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  “But don’t worry, Miss Sawyer, I’m fine. I brought my craft box for the girls. We’ll have a blast.” With one more messy sniff and a swipe at her eyes, she dropped her bag in the foyer and attempted a smile.

  Jenna sighed and pushed the door closed. With her long blonde hair and killer legs, Kendal was Jenna a decade ago, except Jenna never would have allowed herself to wallow in misery over a boy. If anything, it had been the boys miserable over her. Back then, she always left before they did.

  But no sense thinking about those old days—Kendal was here and she was a mess. Jenna wasn’t super comfortable leaving Addie and Walsh with her, but what else could she do? She’d already been late to work this week—car troubles, a lost stuffed hippo, long story—and she couldn’t afford to lose this job. It paid for the girls’ school, offered surprisingly good insurance, and on good days, it made her feel like she was contributing something to the world, even if it was only a perfect heart in milk foam. Not quite the artistic contribution she’d had in mind all those years ago, but it was something, and it was all she had.

  “Addie? Walsh?” she called. “I’m heading out.”

  Small feet pounded on the hardwood floors, then two tornados of early-morning energy slammed into Jenna’s legs, their arms squeezing her tight.

  She knelt in front of them. Addie’s blonde curls were a tangled mess, but her blue eyes were bright and her mouth curved into a smile. Walsh’s still-pudgy wrists were covered in every plastic bracelet in their dress-up box and a few of Jenna’s. Walsh reached up for a hug, her breath soft and sweet in Jenna’s ear. “Bye, Mommy,” she whispered.

  Jenna smiled. Thoughts of running evaporated like steam over a cup of French roast. She pulled the girls close and kissed their foreheads. “Listen to Kendal, okay? I think she brought some fun things for you to do today. I’ll be home after work, and we’ll have something yummy for dinner.”

  “Breakfast! Can it be breakfast for dinner?”

  As both girls chanted, “Pan-cakes! Pan-cakes!” Jenna kissed their cheeks one more time and slid out the door.

  In her car she exhaled a rush of air. Through the front window of her tiny two-bedroom East Nashville house—once crisp white but now faded to a light gray begging for a new coat of paint—she could see the girls still bouncing, the sparkles from their princess pajamas visible from the driveway.

  Kendal pushed her hair back from her face, offered a bright smile, and led the girls into the den, out of Jenna’s sight. Only then did Jenna remember her almost-full coffee mug sitting on the kitchen counter.

  Traffic was lighter than usual and she skidded into the small side parking lot with a minute to spare. Just enough time to shove her purse into a locker in the back, grab her apron, and put on her best smile.

  She checked the time. Eight fifteen. She switched her phone to silent and slid it in her apron pocket. She was setting out a stack of CDs a local songwriter had dropped off when a customer burst through the door. Jenna looked up to see Lisa Rich, CEO of Trust Partners, a well-known accounting firm with an office down the block. Purse dangling from her elbow, Bluetooth in place on her ear. Obnoxiously complicated drink order. Notoriously bad tipper.

  Jenna slipped behind the counter and tapped the barista on the shoulder—the new girl, Melissa, already bracing herself for Lisa’s deluge. “I got this,” Jenna whispered.

  “Thanks,” Melissa whispered back before cowering behind Jenna.

  “Hi, Miss Rich,” Jenna said, despite the obvious fact that Lisa was talking to someone on her Bluetooth.

  “It’s Mrs. and I’m in a hurry.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Jenna said, discreetly pulling a Post-it off the underside of the counter by the register. “We’ll have your order out to you in a moment.”

  Lisa reached up and pushed a button on the contraption stuck to her ear. “Wait—I haven’t given you my order.”

  “Would you like your regular?” Jenna’s voice was innocent.

  The woman’s right eyebrow rose just a millimeter. Probably all the Botox would allow. “Yes. My regular.”

  “We’ll have that right out.” Jenna turned and handed the slip of paper to Melissa.

  Melissa eyed it with suspicion, then looked back up at Jenna. “You’re a genius.”

