Chapter Twelve: So Small

Chapter Twelve

Willow

SO SMALL

Performed by Carrie Underwood

I was just finishing the cleaning when Hector came into the kitchen and asked, "Can you make samples of the miniatures for us to hand out tomorrow?"

When I'd shown him the piece I'd created, he'd beamed at me. And when I'd given him samples of each treat and he'd savored them with eyes closed, happiness and pride had shimmered through me, radiating outward like rays of the sun bursting through the clouds and sending the panic and fear of the morning further away.

After tasting each one, Hector had hurried to the pastry case and rearranged everything so he could place the mosaic dead center. I'd felt just as I'd thought I would—like a kid whose parent had pinned their art to the refrigerator. But then customers had started oohing and ahhing over it, and asking him if he'd created it, and how they could sample the treats, and the tension had eased.

"I'll make as many as I can tonight." I smiled up at him, heart light once more. The thought of not just making Hector's family recipes but my own was a dream come true. It was another box to mark off in my journal. Maybe I really would give people something to remember. Something that fed their souls as well as their bellies.

"Once people try the samples, they're going to come in specifically for them, so you'll need to make even more tomorrow night."

My smile widened, pleasure growing, not only at Hector's faith in me but at the idea of people showing up for something I'd created. I itched to not only bake more of the treats I'd used in this piece but to get started on a whole new vision.

When I told him as much, his brows went up. "If we changed the display each week, we could feature whichever dessert was most prominent. We could call it the Edible Art of the Week or something. I'll have Shay help me with a catchy tagline."

I tossed my apron and towel in the hamper before spinning around to hug him. He seemed startled, not because I'd never done it before, but by the pure force of it. He returned my embrace with a squeeze that filled my eyes with triumphant tears. When I pulled back, his grin matched mine—large and bright.

"Thank you for believing in me," I said.

"The desserts are tiny pieces of heaven. My abuelita would've been very jealous. I knew you were talented from the day I hired you and you criticized my chocolate scones, telling me exactly what was missing."

I was embarrassed by how cheeky I'd been that day. I hadn't meant my comment as an insult. I'd truly just been talking aloud more than tearing apart his grandmother's recipe. But Hector had only laughed and then added the cardamom I'd suggested without even blinking.

"Keep track of the expenses," he said. "I'll either give you a cut of the profit, or we can figure out a way where I'm buying wholesale, whichever gives you the biggest percentage."

Ted banged into the kitchen with his dark hair sticking up at all angles. "A huge crowd just came in. One of my friends said his art teacher took a picture of your dessert thing and was using it in class as an example of the evolution of modern art or something like that. The professor said she'd give extra credit to anyone who came and took a picture with it to prove they'd seen it."

I shot another amazed smile at Hector, who winked at me before going out front with Ted.

Excited butterflies flitted around inside me as I went and grabbed my things from my locker. I'd just slid back into the kitchen while unwinding my braid when the swinging door opened to reveal Hector's twinkling eyes.

"There's actually a line out the door!" he exclaimed. "If you increase my profits by drawing people in, we'll have to consider a way for you to get a cut of those too."

I pushed at my cheeks and the smile I couldn't stop with cool fingertips. "Of course not! It's your shop."

Ted's panicked voice called out for Hector, and he chuckled. "We'll discuss it later."

"Want help out front?" I hollered after him.

"No. Go home. Bake me some mini desserts to sell."

It was habit and happy distraction that had me stepping into the alley without thought. I barely held back a yelp as a body stepped toward me before I realized it was Lincoln. He moved from the shadow of the building into the sun, and the rays turned his brown strands into a kaleidoscope of dark hues while those cobalt eyes all but leaped out at me.

I beamed up at him for a second before the reminder of why he was there hit home. I'd swept away the glass from the alley and replaced the bulb before Hector had shown up. I'd meant to tell him about it, but then we'd gotten caught up in my creation, and I'd truly forgotten. Lincoln would be irritated if he knew I hadn't said anything, but I'd already talked myself out of worrying about it. And I didn't have time to get into it with him right now.

