Nikola chuckled. “No. I let him in and we talked a little. And then he stopped by a couple of days later. Eventually I knew the whole story about the loan shark—kept waiting for him to ask me for money but he never did.”

That surprised her. Surprised her even more that Micah had sought out Nikola in the first place. All these years, she’d told herself she was all Micah had, his sole support system.

Just like Neil, trying to save a farm singlehandedly.

“But to fly out here at the drop of a hat, Nik. It’s too much. You didn’t have to come. What did you do? Pay his bail? I’ll pay you back and—?”

“There’s no bail, Syd. He’s been fully released. No charges.”

She slumped against the wall. “I’m . . . I’m so confused.”

“Apparently you’ve done a bit of a number on that family, Syd. The guy called the station hours ago and said they didn’t want to press charges.”

The guy? Did she mean Neil?

“Now, the other man who was involved, apparently he has outstanding charges in two other states. So he’s not going to be roaming the streets for a while. They’re handing him over to an agency in Illinois.”

A small comfort in everything. Still, somewhere back in Chicago was a man named Harmon who wasn’t about to let Micah off the hook. Micah still owed twenty-five thousand dollars. She still . . . didn’t know what to do about that.

“I don’t know how to help him this time. Every time I try to think about it or come up with a plan, I can’t focus. All I can think about is how I don’t want to go home at all, let alone go home and try to figure out how to come up with more money than I’ve ever had at one time in my life.” Tears slid down her cheeks. She’d held them back at the hospital, but she couldn’t escape them now. “I don’t want to go. I love it here. I love the people here. I love . . .”

One face after another floated through her mind, but one lingered in clearer, more colorful detail than all the others.

But what about all the noble things she’d told herself only hours ago at the hospital? About how life in Chicago could be good. About how she’d keep hoping, imagining—

“Oh, Syd, this is just the best.”

“What?” She swallowed a garbled sob. “Do you even see me right now? I’m standing in a police station, crying. I probably still have yesterday’s mascara smudging under my eyes.”

Nikola laughed and gripped both her shoulders. “But don’t you see? Don’t you remember two weeks ago, back in the bakery? I asked you if you’d ever done something because you just had to, because it filled you with emotion, because you knew there was a happy ending waiting for you if you could just run for it. You looked at me like you had no idea what I was talking about. You wouldn’t be crying right now if that hadn’t changed.”