  “I know.”

  Melissa grinned and reached for the fat-free milk. “Does this even taste good?” she whispered.

  “I have no idea and no desire to find out.”

  As Melissa worked on the grande double shot, four pumps sugar-free peppermint, nonfat, extra-hot, no foam, light whip, stirred white mocha, Jenna walked the counter and checked the three other baristas working hard to fill drink orders. She was able to get a pack of napkins for Mario and open a sleeve of cardboard cup sleeves for Jensen before Melissa had the drink ready.

  “I’ll let you do the honors.” Melissa handed the drink to Jenna like it was gold plated. “Think it’ll do the trick?”

  “Nah,” Jenna muttered. “Probably nothing will. Mrs. Rich?”

  Mrs. Rich pressed the button again on her Bluetooth and clicked her heels across the tile floor. She stared at Jenna before taking the cup. “The peppermint’s sugar-free?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Extra hot?”

  “Extra hot.”

  “Stirred wh—”

  “It’s just like you like it. If not, it’s on me.”

  The woman hesitated, then put her mouth to the edge of the cup and took a dainty sip. Jenna could almost feel Melissa’s nervousness buzzing behind her. But Mrs. Rich just swallowed and gave a slight nod, her bright-red lipstick smudged onto the lip of the cup. After swiping her credit card and signing, she shouldered her massive Louis Vuitton bag and turned without a word. When she pulled open the glass door, a breeze of warm air floated in, and she clicked up the street to begin her day.

  Jenna turned to Melissa and rolled her eyes. Melissa bit her lip to hold in her laughter.

  A few minutes after nine, Mario poked her in the side. “Your date is here.” He grinned.

  “Shut up. He’s not my anything, and it’s not a date.”

  “It happens every morning. It’s a date.”

  “Not every morning,” Jenna said, working to make a latte “extra foamy” for a woman in white Nikes and a wide-brimmed straw hat about to set out on a downtown walking tour. “He skips Fridays because he meets a buddy to run in Riverfront Park.”

  “See, you even know his schedule.”

  Jenna rolled her eyes. “It’s not a date.”

  “Whatever it is, he’s waiting for you. And looking extra cute today, I might add.”

  Jenna looked over her shoulder. Sam always looked cute. Cute wasn’t his problem.

  After handing the woman her extra-foamy latte, she ducked out from behind the counter. “Be back in ten,” she said to no one in particular. Other than Melissa, who was still training, the baristas on shift this morning were the A-team. She could be gone an hour and come back to smooth sailing, but ten minutes was all Sam would get.

  She slid into the chair across from him and smoothed a loose curl away from her face. He smiled and nudged her coffee toward her. Black, double shot, and not a drop of syrup. “Thanks,” she said. Then she smiled too.

  “You’re welcome. It’s nice to see you.” He started every conversation with her the same way. He’d been doing it for the two months they’d been having this almost-daily nondate. From anyone else, it would be annoying, but coming from this guy, it was close to endearing.

  “You always say it like it’s a surprise. All you have to do is open those doors any morning, Monday through Friday, sometimes Saturday, and you’ll see my smiling face.”

  “I know. That’s why I come here. You know, I tried the Starbucks around the corner before I settled on this place.”

  “Oh yeah? What made you switch?”

  “The manager didn’t like me.” He leaned back in his chair and stretched his long legs out to the side of the table.
“I thought I was charming, but she never gave me anything for free.”

  “I never give you anything for free.”

  “Except the ten best minutes of my day.”

  “I think I know why that manager didn’t like you. She saw right through your whole charming act.”

  “Nah, not possible.”

  She laughed.

  “Did you see Mrs. Rich this morning?” he asked.

  Jenna nodded, sipping her coffee.

  “That woman is . . . Well, let’s just say she makes me think of opening my own accounting firm every day. Many times a day.”

  “Why don’t you do it?”

  “Open my own firm? Let’s see, money, office space, clients . . .” He counted each barrier off on his fingers. “It could happen one day. But I’m not there yet.”