I had to get home, get a few hours of sleep, and then borrow Mom's car to hit up the restaurant supply store for more ingredients. I had samples to make and even more for the following day if they took off. Plus, I had another display piece to create. My mind was already whirling with lists of ingredients, supplies, and ideas.

As I started out of the alley, Lincoln slipped into stride with me. "I startled you, didn't I? You can't just walk out blindly. What if I'd been Poco?"

I hadn't been paying attention, not only because it had been a long time since I'd had to watch my every step but because I'd been lost in the pleasure of my success.

"No one was supposed to be here this afternoon, not even you, remember?"

As we rounded the corner from the alley onto Main Street, a group of students hustled by, joining the queue bursting from the door of the café. My feet faltered, some of the buzz leaving me as I realized we were walking together in the middle of the day where anyone could see us. I shot my eyes both ways, looking not only for Poco but for anyone who seemed interested in Lincoln. When no one seemed to even be paying attention to us, I hurried as fast as I could down the remainder of the block, only breathing easy again once we'd reached the quiet of our street.

Lincoln easily kept up with my frantic pace.

"Do you really think daylight would stop Poco?" Lincoln asked.

"I think the broken light was a fluke and that he was whistling in the cemetery while continuing with whatever nefarious activity he'd been doing last night. I think you and I overreacted."

After Lincoln had left this morning, it was what I'd convinced myself was the truth. I couldn't lie and say I hadn't been triggered by the events of the last two days. It had allowed the trauma of my past, which wasn't that far behind me, to resurface.But that was all it had been. Circumstances bringing those nightmares out of the shadows. Talking about Roci and Aaron with Mom along with Poco's ugliness had brought it all back to life.

But the truth was, I was safe in Cherry Bay, and Poco didn't care enough about me to follow me around.

"If I wasn't here and Poco approached you, attacked you again, what would you do?" Lincoln demanded as we approached our gate.

When I looked up at him, his face was shadowed with the sun shining fiercely behind him. Instead of the tortured superhero I'd thought him this morning, the halo of light turned him into a dark angel. Azazel rather than Michael. Any of the ones who tempted humanity with their fierce and treacherous beauty.

"I've taken some self-defense classes," I told him.

"Yeah? So, if I was him, and I stepped into your space like this." His arms and hips brushed against mine as he eliminated the distance between us. "What would you do?"

My body ignited, and my head spun. Not from fear. I didn't think I could ever fear Lincoln. This was a heady rush of lust. Pure desire.

My hand shook as I slipped the cat-shaped, self-defense key chain hanging off my bag from its hook and slid my fingers through the hard-resin, brass-knuckle-like weapon. Then, with as much force as I dared, I shoved the weapon toward his face, stopping mere millimeters from his eyes.

He jerked his head back, yanking at my wrist and then staring at the key chain with a look of disbelief. "What are you going to do with that cat toy?"

I shoved my hand toward his face without any real force, but enough to make a point. "Don't dis the cats. They can cause some serious damage to your eyeballs."

Before I even realized what was happening, Lincoln had crisscrossed my arms across my body and spun me up against the stone wall along our property. His front was tucked up right against my back, and his mouth was bent close to my ear.

"You weigh, what? A buck ten? You're nearly half my size, Willow. You get close enough to stuff that plastic riff-raff in Poco's throat, and he's going to be able to do a lot more to you than this."

My entire being throbbed as adrenaline crashed through me, and yet it still wasn't in fear. This had everything to do with him pressed up against me and the warmth of his breath as it brushed the shell of my ear, sending goosebumps over my skin.

"I stopped before I hurt you," I said, voice shaking from the desire humming in my veins. "I would have taken him by surprise and then run like hell."

Lincoln's face dropped into my hair, and I swore he inhaled before whirling me around so I was facing him. My wrists were still caught in his hands, our bodies were still aligned, and I felt every hard and sinewy muscle of his touching mine. His eyes were dark and hooded, and those beautiful lips were set in a serious line I knew he meant to be disapproving, but all I could think about was what they'd feel like if I kissed him.

