When Misty woke up that morning, she expected—
Okay, well, judging by the disaster currently unfolding behind the counter, anything she was expecting had already sailed straight out the window, arms flailing, screaming for help. But for argument’s sake, let’s say she expected a normal morning. Mama Ivy’d be up at the church by the time the bakery opened, morning rush would hit hard around seven and keep her elbow-deep in flour and small talk until about ten-thirty. Then it’d be lunch prep—swapping cinnamon buns and hand pies for something heartier, tomato tarts and biscuit sandwiches. Mama would roll back in right before noon, purse swinging, still in her Sunday heels even on a Tuesday, ready to take over the register and patch the fractures with more than the Band-Aids Misty slapped on every leaking crack.
By three, they’d both be wiped. Misty would be dreaming of cold beer and porch lights, and if the good Lord was feelin’ generous, maybe a call from Wendy—though those were fewer and farther between these days. If not, it’d be leftovers for dinner, her feet in a bucket of Epsom salt, and tomorrow waiting on the other side of sleep.
Disasters? Sure. They came with the job. A burned quiche here, a supplier no-call-no-show there. It was all part of the rhythm. A clumsy sort of chaos she’d learned to manage over the years, somehow always landing on the right note by the time the doors locked.
But this? This was not the kind of disruption she was prepared for.
Because there, standing in her bakery, a ghost from a sweeter life, was Tallulah Goddamn Wolfe.
The bowl nearly slips straight through her hands if it wasn’t for Tully’s fingers catching it mid-air like she’d been born for this exact moment. And if it had shattered on the tile, Misty wouldn’t have heard a thing over the thunder of her heart in her ears and the sudden rush of blood that made her feel she’d spun around too fast.
Lord help her, there was no force on this earth strong enough to keep Misty Apple from hugging the soul out of a long-lost friend.
She throws her arms around Tully like the past thirty-something years were a bad joke the universe had played on them both, burying her face in her shoulder and laughing—a wet, shocked, breathless laughter that bubbled up from somewhere deep, somewhere she hadn’t touched in years.
“You,” Misty chokes out, pulling back just enough to see her again, dark eyes glassy, mouth curled into something between a grin and a sob. “You no-good, smoke-slingin', memory-hauntin', broke-my-heart-and-left-me-for-dead Wolfe.” She sniffles and wipes her cheek with the back of her flour-dusted wrist. “I oughta swat you with this spoon and then lock you in my pantry so you never go disappearin’ again. You got a lotta nerve, woman, struttin’ in here like you didn’t fall off the face of the earth somewhere around nineteen-ninety-four.”
She lingers for a moment, thumb brushing across Tully’s cheek, a part of her trying to prove this wasn’t some heatstroke-induced hallucination. “You wanna hold a bowl? Lord, I’ll give you every bowl in this kitchen. But you’re gonna work for that hug, ‘cause you don’t get to vanish on me for some thirty years and come back lookin’ good.”
Her voice cracks on that last word, and she clears her throat, waving a hand as though she could brush the thick emotion right out of the air. “Now,” she sniffs, grabbing another bowl and pressing it into Tully’s hands for good measure, “you get back there and grab me the sugar. And then you’re tellin’ me where the hell you been hidin’ all this time.”
