CHAPTER FIFTEEN
DANI

The Oak Tree Café has a bell over the door that sounds exactly like a dentist’s drill if you’re running on zero sleep and overstimulated from another full day of Elijah and Jake playing dueling compressors at the inn. The inside of the cafe is classic Oak Valley with its fake wood paneling, a wall of mismatched mugs and every table topped with a plastic flower arrangement that probably haven’t been updated since Obama’s first term. I slide into my favorite booth. The back corner with my back to the wall, dropping my sketchbook and phone onto the table in front of me.

Maggie Bennett is behind the counter, scowling at the espresso machine like she’s mad at it. She spots me, waves, and jogs over. “Dani! I heard you were working on the inn,” she says, sliding into the booth opposite me before I can protest.

I narrow my eyes at her and lean forward. “How’d you hear about that?”

She grins, all dimples and caffeine. “Honey, you’re a local celebrity this week. The trip to the bookstore yesterday made front page headlines of Mrs. Voss’s neighborhood watch newsletter.”

I groan and bury my face in my hands. “Let me guess. She wrote a full exposé about Ryan’s bone structure.”

“Oh, it was worse than that.” Maggie’s grin gets wider. “She called you two a vision of collaborative synergy,” she does air quotes around the phrase. “And I quote, young love breathes new life into historic preservation.“

I peek through my fingers. “She did not.”

“She absolutely did. It’s printed on a lavender background with pastel pink hearts as a decorative border.” Maggie pulls out her phone and shows me a photo of the newsletter. Sure enough, there it is. A full paragraph about our bookstore visit, complete with speculation about whether ‘the handsome investor and our darling artist’ would ‘bring romance back to the inn’s storied halls.’

“I’m going to die,” I say flatly. “I’m going to actually die of embarrassment. Make sure my tombstone says, Death by Oak Valley’s Gossip Mill.”

“It could be worse,” Maggie says cheerfully. “At least she used a good photo.”

“Photo?” What picture could she possibly hav—

“Look.” She zooms in to an image taken through the bookstore window with both of us looking at the same book.

My stomach does a weird flip.

“Where did she even get that?” I demand.

“Renee, probably. Or one of the retirees has a telephoto lens. Honestly, it’s fifty-fifty in this town.” Maggie finally gets up to grab her order pad. “So. What can I get you? And more importantly, what’s really going on with you and Mr. Good Bones?”

“Nothing is going on. We’re working together. That’s it.”

“Uh-huh.” She’s not buying it. “Is that why you’re hiding here instead of at the job site?”

“I’m not hiding. I’m…” I gesture vaguely at my sketchbook. “I’m taking a creative break.”

“From Ryan?”

“From work.”

“Right. Work. That thing you do with Ryan. The guy you’re definitely not avoiding.” She taps her pen against the pad. “Anyway, pie?”

“Yes.” I nod, because no sane person turns down free pie. “And extra whipped cream. I’ve earned it.”

“Got it.” She starts to walk away, then turns back. “For what it’s worth? You two looked cute in that photo. Like you were actually having fun together.”

I open my mouth to argue, but she’s already gone.

I pull out my phone and text Sophie.

Me: Emergency

Me: Mrs. Voss put us in her newsletter

The response is immediate.

Sophie: I KNOW

Sophie: I was just at your parents house

Sophie: Your mom has it on the fridge

Me: WHAT?????

Sophie: It’s next to your third grade art project

Me: I hate this town

Sophie: Aww don’t say that. 

*Image loading*

Sophie: You two look so cute together. Very “couple shopping for their first home” vibes

Me: We were looking at BOOKS

Sophie: Romance books 👀

Me: for COLOR INSPIRATION

Sophie: Sure Jan

Me: I’m blocking you

Sophie: No, you’re not

Sophie: You love me

Sophie: Also Ryan is about to walk into the cafe.

I look up so fast I nearly give myself whiplash and see Ryan approaching through the windows along the front of the building.

Damn it.

Me: How did you know that?

Sophie: I’m watching you from across the street

Sophie: Jake needed to talk to Rowdy.

Sophie: Ryan looks determined btw

Sophie: Like man on a mission determined

Me: STOP

Sophie: Go talk to your boyfriend 😘

Me: HE’S NOT MY BOYFRIEND

The bell over the door rings—that dentist drill sound—and Ryan walks in. He spots me immediately. Of course he does. He walks over, hands in his pockets, and stops at my booth. “Can I sit?”

I gesture at the empty seat Maggie vacated. “Free country.”

He slides in across from me. “So. I heard we made the newsletter.”

“You heard?” I stare at him. “How does everyone in this town know everything immediately? Is there some kind of gossip telegraph I don’t know about?”

“Jake showed me.” He pulls out his phone and spins it around so I can see.

Jake: Congratulations on your collaborative synergy.

“I’m going to murder him.”

“Get in line.” But he’s smiling. That stupid real smile that’s becoming dangerously familiar. “For what it’s worth, Mrs. Voss used a good photo.”

“That’s what Sophie said.”

“It’s true.” He turns his phone so I can see it. The same photo. Us in the bookstore, heads together, completely absorbed in whatever book we were looking at.

We look… good together.

I hate that I noticed that.

“So,” Ryan says, pocketing his phone. “Are we going to talk about it?”

My heart does something acrobatic and uncomfortable. “Talk about what?”

“The fact that this entire town apparently thinks we’re—” He gestures vaguely between us.

“A collaborative synergy?” I offer.

His mouth twitches. “Yeah. That.”

Maggie’s back setting a mug, plate and fork in front of me with the flair of a maître d’ at a Michelin star restaurant. “I assumed you’d want coffee too,” she says, then glances at the walking inconvenience sitting across from me. “You’re Ryan?”

He nods. “I am.”

“What can I get you?”

“I’ll take a piece of that.” He gestures at my plate. “It looks good.”

She grins. “Cute. You guys have a usual now.” She disappears before either of us can respond.

I take a long sip of my coffee. “This town is impossible.”

“Agreed.” He leans back in the booth. “So what do we do about it?”

“About what? The newsletter? Mrs. Voss? The fact that apparently everyone is watching us?”

“All of it.”

I look at him over the rim of my mug. Really look at him. At the guy who showed up here all buttoned-up and by-the-book, who broke my heart a decade ago but I’ve spent the last week butting heads with on a project for his family anyway and who made me laugh in a bookstore and surprised me in front of retirees and is now sitting across from me asking what we should do about the fact that this whole town sees something I’m starting to see myself. “I don’t know,” I say honestly. “What do you think we should do?”

He’s quiet for a second, studying me. Then: “I think we should eat some pie and figure out those color palettes. And maybe stop worrying so much about what everyone else thinks.”

It’s such a simple answer.

But also… not wrong.

“Okay,” I say.

“Okay?”

“Yeah. Okay.” I pull my sketchbook toward me. “But if we’re doing this, you’re buying. Consider it payment for subjecting me to neighborhood watch fame.”

He laughs. “Deal.”

I stare at the pie. It’s a mountain of sugar, the crust still warm and flaky at the edges, and just looking at it takes the edge off my headache. I flip my sketchbook open, intending to work on the design for the lobby’s focal wall, but instead I start a new page. This time, I don’t draw an object at all. I draw the people. Mrs. Voss and her gossip crew, Ray, the kid with the skateboard who almost took me out on the sidewalk in front of the cafe… The faces I pass every day but never really saw before. Before long, my hand’s cramping and my eyes are raw from staring, but I don’t care. 

This time the art doesn’t feel like work.