Which was ridiculous. And far more dangerous than Poco. Because this complicated man, who'd had me on a roller coaster from the moment we'd met, could easily ruin me…and Mom. He could destroy everything we'd built here with one careless, misplaced snapshot.

I pushed against the solid wall of his chest, and he let me go but stayed close enough that his arms still brushed mine. We stared at each other, breathing erratically, the air full of want and need and fear and sorrow.

I swallowed over the lump that had suddenly formed in my throat and said, "Thank you for worrying about me, but we've both made too much of the entire situation." When he started to protest, I interrupted. "I won't be walking to work tomorrow anyway. I'll have all the samples with me, so Mom will drive me." Debate warred over his face, and I did my best to reassure him one final time. "I promise I won't walk by myself."

He stepped farther away, and the loss of his heat allowed the cold wind to slice through me.

He called out a series of seemingly random numbers that I didn't quite understand, and my obvious confusion made him raise a brow and growl, "Take out your phone, Willow. Put my number in so if anything changes, you can call me. I'll come whenever you need."

My heart leapt wildly. It wasn't wise to add him to my phone. Too much of a temptation. And yet, when he repeated the numbers, I still did it with trembling fingers.

When I looked back up from saving the information, he'd disappeared.

? ? ?

I'd intended to take a nap, but for the third day in a row, I couldn't. My mind raced with memories of everything that had happened. Not only the alarming moments but the heady, forbidden ones. My mind lingered excessively on Lincoln, taunting me with a low throbbing deep in my belly at the thought of the many ways he'd touched me.

The result was that by the time Mom got home from school, I'd prepped as much of the baking as I could without shopping and was waiting anxiously with my list in hand. While I could have borrowed the car and gone without her, I was also ready to get out of my head. Ready for the distraction of company that wasn't Lincoln's.

Even though Mom had to be dragging after a long day on her feet, she didn't even hesitate when I asked her to go to the restaurant supply store with me.

"I told you Hector would like your miniatures," she said proudly as we drove.

A fuzzy warmth settled inside me, allowing me to meet her happy look with one of my own.

Shay had sent me a picture of the line in the café that had continued all afternoon. Even if most of it was due to the extra credit the professor had offered, I hoped it meant they'd come back for actual samples tomorrow.

"What are you going to do if a reporter shows up?" Mom asked.

My mind immediately went to Lincoln and the press who would eventually find him here, so my voice shook a bit when I asked, "What do you mean?"

"Hector texted me and said kids were posting pictures on Bonnin's social media pages and that they'd flocked to the store to get a look at your piece. I bet someone from The Cherry Bay Gazette will pop by."

"You're texting with Hector?" My excitement over that single nugget of fact shoved all the other concerns aside.

Mom looked away sheepishly, and it made me want to raise my hands in the air in a fist-pounding moment. I wondered if Shay knew our work had paid off and that our parents were finally stepping in the right direction.

"He's proud of you. Just like I am," she said. Pleasure bloomed inside me again. Even when I was little, Mom had never held back her compliments or her love, just like Dad never had. She'd always supported me in whatever I'd wanted to do and hadn't even batted an eye when I'd dropped out of Bonnin to attend culinary school. She'd been proud of me for following my dreams, especially when we both knew how short life could be—specifically, my life.

We pulled into the parking lot of the supply store, and I reached for the door handle before her words stopped me. "Were you ever going to tell me about Poco?"

I swallowed over a lump that instantly formed in my throat with regret at holding something back from her. I wanted to be mad at Hector for telling her before I'd had the chance, but I was also too happy that they were texting for any real anger to take hold.

"It was nothing, Mom," I said because I'd convinced myself it was true.

"Some guy intervened?" she asked.

The lump grew. If she'd been worried about a reporter showing up over my desserts, how much more would she worry if she knew I was spending time with the president's son?

"Our new neighbor heard us arguing in the cemetery yesterday before work," I said quietly.

Mom's eyes widened. "You were at the cemetery in the dark? Alone?"

I fiddled with the seam of one of the patches on my bag as I collected all my thoughts and emotions. Finally, I looked up and said calmly, "We're safe here. You said so yourself. I don't need to worry about the Viceroys."

