Page 43 of Tempting Mr. Knightly

By three o’clock, the farmhouse tabletop had disappeared under the day’s accumulated evidence. Takeout containers, floor plans, Ronan’s level, half-empty wine glasses, the scraped-clean shortbread tin. Gabriel was on the phone with a commercial real estate agent he knew. Ronan was recalculating the renovation estimate based on new data Tessa had provided. Devney and Tessa were comparing the two best alternative spaces, their heads close together over the floor plans, their conversation a rapid exchange of logistics and instinct that Lucy could follow but couldn’t contribute to because contributing required accepting that Flour & Honey might need a new home.

Lucy stood in the kitchen doorway, watching them, these people Marco had texted from her phone, who had rearranged their Saturdays because that was what you did when someone you loved was losing something she’d built with her hands.

She’d spent years proving she didn’t need anyone.

Lucy let go of the doorframe, crossed the room, and pulled a chair into the circle between Devney and Tessa, close enough to read the floor plans.

As the afternoon faded, they left in ones and twos. Tessa kissed her cheek and said, “Call me tonight. I’ll have numbers.” Gabriel squeezed her hand and said nothing, which from Gabriel meant everything. Ronan tested the display shelf one final time, confirmed it was level, and departed satisfied. He’d solved at least one problem today. Devney stood in the doorway, canvas bag over her shoulder, and gave Lucy a look that carried years of friendship and everything she hadn’t been able to say in a room full of people.

“You’re not alone in this,” Devney said.

“I know.”

“Say it again when you believe it.”

Marco cleaned the kitchen. He was methodical about it, returning every surface to its pre-crisis state, as if the act of scrubbing could restore order to a day that had resisted it. When he finished, he hung his apron on the hook by the cooler and stood in the kitchen doorway.

“I locked the back. Front’s on you.” He paused. “Knox is still here.”

Lucy turned.

Knox was in the front room, at the window table that had quietly become theirs. He must have moved out there while she was saying her goodbyes, leaving the back room to her people. He was reading something on his phone, his tie loosened, his jacket draped over the back of the chair. He’d been there all day, not offering solutions or numbers or speeches. He’d simply stayed.

Marco caught her expression. Whatever he saw, he kept it to himself. “I’m going home. Don’t stay too late.”

“Since when do you tell me when to leave my own bakery?”

“Since you stopped being able to tell yourself.” He pulled on his jacket. “He stayed, Lucy. All day. While everyone else was fixing things, he sat there. That’s not a man running numbers. That’s a man who didn’t want you to be the last one in the building.”

Marco left. The back door clicked shut.

Lucy wiped her hands, which didn’t need wiping, on a towel and walked to the front.

He looked up at her. “I wasn’t sure you’d want company.”

“I don’t.”

“I can go.”

“I said I don’t want company. I didn’t say go.”

He studied her face. The distinction mattered, and she could see him filing it away.

She sat beside him, not across. Their shoulders were six inches apart. The bakery was dim. The display case lights cast a warm glow across the floor, and through the front windows, Park Slope was settling into its Saturday evening rhythm. Dog walkers, strollers, the couple from down the block who held hands on their way to the wine bar every weekend like clockwork.

“Gabriel brought food. Tessa brought floor plans. Ronan brought a drill and his laptop. Devney brought wine. Marco baked. Mrs. Hadley baked, which might be a sign of the apocalypse.” She paused. “You brought yourself.”

“I brought myself. I needed to be here.”

“That’s either the most selfish or the most honest thing you’ve ever said.”

“Both, probably.” He turned his empty cup slowly on the table. He’d been nursing the same coffee for three hours. “You had a room full of people trying to fix this, and the look on your face got tighter with every solution. You didn’t need more answers. You needed someone to sit with the question.”

Lucy’s throat ached. She stared at the counter she’d refinished herself in year one, the worn surface she’d sanded and sealed three times, the place where she’d stood every morning since she was twenty-four and measured her life in batches of dough and regulars who knew her name.

“I’m going to lose this space,” she admitted.

“Maybe.”