Sweet Escape (Sugar Rush #2)

by Nina Lane

  TWENTY-THREE

  The tests, doctor visits, paperwork, prepping—all of it was both foreign and vaguely familiar. He’d been through it all before, but so long ago that his memories had a fuzzy quality, as if it had happened in a dream.

  His family was always near. Hovering around the room, asking questions, consulting with the doctors and nurses, answering a constant stream of calls and emails from friends and Sugar Rush employees.

  “It wasn’t because of the work,” Evan told Luke, who was at his side all the time.

  “I know.” Creases lined Luke’s forehead. “Once you’re out of here, we’ll talk about what you want to do at Sugar Rush. It’s about time I got the hell out of your way.”

  “Are you going back soon?”

  His brother shrugged. “I’ll handle the Singa Corporation stuff first.”

  “What about Polly?”

  “Once she gets things straightened out at the bakery, she’ll go back to finish her courses. One of the chefs told her she could delay the internship, so she can go back next year for a few months, if she wants to. Gives her the chance to come back to Wild Child and implement everything she’s learned.”

  Evan took his tablet from the bedside table and pulled up the documents he’d written about the Sugar Rush cocoa bean project. He handed the tablet to his brother.

  Luke scanned the screen. “What is it?”

  “An idea. Adam can tell you more. Read it soon.”

  “I will.”

  Evan pushed himself up on the pillows. It was getting harder to breathe. His lungs were tight. He hated his increasing weakness, his inability to do something to make himself whole.

  “Look, if Hannah…” He glanced to where his father and Aunt Julia stood by the windows, speaking in hushed voices. He lowered his own as he turned back to Luke. “If she comes to the hospital after the surgery, don’t let her in the room.”

  Luke frowned. “You don’t want to see her?”

  Evan almost laughed. Christ, yes, he wanted to see his girl. He could only imagine emerging from the deep fog of anesthesia—disoriented, in pain—and seeing her. If anything would make him not only realize he was still alive but revel in the glory of being alive, it was the sight of Hannah Lockhart.

  But he knew the reality. In ICU he’d be on a ventilator with a breathing tube stuck down his throat. He’d be monitored for clots and infections. He’d have a new bloody incision right down his chest. Meds. Catheter. IV. Drain holes. Tests. Numbness. Pain.

  “I don’t want her to see me,” he said. “Not like that.”

  Luke was silent before he squeezed Evan’s shoulder. “Yeah, okay. She won’t see you until you want her to.”

  Evan had already asked her not to come before the surgery—way too much going on had been his texted explanation, but in truth he was scared that seeing her would intensify his terror of all he could lose. That was just one of the reasons he hadn’t been able to return her confession of love.

  His phone buzzed the morning of his surgery. Her voice was a stream of light in his ear and straight to his heart.

  “I love you,” she said. “Know that.”

  “I do.”

  He thought of nothing else until the anesthesia dragged him under.

  Chapter

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “Wow.” Polly spoke around a mouthful of cookie, her eyes wide. “These are really good.”

  Hannah took another bite of her chocolate-bacon cookie. As desserts went, it wasn’t bad, though she suspected Evan’s cardiologist wouldn’t agree. She put the plate of cookies by the cash register alongside the Free Sample sign. So far, she’d invented half-a-dozen pastries that were more spicy, savory, or salty than they were sweet, and all of them had been well-received by Wild Child’s regulars.

  Hannah would never be as happy at the bakery as Polly and their mother were, but she took pride in being able to finally, after so many years, make a small contribution to the family business.

  Even better, Polly had genuinely liked the lemon-thyme cookies, the chili-chocolate truffles, and the rhubarb-lavender hand pies Hannah had made.

  “They’ll complement the sweeter stuff beautifully,” she’d said.

  Her sister’s praise eased Hannah’s despair over Evan, which she hadn’t been able to talk to Polly about—although her sister clearly sensed it. Instead of waiting through Evan’s surgery with Luke and the rest of the Stones at the hospital, Polly had come to open Wild Child with Hannah. They’d spent the morning baking and setting out pastries, helping customers, serving coffee, and working with a compatibility that Hannah had never experienced before.

