Chapter 1 - The Baby at My Bakery Door
The newborn struggled for breath in the tattooed man's arms, and I whispered, "Give him to me."
Adrien Valente stepped toward my counter and placed a black envelope beside my bakery keys.
A hospital number was written across the back.
Under it were three words.
ASK FOR EMMA BROOKS.
This wasn't a coincidence.
For several seconds, neither of us moved.
Adrien looked at the envelope.
Then at me.
Then back at the envelope.
His face had been controlled from the moment he entered Brooks Bakery, but something shifted behind his eyes.
"Emma Brooks?" he asked.
I tightened my fingers around the edge of the counter.
"That's me."
The two men standing near the front windows exchanged a glance.
They wore black suits and dark sunglasses despite being indoors, but I had already decided I wasn't going to ask questions about that. My life had enough problems without voluntarily collecting new ones.
The baby made another sound.
That erased everything else.
It wasn't really a cry.
A healthy newborn cry had anger in it. Demand. Life.
This was a dry rasp.
I came around the counter.
"How long since he ate?"
Adrien didn't answer immediately.
The silver-haired doctor beside him did.
"Almost nine hours since he took a meaningful feeding."
My stomach dropped.
"Nine?"
"We've tried several methods."
"Hospital?"
"We came directly from one."
I stared at him.
"And they let you leave?"
Adrien's jaw tightened.
"They didn't let me do anything."
The doctor gave him a tired look.
"We have portable monitoring equipment in the vehicle. Mr. Valente was advised that Luca may respond differently in a quieter environment."
"That's not what I asked."
"No," the doctor admitted.
Adrien shifted the bundle against his chest.
The movement revealed Luca's face.
He was tiny.
Far too tiny.
Dark hair lay against his forehead. His skin looked pale beneath the warm bakery lights. One miniature fist rested outside the gray blanket, but there was almost no strength in it.
My body reacted before my mind could stop it.
Three weeks disappeared.
I was back beneath fluorescent lights.
Grace was in my arms.
Nineteen hours old.
A nurse was telling me there was nothing else they could do.
My daughter had been so light that grief somehow weighed more than she did.
I blinked.
Bakery.
Counter.
Flour.
Baby.
Not Grace.
Luca.
"Give him to me," I said.
Adrien stared.
There was something almost absurd about that moment.
I was wearing a pink floral apron with flour smeared across the stomach. My hair had been twisted into a messy bun at five that morning. My landlord's final notice was sitting three feet away.
Adrien looked like a man who belonged behind tinted glass and iron gates.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in a white shirt and black trousers beneath an expensive dark coat. Tattoos disappeared beneath his collar and ran along his hands.
He looked intimidating.
But his left hand was trembling beneath his son's blanket.
"Ms. Brooks," the doctor said carefully, "you understand what he's asking?"
I did.
My body had prepared for Grace.
My daughter hadn't lived long enough to need what my body had prepared to give her.
Life could be cruel with its timing.
"Yes."
Adrien looked directly at me.
"My wife died after Luca was born."
"I'm sorry."
"He won't take a bottle."
His voice was steady until the last word.
Then it cracked.
Barely.
But I heard it.
"The doctors believe direct nursing might help him respond," he continued. "We've tried to find someone."
"And?"
His eyes hardened.
"People know my name."
I glanced at the men near the windows.
"I can imagine."
"They're afraid."
"Of the baby?"
"Of me."
At least he was self-aware.
Adrien reached into his coat and removed a check.
He placed it on the counter.
I looked down.
$200,000.
For a second I thought grief had damaged my eyesight.
"You can't be serious."
"If you help him, it's yours."
I looked from the check to the overdue rent notice beside it.
Five months of unpaid commercial rent.
A business loan.
Hospital bills.
Funeral expenses.
Tyler had taken almost everything else.
Two hundred thousand dollars could rescue the bakery.
It could rescue me.
But Luca wasn't a transaction.
I pushed the check back.
"No."
Adrien's face changed.
The bakery became painfully silent.
Even his security men seemed surprised.
"No?" he repeated.
"I'll help the baby."
I pointed at the check.
"That doesn't get to be part of it."
"Why?"
"Because someday your son may hear this story."
Adrien said nothing.
"I'd rather he hear that somebody helped him because he needed help."
I held out my arms.
"Now give him to me."
For the first time, Adrien Valente obeyed me.
He approached slowly.
When he transferred Luca into my arms, his hands stayed beneath the blanket for an extra second.
He was afraid to release him.
I knew that fear.
"You can let go," I whispered.
His eyes met mine.
"I already let go of his mother."
The words hit somewhere deep.
"You're not letting go of him," I said. "You're handing him to somebody who's trying to help."
His fingers finally moved away.
Luca weighed almost nothing.
That frightened me.
I carried him toward the small office behind the ovens.
Adrien followed.
I stopped at the doorway.
"No."
His eyebrows drew together.
"No what?"
"No audience."
"I'm his father."