  She nodded again, watched him over the rim of her cup. The first day Sam Oliver walked into Full Cup, he was just another guy in a button-down and khakis with a cell phone pressed to his ear. But then he hung up when he got to the front of the line where a barista was waiting to take his order. He ordered a large coffee, no frills. Then he smiled at the girl and added a tip onto his receipt.

  Jenna had been wiping down tables and fielding requests from customers scattered among the tables. When he sat down to wait for his coffee, she couldn’t resist. “You may be the only person this morning who’s ordered a plain coffee. Maybe the only person this week.”

  “My coffeemaker decided to quit on me this week. I haven’t had a chance to get out and buy another one, so I’m just trying to get a shot of caffeine to my brain.” He smiled. He had a nice smile. “Plain coffee is all I need.”

  “So you make coffee at home and you drink it straight up? You sure aren’t our typical coffee shop customer.” She swiped the towel across a just-vacated table, then turned back for the counter.

  “What’s your favorite coffee then?”

  “Kind of a personal question. I only just met you.”

  He smiled, slow and amused. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll just come back tomorrow and ask again.”

  She looked at the clock above the counter. “See you then.” She took her place behind the counter and resisted the urge to look back at him.

  That first quick conversation was nearly two months ago, and he’d yet to buy a new coffeemaker. They’d progressed from exchanging a few words while he waited for his coffee to spending her ten-minute break at a table in the back. Every day except Friday.

  “How are Addie and Walsh?” he asked now.

  “They’re fine. Addie is learning to write her name, and Walsh spends most of her time upside down in one form or another.”

  “My sister did gymnastics her whole childhood. Always flipping around, turning cartwheels, and whatnot. Maybe Walsh is destined to be a gymnast.”

  Jenna smiled. “I wouldn’t be surprised.”

  “And Addie will be something studious. A teacher maybe.”

  “Or a therapist. A psychiatrist maybe.”

  “You think?”

  Jenna shrugged. It was tempting to think Addie, at almost six years old, was too young to understand a lot of things. But lately, it seemed every time Jenna assumed something would go over her older daughter’s head, it instead went right in her ears and came back later in the form of a pointed, intelligent question.

  She fiddled with the cardboard sleeve on her cup. Sam watched her for a moment before speaking. “Are you ever going to let me take you on a real date? Somewhere you don’t have to wear an apron, where we can talk for longer than ten minutes?”

  Jenna bit her bottom lip, glanced at the clock over the counter.

  “Don’t do it,” he said, hanging his head. “You just sat down.”

  “It’s a busy morning. Melissa’s new. I need to get back up there.”

  He sighed. “I’m just going to keep asking. I’m like a bulldog when I put my mind to something.”

  “So what does that make me? Your chew toy?” She smiled as she stood, retying her apron strings into a tidy bow.

  “No. You’re the girl I can’t stop thinking about every time I leave this place.”

  She paused behind her chair. This had gone on long enough. “Sam . . .” He waited, ever patient. “Look, I’m not right for you. My life is . . . complicated.”

  He shrugged. “People are complicated. Our lives are too.”

  She glanced around before continuing. “I work all the time because I have to. I have to make money to pay for daycare, for insurance, for rent. Any free time I get I spend it with Addie and Walsh.” She swiped her thumb over a drop of coffee on the table. “You could have any girl you want. I’m not the one you need to be chasing. Trust me.” She could have given him a hundred more reasons, but she figured this would be enough.

  “The only thing I know I want right now is a chance. With you.” He leaned forward on his elbows. “That’s not going to change unless you tell me to get lost. I may be persistent, but I can take that kind of hint.”

  She smiled in spite of herself. “Guess I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

  Though Full Cup was one of the busiest coffee shops in the city, lulls occurred during the day. Midmorning and midafternoon were for the college students, white earbuds snaking up to their ears, laptops open, concentration intense. They could be demanding—too much caffeine made them impatient and snappy—but this afternoon the line at the counter was short, giving Jenna a chance to work on the shift schedule. Alexandra had just planned an impromptu surprise party—in the Bahamas, no less—for her sister and needed five days off at the end of the month. As the “cool” manager, the one people actually wanted to work for, Jenna had no choice but to rework the schedule.