  They both kept looking at the clock. Polly checked her phone every five minutes for messages from Luke, and then relayed the news to Hannah. He’s talking to the surgeon. He’s getting prepped. They just took him in.

  Then there was nothing to do but wait, which they did in a flurry of cleaning, extra baking, and unnecessarily rearranging the baskets and the tables. Hannah counted the minutes, trying not to imagine Evan lying unconscious on the operating table. Instead she focused on him—the way the sunlight threaded his dark hair, the brilliant flash of his smile, the clear warmth of his blue eyes. How she loved everything about him.

  Could she be happy and fulfilled living in Rainsville and working at the bakery with her sister? If she told Evan she was staying in Rainsville for herself, for Polly, for the bakery, for them, maybe they could make it work.

  “Try not to worry, dear.” Miss Purdy patted Hannah’s hand as she brought a fresh plate of cookies to her and Mr. Becker’s table. “My late husband had heart surgery, and he… well, obviously he’s not quite fine now, but he was hale and hearty for several years afterward.”

  “And the techniques they use today are so much more advanced.” Mr. Becker nodded sagely. “He’ll be right as rain in no time.”

  “Not to mention he’s fit as a fiddle,” Mia remarked, lifting an eyebrow. “Heart issues aside, Evan is in amazing shape. Anyone that strong has to have a good prognosis. Right, Gavin?”

  Gavin Knight barely glanced up from his laptop, but said, “Statistically, the mortality rate for surgery at the cardiac center is quite low.”

  “How do you know that?” Mia asked.

  He slanted her a glance. “I know things.”

  “I’ll bet you do,” she murmured.

  Gavin returned his attention to his laptop. Mia blew out her breath in a sigh. Hannah exchanged amused looks with Polly as she went back behind the counter.

  “You’ve really kept this place running smoothly,” Polly said. “I appreciate it so much. It’s just the way Mom wanted it, only better.”

  “I like it here, too.” Only after she spoke did Hannah realize the truth of her words.

  In all the weeks she’d been here, she hadn’t even noticed that she’d started to fit at Wild Child. She knew all the regular customers and what they liked, she’d made friends, she understood the rhythms of the bakery. She cared about both the people and the pastries and cakes they offered. She even knew which dessert was the best.

  It was almost as surprising a revelation as realizing she loved Evan.

  Almost.

  “I’m glad you’ve been enjoying Paris,” she told her sister as they refilled cookie baskets. “You deserved to have an adventure.”

  “It’s been amazing,” Polly said. “And living in Paris with Luke has been a dream. But honestly, I’ll be ready to come back when it’s over. It’s been such a whirlwind… meeting Luke, the success of the Declairs, starting the pastry-making course, all the excitement and learning… I’m looking forward to coming back home and just settling into a normal life, you know? Except it’ll be a different normal life because I’ll be with Luke.”

  “Any idea when you’re going to get married?”

  “Not yet. I’m just enjoying being engaged right now. I want to work on expanding the bakery and trying new things first, maybe opening a branch of Wild Child in Indigo Bay.” Sh
e glanced at Hannah. “What about you?”

  “I’ll come back for your wedding,” Hannah said. “And we both know I’ve gotten good at keeping promises.”

  Though Polly smiled, a flash of sadness appeared in her eyes. She tugged off her apron and nodded toward the door.

  “Come on.”

  “Where?”

  “Let’s go for a walk. Get some fresh air. I’ll ask Ramona to cover the front.”

  She disappeared into the kitchen. Hannah glanced at the clock. Three hours in. One or two to go. Hopefully. Her chest was tight with anxiety. She took off her apron and grabbed her camera from upstairs before following Polly to the bakery van.

  They drove to Rainsville Park and walked along the pathways winding through the grass, around the playground, and down to the Shingle Mill Creek.

