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Her face softened in understanding. "Homeless?"
"Yep. Skinny. Scared," Keegan said.
Bella smiled. "What else to do but make her family, then?"
"Right?" Of course Bella would understand. "She said the pumpkin bread sucks."
Bella frowned. "It can't suck. You're a great baker."
Silently, he slid a plate across the granite counter toward her.
She took a bite, then wrinkled her nose. "Well, it doesn't suck, but there's nothing special about it, not like what you usually create."
"I know." He watched the chair as Millie stuck her nose a little bit further out. "I think I'm going to cancel the product release. I'm running out of time."
Bella sighed. "You always give your local customers a special product every year. They treasure it. You promised them and yourself that you'd keep doing that even after you opened the commercial bakery."
"I know." He'd been servicing small local businesses exclusively for years until he'd finally decided to open a commercial bakery. Business for the bakery had been great, but it wasn't working for him on an emotional level. "I got nothing, Bella. I don't know if I can keep going with the bakery."
Bella sat down. "This has been your dream since we were kids."
"I know." He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe you can take a look at the recipe? See if you see anything?" Bella owned a café on the guest portion of the ranch, and the two of them spent plenty of time in the kitchen experimenting together. He pushed the computer over to her.
"Sure. We got this." She opened the computer and typed in his password. "Who's that?"
"What?" He glanced at the computer, then grimaced when he saw what she was looking at. "Sascha."
"Sascha?" Bella stared at him. "You're still looking at the photobooth shot from when you were eighteen? With a girl you knew for a week and never heard from again? Why?"
The series of photos from the photobooth was open on the left side of his screen. "Long story."
Bella folded her arms over her chest. "I have nowhere to go. Tell me."
Keegan didn't feel like talking about it, especially the fact that Sascha was dead and it was bugging him more than he would have expected, but the Harts had a family rule that you didn't keep secrets from each other. It was how they'd survived their time under the bridge. So, he gave a truth, but a different one. "Because of the joy."
"The joy?"
He nodded. "Look how hard we're laughing. At that time, we were both broke and homeless. We had nothing, or at least I didn't. I don't know her whole story. I had nothing back then, and I was so freaking happy in that picture."
"So, you're longing for this girl you knew for a week?"
"No. It's inspiration, Bella. Sascha was pure positive energy. I've never met anyone else with such a passion for being alive." He rested his forearms on the counter. "I never told any of you this, but back then, I was thinking about killing myself. After I lost my mom and wound up on the streets, even Brody couldn’t help me get my emotions under control—"
"What?" Bella looked shocked. "You carried that all alone? How did we not know this?"
"Yeah, well, it took me a while to warm up to everyone. And then I met Sascha. She lit up my world, and she made me see life in a different light. She changed me forever." Sascha had simply swept into his life for a week and then swept back out, equally as quickly, but she'd left her mark. "She showed me how to love life no matter what. She was…electric." It was the best word he could think of, but it still didn't do justice to her.
Bella studied the photos. "And you're trying to feel that energy again? That's why you have it up?"
"Yeah." He shrugged. "We have everything we could ever want, Bella. We're rich as sin, can do whatever we want whenever we want, donate to charities all day long, and I still don't feel as alive as I did back then."
Bella sighed. "You know, I hate to say it, but I get that. I feel the same way sometimes." She leaned back. "There was something about living under the bridge, huddled together for warmth. It was the first time in my life I felt safe, which is crazy, since we were living under a freaking bridge."
"Not me. That bridge life was tough for me." Keegan watched Millie's nose wiggling as she sniffed. "I was happy before my mom died. We'd had a house. A home. Laughter. Love. Even Brody and you guys couldn’t fill that void. Nothing could."
"Until Sascha."
He nodded. "Sounds stupid, right? I mean, she was like a breeze that was gone before she even touched down." That described Sascha exactly. A breeze that could sweep others up in her power, but never slowed and never touched down.