"This isn't about the Viceroys, kiddo. You're a beautiful woman, in a college town. Other things can happen. It's bad enough you walk to work in the dead of the night without lingering in dark places."

"I always text you that I've made it safe."

"But you weren't, and you didn't tell me. And worse, you went in alone again this morning."

I hated the sadness that returned to her eyes when I'd been seeing so much light in the last few weeks. And the truth was, I was sure I'd blown everything out of proportion, right along with Lincoln. My natural instincts to protect her, to make sure she didn't have one more thing to worry about, had me saying, "Lincoln walked with me this morning."

Her brow furrowed. "Who?"

"Our neighbor."

Her creased brow only grew. "Why would our new neighbor be up that early?"

"He wanted to make sure Poco didn't come back."

Suddenly, her expression cleared, and a small smile curved her lips. "Aw. I see. He likes you."

I bit my lip, looking away and tugging at my necklace.

Her eyes lit up. "You like him."

I did. I really did, but it couldn't go further than that.

Instead of answering, I got out of the car and grabbed a trolley from out front of the store, wheeling it inside. Mom followed along, and I turned my mind back to the list I'd made. How fast the samples went would give me a better idea of how many I needed to make for the following day, but I didn't want to make two trips to the store if I could help it. I'd buy extra, and whatever supplies I didn't use, I'd take to the café where they'd be put to good use.

As I headed for the dairy section, Mom said, "You know it's okay, right?"

I glanced over at her, stopping to load two cases of butter into the cart. "What?"

"It's okay to start a relationship. To find love and happiness."

"It is. I know it is," I told her. And it was. I wanted it for her as much as I wanted it for myself. It just couldn't be with someone like Lincoln. That hurt more than it should after knowing him barely a day.

"But?" she pressed.

I inhaled deeply and let it out. "It's hard to do when we're in…you know…and can't be honest with the people in our lives."

"We're not lying. A name isn't who we are. We can still give the people we care about the truth of ourselves." She wasn't wrong, but she also wasn't right.

When I didn't respond, she pulled me to a stop, forcing me to look at her. "Hiding from the Viceroys is different than hiding ourselves. If you keep yourself closed off and don't let anyone in, then you've allowed them to steal your life even though you're still breathing. I don't want that for you. They took so much from us already. They don't deserve the rest."

And then, she hugged me tight in the middle of the dairy aisle, and I hugged her back.

The last line item on my bucket list taunted me. I wanted what my parents had. I wanted to open myself up to love. But it wasn't just the cold fury in Aaron Vitale's eyes that held me back. It was an unknown mutated gene and the look of horror on Chad's face when I'd told him I might die.

I might be willing to take a leap into the unknown to find love, taking a chance the tarot fates might still hand me the death card, but what if no one else was willing to take it with me? And was it even fair to ask them to?

My mind filled with Lincoln's intense gaze and the warm hand on my chin as he demanded to know who'd hurt me. How would that look change if he knew I wasn't just running from some external force but a genetic bomb ready to explode? Would his expression turn to horror like Chad's had?

A piece of me wanted to spill all my worries to Mom just to have her reassure me that it would be okay. That someone would take the leap, and if they didn't, I'd be okay. But I also didn't want to make her sad now any more than I had when Chad had first ditched me. If I'd told her back then the reason we'd broken up, all it would have done was make her feel bad. Make her remember all the things she'd lost with Dad. And I'd promised myself I would do anything and everything to make her life easy and happy, not the other way around.

So, instead of sharing the burden like I ached to do, I stepped back from our hug and turned back to the items on my list.

I didn't need to worry about ever having to tell Lincoln about the FFI anyway. Because the president's son wasn't going to whisk me in his arms and declare his undying love. Sure, there was physical attraction dancing between us, but mostly he was around because he was a heroic kind of guy. He'd seen a woman in trouble and stepped in to help.

Nothing would ever come of the sparks we felt. Lincoln was off limits to me, even if love wasn't.

And if that last item on my joyous-experiences list never got crossed off, I'd still live a full and satisfied life by marking off plenty of others.