  “How could you stand it?” Hannah asked, as they stopped to sit on a bench beneath a tree. “Watching Mom suffer.”

  “Sometimes I couldn’t,” Polly admitted. “I hated it, but I also wasn’t going to let her go through it alone. If there was anything I could do for her, it was be there. And honestly, we had some wonderful times together, even in the midst of her chemo and all her doctor’s appointments. We went to the Codswallop music festival. We went to plays, dinners, art shows, concerts. And she had so many friends… people just rallied to help us and make sure we had a lot of light in the darkness.”

  Hannah’s throat constricted. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here more.”

  Polly squeezed her hand, and it felt like forgiveness. They stood and walked to the wooden bridge arching over the creek. Hannah paused to take a picture of the wildflowers and brush growing along the banks. She focused her lens on a leaf shaped like a heart.

  Polly leaned her elbows on the bridge railing and gazed at the water rolling across the smooth rocks.

  “I know you never intended to stay here, Hannah,” she said. “And I… well, I admit I was trying to find a way to make you change your mind. I think I secretly hoped you’d fall in love with Wild Child and decide to stay. But I also know Rainsville and Wild Child never meant as much to you as they have to me. So you have my blessing if you want to leave. I don’t want you to feel trapped here anymore.”

  Being given the freedom to leave didn’t fill Hannah with pleasure and relief. Just the opposite, in fact. Her heart flooded with dismay.

  “I don’t feel trapped,” she said. “Not anymore.”

  “Because of Evan?”

  “Yes. And Wild Child. I understand why it was so important to you and Mom.” Hannah stopped beside her sister and leaned on the bridge railing. “There are cafés and bakeries like that everywhere in the world. In every city and town I’ve been to. Warm, cozy places where people come for coffee, food, conversation. In Japan, they’re called kissaten. Pastane in Turkey. Kahvila in Finland.”

  Polly smiled. “When you run out of love tradition ideas for your blog, you can write about café culture. Not that you’ll run out of love traditions.”

  “I thought I would, until I met Evan. Turns out that showing me around was his way of making sure I didn’t jump ship.”

  “From what Luke tells me, Evan was very quick to offer. And based on the photo of that kiss you two shared at the auction… I’d say you were destined to end up together.”

  Hannah thought the same thing. But she didn’t know what happened after the “ending up together” part. Come to think of it, she didn’t know what happened after all the love traditions and customs she’d written about over the years.

  Curiosity flared in the back of her mind. Faces and names appeared in her memory. The couple she’d met in Rome who threw a coin together into the Trevi Fountain. The heart-struck Welshman in Cardiff who’d spent hours carving a wooden spoon for his beloved.

  The group of girls serenaded by hopeful suitors in China. The young Fijian man who’d presented his girlfriend’s father with a polished whale’s tooth, a tabua, as a request for her hand in marriage.

  She remembered the Hindu couple who’d bucked their families’ tradition of arranged marriages by falling in love. The parents had united and thrown them a marvelously elaborate wedding that Hannah had, to her delight, been invited to attend.

  What had happened to all those people after the rituals had been carried out? Did they have children? Where did they live? Where did they work? Were they living happily ever after?

  She took out her phone and pulled up the email address of an old travel acquaintance through whom she’d met the Indian couple, Rajiv and Amrita. She sent Melanie a quick message of greeting and asked for the couple’s contact information. For some reason, she wanted to know how they were, what they were doing. She wanted to know their story.

  Polly’s phone buzzed. Hannah’s nerves jumped into high alert.

  Polly took out her phone and swiped the screen. The creases of worry on her brow eased.

  “He’s done.” She smiled, lifting her phone to display the text from Luke.

  All okay. In ICU. Will call you in five min.

  Relief flooded Hannah, weakening her knees. Unexpected tears sprang to her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. Then she found herself wrapped in Polly’s arms, her sister’s embrace a circle of unending warmth.

  Chapter

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Hannah was not allowed to see Evan in ICU, but he texted her when he was moved to a regular hospital room. She went to see him often, torn between relief that the surgery had gone well and despair over what he still had to endure.

