Page 2
"Who died?"
"No one," I reply, and she narrows her eyes immediately.
"That's your lying voice."
"I don't have a lying voice," I say, handing her the letter, and her expression darkens as she reads it through.
"Oh, come on. This is ridiculous," she says, placing it on the counter. "Someone is targeting you." The words land heavily because I've been thinking exactly that for weeks without wanting to say it aloud.
"Maybe it's bad luck," I mutter, and she stares at me long enough that I stare back, and eventually she shakes her head.
"That was embarrassing."
"What was?"
"That attempt at denial." She says while setting the flowers on the counter. "You've been doing this for months — pretending everything is fine while it clearly isn't."
"I'm managing," I say.
"You're drowning," she says, and the bluntness steals my response entirely before she softens. "June. You don't have to carry all of this alone."
I turn away, suddenly aware of how quiet and small and fragile the bakery feels around me. "I don't want people worrying."
"They already worry."
"I don't want pity," I say, and she tells me to stop giving everyone half the story, and I busy myself straightening pastry boxes that don't remotely need straightening. Daisy watches without comment, because she always knows when to wait and when to push, and right now she's deciding which one this moment calls for.
"You're so busy protecting everyone else from your problems," she says finally, "that you've forgotten they're allowed to care about you. Talk to people. Ask for help. Fight back."
"Fight back against who?"
"Whoever keeps coming after your bakery." She reaches across the counter and squeezes my hand. "You built this place from nothing, June. Don't let someone convince you it's theirs to destroy."
Before I can answer, a dark truck rolls slowly down Main Street and several people on the pavement pause to watch it pass. Daisy follows my gaze out the window.
"That must be the new inspector," she says, and I watch a tall man climb out of the truck — broad-shouldered and serious-faced, the kind of person who looks entirely unimpressed by the world and has probably looked that way for years. He disappears into the town hall building and Daisy looks back at me.
"Don't start panicking."
"I'm not panicking," I counter.
"You're thinking very loudly."
"I always think loudly," I say, and she laughs. There is something about her smile that almost makes me want to reciprocate with the same energy.
When she leaves later I remain by the window while the bakery moves around me — customers chatting, Ollie serving pastries, the scent of fresh bread drifting from the kitchen — and my gaze travels from the Council letter on the counter to the overdue bills waiting in the office and back to the quiet street outside.
Fear tries to creep in and I push it away deliberately. This bakery survived heartbreak and long nights and bad seasons and years of unglamorous, unwitnessed work, and I refuse to let anonymous complaints dismantle everything I've built.
Whoever started this may think they're wearing me down, and maybe some days they are, but they haven't beaten me. Not yet.
I straighten my shoulders, fold the letter carefully, and tuck it into my apron pocket. No one is taking Sweetbell Bakery away from me — not the Council, not some anonymous coward filing complaints from the safety of their own comfort, and not whatever trouble just rolled into Maple Hollow in a dark truck.
2
BROCK
The town sign appears five minutes after I start wondering whether my navigation crystal has malfunctioned.
