The Coffee Cup was busy, and Paige was run off her feet. With as little sleep as she’d gotten the night before, it should have been a difficult slog, but there was nothing negative about the morning—nothing that could remotely compete with the way that she felt.

He’s going to stay.

She wanted to add the words onto every sentence. Onto every repeated-back order.

Yes, that will be one order of the waffles, one order of the eggs Benedict, two coffees—oh, and Kehlan is staying.

In every moment when her mind wasn’t actively engaged in writing down an order or talking to a customer, it was back in bed with Kehlan. It was watching him, as she had the night before, break out in a smile and tell her he would never leave. It was remembering every detail of him, and how he moved, and how he made her feel. It was remembering the kindness with which he had treated all the ailing people at the pub. It was remembering his voice on stage, and his hand in hers, and the warmth of him and the sharpness of his features softened by the playfulness of his words.

He was never going to leave her, and nothing was ever going to have to go back to the way it had been before.

She loved her life. She had thought she’d loved her life. She loved Dylan, and she’d worn her stubborn determination to carve out a life for the two of them like a badge of honor. But having someone—and not just someone, but Kehlan—felt almost too good to be true. Except that she didn’t have it in her to doubt Kehlan. He’d keep his word. She was sure of it.

She stayed through the morning rush, fueled by her joy and surprised by how good her tips were. Happiness, it seemed, was contagious. And she was very much looking forward to seeing the cause of that happiness. Dylan would be at school—his grandparents would have dropped him off—so they would have the house to themselves for at least a few more hours. She wasn’t certain what they were going to do with it, but she had some ideas.

And, if the day weren’t good enough, the second she sat down in her car to head home, her phone lit up with a picture of her sister.

They used to have weekly calls, way back when. And she’d loved them, and Hayley had loved them, but life had a way of getting in the way. Now, the phone calls only happened when one sister or the other somehow found themselves with time on their hands, and the other sister somehow also, miraculously, was free at the same time.

Or, as now, they happened when one sister had something to discuss with the other. And Paige had a feeling she knew what Hayley wanted to discuss today.

Sure enough, they were barely a few seconds into the conversation on speakerphone, and Paige had barely pulled out of the Coffee Cup driveway when Hayley asked the obvious question.

“So…I’ve had a few people asking me about your new man.”

And just like that, the sisters were off. It wasn’t a long drive from the Coffee Cup back to her home, but Paige filled every moment, and was able to hit most of the highlights. And, as any good sister would, Hayley drank up every word.

But when Paige pulled into her driveway, alarm bells started going off in her head. Something was wrong. She couldn’t place it at first, but there was something not right here.

“Hayley, I’m going to have to call you back,” she said.

“What?” her sister asked. “Are you okay? You sound off.”

“No, I’m fine.” She tried to swallow her growing dread to fend off her sister’s suspicions. She had to sound like there was nothing wrong. “I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

She didn’t wait for a response. She needed to figure out what was setting her off. What was it? What was wrong?

She felt little tingles of panic all over her skin when she realized what it was. Kehlan’s car was missing. It wasn’t in the driveway where it belonged.

She tried to keep calm. There were any number of places around town that he might have gone. Any number of errands he might have run. Maybe he headed back to the bed and breakfast for a change of clothes. Maybe he was picking up some lunch from somewhere. Maybe, maybe, maybe…

She had just promised herself not to let her baggage from Kyle’s abandonment taint her new relationship. She had just told herself that she trusted Kehlan, and that she should focus on leaning into that trust and not let every possible sign of failure rattle it so hard.

But at the same time, a voice in her head was screaming at her that this wasn’t an overreaction. He was gone.

The door wasn’t locked. She didn’t know if this was a good sign or not. She never locked her door when she left, but sometimes Kehlan did out of habit. She walked inside.

“Kehlan?” she called out, just in case he was somehow still here, even though his car wasn’t. No answer.

No problem. Nothing was wrong. Nothing was happening. She repeated the words to herself. No need to jump to the worst conclusions. This man wasn’t Kyle. He wouldn’t just leave at the first sign of real commitment.

There was an easy way to end this, and put away her growing, irrational panic.

She dialed his phone.

Nothing. No answer. Straight to voicemail.

Strange. But then, it wasn’t like they’d gotten a chance to plug in their phones the night before. She herself had had to borrow a charger and plug her phone in at work before it ran out of power. Kehlan was probably looking for somewhere to plug it in back at the guesthouse.

She called the bed and breakfast, and Mrs. Haase picked up after a few rings.

“Hey, Mrs. Haase. I’m trying to get a hold of Kehlan. Is he around?”

There was hesitation on the line. Too long a moment of hesitation. And, when Mrs. Haase answered, there was pity in her voice.

“I’m sorry, Paige, but he just checked out this morning. He was in a hurry. Said he needed to go home. Something about responsibilities.”

Paige couldn’t answer. Her heart wasn’t beating. Was she even alive if her heart wasn’t beating? It felt like it was taking too long to start again.

“Paige?”

“Sorry, Mrs. Haase. Thank you.”

She defaulted to polite and chipper, but she didn’t feel like that voice belonged to her. It was some other being, covering for the wreck she was inside. She hung up the phone, and then she was on the ground, not sure how she’d even gotten there.

What was it she had said to him about responsibilities? Why had she said it? What had possessed her?

Paige sobbed there on the floor by the kitchen table. Without thinking, she had talked herself out of the best relationship she’d ever had.