Page 132 of Promise Me

Maybe I’ll step through that door, and the old Hudson will appear, but perhaps I’ll walk through it, and everything will feel right again.

There’s only one way to find out.

“Brooke, I’m going to?—”

The door to the bakery swings open and a flustered Hudson fills the doorway. The sapphire eyes I’ve grown to love settle on me.

“What are you doing?” he asks as if he’s breathless.

I open my mouth to answer, but he beats me to it.

“I’m sending you notes and hinting that you need to come next door. Clearly, there’s a reason. Why are you still here?”

I cross my arms. He’s not the one who gets to be mad.

“Excuse me for?—”

“Ah,” he cuts me off and jerks his thumb over his shoulder. “Over there.”

And then he walks out.

My jaw drops.

The nerve!

I let out a huff as I march from the bakery to the space next door.

No way in hell am I letting him act like that after everything he’s done.

I jerk the door open and blaze in. “Don’t you ever talk to me like?—”

I stop short, a gasp stealing my next breath.

Hudson is standing in the middle of the room, next to the counter where Mrs. Whittaker used to have her handmadejewelry. There are flowers covering it, along with more in each corner of the space. Six bookshelves round the back of the room; each one has one book with a notecard displayed next to it. I’m too far away to see what’s written on them, but from the notes sitting on the table next door, I have a pretty good hunch as to what they say.

There’s a table and a couple of chairs in front of one of the shelves, and it’s clear that he took them from the bar. The table has three rolls on it, and they look exactly like what Luca was holding earlier today when he got out of his truck.

“What is this?” I ask.

Hudson takes a breath, shoving his hands into his jeans. “It’s Sips and Stories.”

“How?” I say quickly before I start to cry, again. “I don’t own this, and I’m not leasing it from you. That’s not how I want to do this.”

“I know, but I was hoping we could do it together.”

“Together?”

He grabs something off the counter that I didn’t see with all the flowers in front of it.

It’s a legal-size document.

He steps toward me and hands it over.

I read through it quickly.

My name is listed right next to his under the purchasers’ names, and it’s dated for the day my memory came back. The only thing missing is my signature.

“When I showed up that day, I was bringing this to you. I wanted it to be a surprise.”

---