But I was devastated to be away from him. I’d grown reliant on him for the safety he provided me, and I was scared to be without him while the Randy threat loomed largely in front of us.

I knew I’d have my dad nearby for protection. Unfortunately, that also meant Jadyn would be nearby.

I’d built up in my mind a million different ways that everything would be different when I returned home.

But nothing was different.

Everything was exactly the same as I had left it.

When I had left, I was in love with Parker and missing him already.

Now that I was back, I was in love with Parker and missing him already.

A lot had changed between us; we were “engaged” now, and he’d be back in a two short weeks so we could resume our charade.

Parker.

Even as his name threaded through my thoughts, I couldn’t help but feel a little spasm in my chest just thinking of his brown eyes, his messy hair, the stubble on his jaw, the way he looked at me, the way his abs hardened under my fingertips.

I loved him, and being away from him made me realize how much.

I didn’t know what I had until it was gone. It was cliché for sure, but being away from him showed me how reliant I’d become on his presence.

It wasn’t reliant as in dependent. It wasn’t the dangerous dependence I’d had with Damien.

It was different with Parker. He provided things for me that I didn’t know I never had, and now that those things were with him on his bus in some other state, I realized how much I needed him.

I didn’t want the engagement to be a charade. I’d thought it more than once, but it was probably time to admit the truth to Parker.

The thing was…I wasn’t exactly sure how to do that.

How do you tell the man you’re fake-engaged to that you want to be actually engaged to him?

I was all for girl power, but I wanted the traditional fairy tale where the man asks the woman for her hand in marriage. That had already happened, but not the way I wanted it to. Not the way that counted.

I immersed myself back into my job. Vintage appeared to be exactly the same as I had left it. In fact, it seemed like my absence was hardly noticed.

When I first walked in a few minutes before eight in the morning, I couldn’t help my yawn. I’d been used to sleeping in until whenever the hell I wanted to over the past month. I’d been used to an afternoon into night schedule. This was the reverse of that, and it was going to take some getting used to.

I stopped at the café and asked Heather, the café manager, for a cup of coffee. She handed it over, and I filled it with cream and sugar. I headed back to punch in, and then I met Tim up by the registers.

I took a sip of my coffee, and I watched as his eyes fell onto the ring Parker had given me.

I hadn’t really considered Tim’s reaction. I hadn’t really thought about Tim much at all, in fact.

His eyebrows rose, but he didn’t say anything. His gaze just stayed on my ring.

I broke the silence. “I'm, uh…engaged.”

He nodded. “I see that.” He turned his attention to one of those binders that held information that was a complete mystery to me. “Congratulations.”

His voice was soft. He was hurt, maybe because I hadn’t told him or maybe because it was confirmation that he had no actual chance with me.

“Thanks,” I said, and I headed down to the floor to start my daily routine.

Tim pretty much ignored me—not in an offensive way, but in a way that showed me that he was sad.

It was a fake engagement, anyway. I wanted to tell him, but I couldn’t risk telling anybody. Even sweet, harmless Tim.

In my absence, Tim had taken on more hours, as had Virginia, and I couldn’t help but notice something was going on between the two of them.

It started in the afternoon. I was on the early shift, done at two, while Virginia was scheduled to start at three.

I’d been folding, my typical afternoon activity, when she came in about a half hour early.

Virginia tended to be one of those employees who rushed in through the door ten seconds after her shift was supposed to start.

So seeing her in early told me something was going on.

Tim was behind the register. The store was empty, and his eyes followed her to the break room the moment she walked into the store. They were obviously trying not to be overt about it, but I’d recently become much more aware of my surroundings. I’d recently started reading into every situation going on around me for fear of my safety. Tim and Virginia had nothing to do with my safety, but apparently my awareness extended beyond those things concerning just my protection.

Tim waited an appropriate amount of time and then pretended that he had something to do in back. I was dying to know what they were doing back there, but since I was the only employee in the front aside from Heather in the café, I knew I couldn’t head back to check on them.

An irrational part of my brain didn’t like it. I had no right to feel jealousy; Tim deserved happiness, but somehow seeing him with my friend Virginia grated on my nerves.

I always liked the fact that Tim nursed a crush on me, but now I was in his past. It was good for him, but it bruised my ego.

So I ignored the two of them, especially when they were giggling at the registers while I folded shirts, and I thought about my future at the store.

Vintage was my home, and I didn’t want to give it up. But while from the outside it appeared to be the same as it had been before I’d left for the tour, on the inside, something was different.

I didn’t hear about it my first day back, or even my second, but on the third day, I was in Barry’s office chatting about my schedule for the following week.

He had been showing me the schedule in his spreadsheet on his computer. I’d pulled a chair around to sit and look at the computer with him.

He’d excused himself to take a call on his cell phone when an email came through on his computer. He had one of those notification boxes in the bottom right hand corner of his screen that allowed previews of incoming emails. We had both been staring at the computer as we looked at the schedule, so I wasn’t exactly invading his privacy, but it wasn’t meant for me to see, surely. Only the first line of the email popped out at me before fading away, ending on a fragment, but it was all I needed to see to know that something was seriously wrong.

To: Barry Henderson

From: Ronald Sherwood, JD

Subject: Chapter 7 – Business Bankruptcy

Barry,

The documents are set to arrive at 3:00 PM. Call my

I drew in a deep breath. JD? I knew that JD indicated a lawyer. I’d seen enough paperwork around my dad’s house to learn that at an early age.

But why was Barry contacting a lawyer?

The subject line had mentioned bankruptcy. Was Barry filing bankruptcy on the store?

I had a short internal argument with myself as I heard Barry wrapping up his call. I wasn’t sure whether to be honest and tell him what I saw, play dumb, or figure out some way to help him.

And that’s when an idea struck.

If I was being honest with myself, the thought had taken root long ago, but it finally blossomed into an actual idea.

It hit me over the head, and once it was there, I was certain it was right.

I had access to plenty of money. My dad never made me want for anything. The only reason I kept working at Vintage was because I loved having a place to go, a job to perform, people to interact with despite my social reservations after Damien had left me.

And if Barry was filing bankruptcy on the store, all of that could be pulled out from under me. From under all of us.

But I could help Barry.

On the one hand, I could give him the money that would get him out of whatever mess he was in financially.