  She wedged herself, the store laptop, and the big scheduling binder into a booth in the back where she could see most of the store but was out of the way enough that she might be left alone for a few minutes if she was lucky. The back of the store was known as the gallery. A few times a year they asked artists in town to submit art to hang on the walls. Any type of art was accepted, even a few pieces she knew Addie—or for that matter Walsh—could do better.

  As she opened the laptop and waited for it to power up, she focused on the fishing line–clock face–teddy bear conglomeration suspended from the ceiling. If it was art, she was Superwoman. Back in the day, she would have been willing to call most anything art, as long as it made the viewer feel something. Today, all that teddy bear nightmare made her feel was annoyed. But then again, that was something.

  She slid her eyes left to an eight-by-ten photo hanging on the wall. Black and white, Ilford Galerie paper, skinny black frame, white mat. Simple, understated, nothing to draw the eye except the face in the photo. The old woman had her eyes closed, her lips curving upward, her head tilted back to catch the last rays of the sun as it dipped below the mountains in the west. Of course, you couldn’t see the mountains in the photo, but Jenna remembered the smell of the crisp air, the sting of the cold on her cheeks as she clicked the shutter, the way the wind funneled through the mountain pass. The photo was eight years old. Could Rickie, the woman Jenna had befriended out west, still be alive?

  Finally, the laptop chugged to life and she dove into the job of figuring out how to get her best, most popular barista to the Bahamas for a week and balance the remaining baristas’ school schedules, family obligations, and need for shifts in her absence.

  Between helping customers, cleaning up the mess from a flushed diaper in the bathroom—seriously? Who does that?—and searching for a missing bottle of raspberry-peppermint syrup, she finally finished the schedule. As she closed the laptop and stood, her phone buzzed with a text. She pulled it out and saw she’d missed several texts, all from Max.

  I have news. Call me.

  Then: I know you keep your phone on you at work. I need to talk to you.

  The last one said: Now’s not the time to ignore me.

  Before she could punch the button to call him, the phone buzzed again, th
is time with a call.

  “I’m not ignoring you,” she said before he could unload on her. “I’m at work. What’s going on?”

  “You got in.”

  “Got in where?” She gestured to a waving Mario that she’d be just a minute.

  “Halcyon.”

  Jenna sat back down in the booth and leaned her head against the wall behind her. Mario held his hands up in frustration.

  “How?” She ignored Mario’s well-practiced drama.

  “A spot opened up and you got it. I may have pulled some strings, but I didn’t have to pull many. They loved what you sent.”

  “But they were just shots of the girls . . . and trees . . .”

  “Doesn’t matter. It got you in.”

  “What about the money? I felt like an idiot even applying, knowing I couldn’t afford it.”

  “All you have to do is get yourself here. Everything else is paid for.”

  “How in—?”

  “Believe it or not, there are wealthy art patrons who love to pay for people like you to go on retreats like this. Don’t ask too many questions. Just get yourself here by Friday. And don’t forget your camera.”

  three

  Jenna

  Two hours later, Jenna was on her way home, the scent of roasted coffee beans and vanilla syrup saturating her clothes and skin. She propped her elbow on the edge of the open window and dug her fingers into her hair. Max was nothing if not abrupt. To the point. It was one of the things she loved about him. Well, loved or hated, depending on the situation.

  Max was the head of the photography department at Belmont University and the only person who really knew her passion for photography. She’d met him at the Botanical Gardens in Nashville a couple years back. She noticed him watching her as she stooped over a pile of leaves, craning to catch the edge of a ray of sunlight.

  “Can I help you?” she asked without looking up.

  “Just wondering who taught you to get low like that. Under the light, I mean. It’s not how most people would do it.”