Page 15 of Sweet and Salty

“Moe is surprisingly tech savvy. I thought the cash register was a piece of shit until I realized he only uses it for decorative purposes. He’s all about cashless payments.” Over the phone, Ihear a few keyboard clicks. “Okay. Great. No worries. I can have it for you tomorrow morning.”

“Really?” Maybe my luck is finally turning. Heck, I’m overdue.

“Yeah.” He pauses for a moment. “I’ll drop it off at your house tomorrow. If that’s okay.”

“Oh.” My heart races in my chest. Jesse at my house? At my kitchen table? I’m not ready for that. “No. It’s fine. The bakery closes at three tomorrow. I’ll stop by afterward on my way home.”

He pauses. “Sure. Sure, sounds good. I’ll have it right here for you.”

“Thanks, Jesse.” His name tastes way too good on my tongue, like hot cinnamon and molasses tea on a February night.

“Good night, Laura.”

I’ll be replaying that good night for weeks to come.

CHAPTER TEN

Jesse

This is a terrible idea.Borderline stalkerish.

Then again, it wasn’t the best idea to go out last night after I closed the hardware store to pick up the ring light at the big box store an hour south of St. Olaf. If she doesn’t want it, what the fuck am I going to do with a ring light? I hadn’t gone on social media before I was in witness protection, much to Esme’s dismay.

But I’m not thinking of Esme. Not anymore. That bridge didn’t just burn, it was torched to ash and soot, barely even a memory. A memory that still stings, but I can get over it. Iwillget over it.

“It’s an apology, nothing more.” I tuck my chin into the collar of the windbreaker as I cut through the tree line between the cabin and her house. There’s something warm and comforting about stepping onto Laura Marshall’s property. It reminds me a bit of my Grandma’s place, minus the stifling Georgia humidity. Even the sun is warmer on this side of the woods.

This early in the morning, the flat landscape of her farm is well-kept and pleasant. The barn looks inviting, and not just if one happens to be hooved.

My professional eye finds the pigs in the barnyard first. They are clearly well-loved animals, fat and rooting in the dirt at their feet. The dog isn’t out yet. Maybe Laura lets him warm her bed.

No. No, I’m not thinking about Laura in bed.

I’m just going to drop the ring light off at her back door and then head home, get some work done on the shack—sorry, cabin—and then head into the hardware store. Maybe Moe will show up today and spare me from the constant parade of townspeople, all of whom have discovered single relatives of all genders I “just have to meet.”

In some ways, it’s nice, sort of like a golden age musical, and I half expect the town to break into an artistic swim number in the middle of the town square. In other ways, it reminds me of exactly why I shouldn’t find any amusement here whatsoever. This is temporary. This is about as real as one of those Busby Berkley films, and far less shining and glittery. I’m only here until I testify, and then hopefully Johnny Mack and his whole posse will be behind bars and I can return to my real life.

My real life. Working almost twenty hours a day, on the road for most of that, or fielding calls at two in the morning. All for what Esme called “barely minimum wage.” But it had been my dream. I’d loved it, despite the long hours and the exhaustion and the pay that didn’t buy Esme everything she had demanded.

For a moment, I wish a hole would open, there in the middle of a Wisconsin field, and swallow me whole. Maybe it would transport me back to seven years ago, before I ever met Esme or got the job at the race track. I’d still be in Ft. Lauderdale, rolling down the highways and through the swamps in my SUV, doing house calls.

The memory of that tastes so sweet, like a bright cherry-red lollipop bursting on my tongue.

I greet the pigs as I walk by their pen and step up to the back door of the farmhouse. From this perspective, the flowers on the wall are as large as palm fronds, their petals rounded and soft, like they could drift down and cover me at any moment. It would be a soft, cozy death, wrapped in their scent.

Far better than freezing my ass off here next winter.

None of this matters.Focus, Jesse.I have a delivery and an apology.

I knock on the door and immediately regret it. Of course she won’t answer. It’s six in the morning and her bakery doesn’t open for another two hours.

“Just leave it, doofus,” I tell myself. I bend down to set the bag with the ring light and the bubblegum lollipop inside the door jamb.

And at that exact moment, the door opens. Straight into my forehead with a resounding gong-likethudthat echoes throughout my body.

“Oh my gosh!”

At least that’s what I think I hear but the knock on my head unleashes a buzzing, whirring sort of noise that dampens everything else.

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