  He was quiet much of the time, reading, watching TV, or listening to mostly one-sided conversations from his visitors. When she visited, Hannah stayed near the periphery of the room, uncertain how much she either should or could be part of his close-knit family circle. She was never alone with Evan since both his family and the nurses stayed close to his side.

  She met the Stone twins, Carson and Spencer, both younger versions of Luke with their strong, masculine features and dark eyes, and their sister Hailey, a pretty girl with light brown hair who closely resembled Aunt Julia with her fine features and high cheekbones. Their relationships seemed to be typical sibling—teasing and good-natured arguing, though Hannah wondered how much of that was to keep the atmosphere light for Evan’s benefit.

  Because she still didn’t want to shy away from the reality of him, she educated herself on both his surgery and the recovery period—what to expect, possible complications, diet, and all the things he needed to do. Every time she saw him lying against the stark white pillows, his skin so pale he looked bloodless, the chest bandage visible beneath his gown… she wanted to rail at the universe for forcing this on him.

  But she had seen enough of the world to know that no one was immune from anything. And in many ways, Evan was lucky—he had a constant stream of visitors, his family members loved him deeply, his doctors and nurses were knowledgeable and attentive caregivers.

  For the week of his hospital stay, Hannah divided her time between Wild Child and Evan. The deadline for her revised book proposal came and went. She sent an email to Elaine Miller of Franklin Publishing with an apology and the truthful explanation that she just couldn’t think of anything else to tie all her posts together.

  Polly had to return to Paris for her classes, but Luke stayed in Indigo Bay temporarily to both ensure Evan’s recovery and take over Sugar Rush again. Though it was none of her business, Hannah hoped that Luke had at least recognized Evan’s contributions to the company.

  Evan resisted his aunt’s efforts to have him live at Warren’s house for the remainder of his recovery, and with Luke and Adam backing him up, he returned to his house after a week in the hospital. Knowing he was back in his shabby little cottage on the beach with his books and whittling tools eased Hannah’s persistent tension and worry.

  She was busy packing up a box of pastries to bring to his nurses at the hospital when the bell over the Wild Child entrance rang.

  “Hey, girlfriend who lasted all of fifteen minutes.
”

  Hannah turned at the sound of her friend Dave’s familiar voice, pleasure rising inside her. As shaggy and unkempt as ever, he was carrying his ratty backpack and a duffel bag.

  “Where are you off to?” she asked.

  “A friend made me an offer I couldn’t refuse,” he said, helping himself to a cookie from the Free Sample plate. “The Love International Festival in Croatia is next week, and he said I could crash in his apartment. Plenty of room for you too. Think of it, Banana. Three days of music, parties, sun, sand… not to mention the potential for love.”

  Hannah rolled her eyes. “I’ll bet.”

  “Hey, don’t mock or I won’t tell you what else I have for you.”

  “I’m not sure I want to know.”

  “Oh, you want to know.” Dave pulled a wrinkled sheet of paper from his duffel and handed it to her. “Free registration for the Travel Bloggers’ conference, which is being held in Venice this year, which is not all that far from Croatia, which is why you need to go with me on Tuesday, which is when flights are cheapest, which is how we’ll make it in time for the first day of the festival.”

  Hannah scanned the letter with the free registration offer. “Where did you get this?”

  “I got contacts, baby.” He quailed a little under her skeptical look. “Okay, I entered a drawing on their website and won. But you gotta go, Banana. Tons of big travel companies go to the conference looking to sponsor bloggers. You could score some killer free trips and really get your name out there. That would totally help with the publisher and your book, right?”

  Right. The book she’d just killed because she couldn’t come up with any new ideas.

  “Thank you, Dave.” She pushed the registration form back across the counter to him. “But I can’t go.”

  A look of bafflement crossed his features. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. I can’t go. I need to stay here and run the bakery.”

  “Oh, man.” He stuffed the form back into his duffel and shook his head. “I was afraid of this.”