… until she got back to New York. Then she could forget about everything.
She might have a broken heart, but her family’s legacy would be restored.
She’d talk to Zach soon. She just couldn’t face it right now. But she’d lay it all out, tell him why she was going back to New York, why she had no choice. She wouldn’t leave the way she had before.
Only, maybe she wouldn’t tell him everything.
Because she’d thought about it—asking him to come with her this time.
Fighting for them, fighting for both the career she loved and the man she loved.
But every time she looked at him, at the way he fit in here, at how he belonged to the orchard and the farm and the rhythm of this town, she knew she couldn’t ask him to leave it all behind.
She couldn’t be the reason he gave up the place that made him happiest, the place that felt like home.
And maybe that was what love was—wanting someone to be happy, even if it meant letting them go.