Kaden hesitated. He’d planned to attend the funeral with the Haywoods, but he didn’t know if he could face them again, if he could look any of them in the eye with his fears over Quinn’s accusations.

“You came all this way,” Nate implored.

“Fine. I’ll be there,” he said. “But I have to go now.”

Sylvia crossed the distance between them and pulled Kaden into another hug before he could get away.

“Welcome home,” she said.

Kaden felt like he wanted to vomit.

Chapter 15

Irene

Irene started the morning the way she started every morning—with a cup of tea. When she flipped her mug, she found the same thing she’d seen yesterday in the kitchen with Kaden: a fern.

She couldn’t get the man out of her head. As much as she wanted to blame it on the leaves, the uptick in her pulse when her mind turned to him and the way she couldn’t burn his smile from her memory spoke to much more than her simply listening to the universe. She wanted to be somewhere he could find her easily, and while she usually didn’t work on Thursdays, the tea shop seemed the most likely place he’d come looking. So she grabbed a few collections of poetry and settled into one of the plush armchairs in the corner at Lavender & Lemon Balm.

“You know it’s not really a day off if you come into work, right?” Clem called to her from the other side of the room.

She should’ve brought her noise-canceling headphones.

“I’m not working,” she said. “Therefore, I am off work.”

“You literally just gave that woman a tea recommendation.”

“Fine,” Irene said. “I’m not healing. Therefore, I am off work. Just treat me like any other customer. Speaking of which, I could use a refill.” She held up her mug, and though Clem rolled her eyes, she accepted the cup.

Addison came in from the back room with a box full of herbs, fresh from the drying racks at home. She set it on the counter and looked her mother over. “Aren’t you off on Thursdays?”

“She’s hoping Kaden will stop in before the funeral,” Clem said.

“I saw him when I was leaving the distillery this morning,” Addison said.

Irene set the book in her lap. “And? How did he seem?”

Her daughter grinned. “You really are into him.”

Irene’s cheeks flushed as she picked the book back up and flipped through its pages. “I’m just curious about him. That’s all.”

“Obviously,” Addison said. “You have sycamore leaves in your hair.”

“Curiosity isn’t attraction,” Irene said.

Addison pursed her lips. Irene avoided eye contact by pretending to read.

“Maybe not,” Clem said, “but the way you kept looking at him at dinner last night definitely was.”

“You’re supposed to be on my side here.”