Willow made it home. Her ankle and shin throbbing, she climbed the creaking exterior stairs to her little apartment. The lower floor was empty, the once-upon-a-time bakery no longer there. Sweet Scents had closed over a year ago; the ovens, tables, chairs, and counter were all gathering dust, and a FOR LEASE sign was fading in the grimy window.

She should move.

Though the bakery had been noisy—the baker arriving hours before dawn and pans clattering, a radio playing some classical music, the sounds drifting upward through the vents—she’d liked it. With the aromas of freshly baked breads and sweet cakes, yeast, cinnamon, and coffee wafting into her sparsely furnished unit, she’d felt a part of something. At almost any hour, Willow had been able to walk through the back door of the bakery, where the baker, Mrs. Nottingham, greeted her. A chubby, round-faced widow, Elsa Nottingham had been forever wearing an apron dusted with flour and had never forgotten to save Willow a day-old muffin or scone, which she’d handed out happily, along with a bit of grandmotherly advice that Willow had always ignored.

But those days were long gone, and this winter, Willow’s studio was drab and cold, her blankets thin, the space heater inconsistent, the entire building feeling forsaken and empty.

Currently, she was the only occupant of the building as the only other apartment, most recently occupied by an elderly man, was now vacant and had been for over six months, which left Willow as the single tenant in over five thousand square feet of neglected building.

All in all, it was depressing.

But that was bound to change.

Once James realized . . .

Oh, God—what about the gun? If he found the Glock in the bedroom—

Angrily she pushed that thought aside and unlocked the apartment.

Inside, she turned on the space heater. As it clicked to life, she peeled off her clothes and dropped them into a bathroom hamper. Her ankle was already swollen and discoloring rapidly, and the scrape on her shin was crusted with blood. She cleaned the scrape, decided it wasn’t all that bad, and applied antiseptic lotion and a row of Band-Aids. In the medicine cabinet, she found a near-empty bottle of Tylenol and tossed back the last two capsules, taking them dry. Gingerly, she stepped into flannel pajamas she’d bought years before, the print of pink French poodles and gray Eiffel Towers nearly indistinguishable.

Paris.

The City of Light.

Would she ever really get there?

Of course! James would take her.

Maybe for their honeymoon!