Chapter One
Monroe Drake
I left town at seventeen to live with my aunt back in the city where I grew up. I promised myself I’d never come back to Harper Falls, but here I am ten years later. At twenty-seven, this wasn’t where I saw myself. I had plans, plans that didn’t include moving back into my parents’ home because of a failed relationship. A failed relationship is putting it mildly, but I try not to think about it. After getting a Master’s Degree in English, I began working as a junior editor for a publishing house. After a few years, I started working as a freelance editor, wanting more control over my work.
Everything was going great up until I met Brent over two years ago. Slowly, he broke through my defenses and got me to do the one thing I swore I wouldn’t. Somehow, he got me to fall for him and fall hard. I was putting up with things I told myself I’d never put up with. I wasn’t that kind of woman, at least I hadn’t been before Brent. I was strong, confident, and independent as hell. I had a purpose. Little by little, everything I thought I knew about myself vanished as I turned into someone I didn’t recognize. Who was the woman looking back at me in the mirror?
Brent wore me down until I no longer knew if I was coming or going. Nothing in my world made sense anymore, and I was too ashamed to call home and tell my parents what was happening to me. I had made such a big deal about leaving and never returning, something I had stuck to since my senior year of high school. For the first time in my life, I was shattered, and I didn’t know how to put the pieces back together. How was I supposed to get myself out of this hell I was living? I had pushed everyone I was once close to away, even my parents were held at a distance.
After months of going back and forth with myself and trying to get up the nerve, I finally left Brent. We were living together, so I packed what I could and left while he was at work. He showed up a few days later at the hotel I was staying at and hurt me so badly I ended up in the hospital with a concussion, a black eye, and a bloody lip. The doctor said I was lucky. Lucky was the last thing I felt.
Thankfully while I was unconscious, one of the nurses called my emergency contact. When I woke up, my daddy was there, holding my hand, staring at me the same way he always had. I might have been ashamed, but he still loved me just as he always had. He was the kind of strength I needed in my corner. When we left the hospital, he took me to the police station to press charges on the bastard, then helped me file a restraining order. He packed up what was mine in the apartment then brought me back home to my momma. My daddy was my hero, just like he’d always been.
Pulling up at five in the morning to Brew for You, my parents’ coffee shop, I park and check my surroundings from my car’s protection. I know Brent isn’t here, but I can’t help worrying he might be. I can’t get the last time I saw him out of my head. The way his dark eyes bore into mine as he promised he’d never let me go, that I’d always be his. His words still haunt me to this day, even though it’s been months since I’ve seen him. He wouldn’t be stupid enough to break the restraining order, would he? I sure as hell hope not. I still can’t help feeling like he’s here, watching me from behind some dark corner, waiting to grab me.
“Get it together, Monroe. He’s not going to risk his fancy job just to come after you. He’ll move onto someone else.” I murmur as I get out of my car. Just the thought of him doing what he did to me, to someone else, hurts my soul and makes my stomach churn. I can’t worry about that. It’s in the hands of the state now to make him pay for what he’s done. Hopefully, there won’t be a next girl, but if there is, I pray she’s smarter than I was.
Shaking my head, I walk up to the building my parents own and start unlocking the back door when I hear footsteps behind me. My heart beats out of my chest, and I’m about to turn around and run when I hear a bubbly voice behind me say, “Good morning!”
Startled, I breathe out a sigh of relief as the shop’s keys slip out of my hands.
“Oh my gosh. I’m sorry girl. I didn’t mean to scare you.” A woman about my age wearing a Brew for You t-shirt says, picking the keys up off the ground and hands them to me.
“Thanks,” I say, taking them and unlocking the door. “Go ahead,” I tell her, gesturing inside.
She smiles and walks in, turning on the lights as she goes. “I’m Danica, but everyone just calls me Dani.” She says, walking towards the front of the shop.
Putting my purse in the office, I join Dani out front where I find her taking the chairs off the tables.
I grab a chair and help. “I’m Monroe.”
“I know.” She smiles.
“You know?” I ask, my brows pulling together.
“Girl, you know you’re kind of famous around here?”
I can’t help but laugh. “What?”
She points to a picture of my parents and I taken in front of the shop the first day it opened. We all looked so happy back then.
“Dear lord, that was forever ago.” I laugh.
“I know what you mean. I graduated two years after you, and I couldn’t tell you where the time has gone.”
“You graduated from Harper Falls High, too?” I ask, trying to place her.
Her red hair bounces as she nods. “Yeah, but you probably wouldn’t remember me, I hung out with all the band geeks.”
I wish I could remember her, but I can’t. I didn’t have many friends back then. When I wasn’t in school, I was usually here helping my parents out. “Things were kind of crazy back then.”
“Oh, I remember.” She says, giving me a knowing smile. “I’m sure everyone remembers the epic battles between you and Cam.”
I cover my face with my hands and shake my head. “He was the biggest asshole! He would find something wrong with whatever I did and let the whole school know about it.”
“I think everyone figured you two would end up killing each other or fucking.”
When she says that, my eyes go wide in shock. “People actually thought that?”
Dani shrugs her shoulders. “You want to make the coffee while I grab the pastries?” She asks.
“Sounds good to me,” I mumble, thinking about what she said. It’s been forever since I really thought about why I left Harper Falls to begin with. I still don’t like thinking about that night.
“What do you feel like listening to?” She asks, standing at the entrance to the back, holding her phone up to me.
Shrugging, I shake my head, not really caring what she puts on. Nodding, she slides her phone into her back pocket and heads to the back as Taylor Swift’s Folklore album begins.
Dani comes back out and hands me an apron and a name tag, written in colorful swirly letters. The colors remind me of a rainbow and makes me smile. For months it’s felt like I’ve been living under my own personal rain cloud, but a few minutes with Dani and it feels like the sun is starting to shine. “Thanks.”
“Of course.” She smiles.
Dani and I work together easily for the next hour, getting the shop ready to open at six. She mostly talks, and I listen. She tells me how nothing has changed in the time I’ve been gone, just a couple of new restaurants, but for the most part, Harper Falls is the same. Just like riding a bike, working at the shop comes back to me quickly, and for the first time since I’ve been home, I’m finally able to focus on something other than what happened. My head shuts off, and all I’m thinking about is getting the coffee made and making sure we have what we need when the morning rush hits.