"And I'm a woman who met you seven minutes ago."
"I need to know he's safe."
"You'll be eight feet away."
He glanced at the door.
"Leave it open."
"No."
"Ms. Brooks—"
"Emma."
"Emma."
He swallowed.
"Please."
That word sounded strange coming from him.
I softened.
"If something is wrong, I'll call you immediately."
His gaze dropped to Luca.
"Please don't let anything happen to him."
My throat tightened.
"I'll do everything I can."
Then I closed the door.
The office was barely large enough for a desk, filing cabinet, wooden chair, and several boxes of invoices I had been pretending would somehow pay themselves.
Grace's ultrasound picture was attached to the filing cabinet.
I couldn't look at it.
Not yet.
I sat.
Luca stirred.
"Hey," I whispered.
His cheek was cool.
Too cool.
"You don't have to be brave, sweetheart."
My voice shook.
"Just stay."
I helped him carefully.
At first, nothing happened.
My heart pounded.
Outside the door, there wasn't a sound.
I imagined Adrien standing there.
Waiting.
Probably bargaining with every God he'd never believed in.
Then Luca moved.
His tiny mouth searched.
And finally—
He latched.
I closed my eyes.
The first swallow nearly destroyed me.
Such a small sound.
Grace had never made it.
My daughter had been too weak.
Tears filled my eyes, but I refused to turn this moment into mine.
This was Luca's.
"That's it," I whispered.
Another swallow.
"Come on."
Another.
"Stay."
His fist slowly curled against me.
I counted his breaths.
One.
Two.
Three.
For twenty minutes, the world became very small.
A baby.
A wooden chair.
A grieving woman.
And the stubborn sound of life refusing to disappear.
When I finally opened the door, Adrien was exactly where I'd left him.
The doctor stood beside him.
The guards hadn't moved.
Adrien searched my face.
"He ate," I said.
Nobody reacted.
It was almost funny.
Four grown men stared at me as though I'd announced something impossible.
Then the doctor stepped forward.
He checked Luca.
His shoulders relaxed.
"Color's improving."
Adrien sat down.
Not on a chair.
On an overturned flour bucket beside the mop sink.
He covered his face with both hands.
I looked away.
Some humiliations deserved privacy.
The doctor smiled faintly.
"Again in a couple of hours."
I nodded.
Adrien lowered his hands.
His eyes were red.
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet."
His expression sharpened.
"Why?"
"Because I'm going to tell you things you don't want to hear."
One of the guards almost smiled.
Adrien noticed.
The smile disappeared.
I pointed at him.
"You look terrible."
"I haven't slept."
"Clearly."
"I'll sleep when Luca is stable."
"Then you're going to collapse before he is."
"I'm fine."
"Men who say they're fine while sitting on flour buckets usually aren't."
The doctor's mouth twitched.
Adrien ignored him.
Then his gaze moved beyond me.
Toward the office.
Specifically toward Grace's ultrasound photograph.
He stood.
"Who is that?"
My entire body stiffened.
"My daughter."
He looked at Luca.
Then at me.
Understanding arrived slowly.
"I'm sorry."
"Three weeks ago."
His face went still.
"You lost your child three weeks ago?"
"Yes."
"And you're doing this?"
I looked down at Luca.
"I'm doing this because I lost her."
Adrien seemed to have no answer.
He turned toward the counter.
That was when he noticed the black envelope.
I had forgotten it.
He picked it up.
"Where did this come from?"
"You brought it."
"No."
"You put it on the counter."
"I put the check there."
He held the envelope toward me.
My name was written across the back.
ASK FOR EMMA BROOKS.
Beneath those words was a hospital number.
The doctor took one look and went pale.
Adrien noticed.
"Dr. Kaplan?"
The doctor's eyes remained fixed on the handwriting.
"Where did you get this?"
"I didn't."
"Adrien."
"I've never seen it before."
A chill ran through me.
"Whose handwriting is that?"
Dr. Kaplan didn't answer.
Adrien stepped closer.
"Whose?"
The doctor looked toward Luca.
Then toward the security men.
Finally, he whispered:
"Your wife's."
Nobody moved.
Adrien stared at him.
"Elena died twelve days ago."
"I know."
"Then explain why an envelope written by my dead wife is sitting inside a bakery I've never visited."
Dr. Kaplan swallowed.
"I can't."
Adrien tore it open.
Inside was a single folded sheet of paper.
He unfolded it.
His face lost color.
"What?" I asked.
He didn't respond.
"Adrien."
He turned the paper toward me.
There was only one sentence.
If Luca refuses to eat, take him to Emma Brooks.
My knees weakened.
"I never knew your wife."
Adrien stared at me.
"Are you certain?"
"Yes."
"Think."
"I don't need to think."
"She knew your full name."
"I can see that."
"She knew where you worked."
"Apparently."
"And she knew something would happen to Luca."
Dr. Kaplan suddenly moved toward the door.
Adrien blocked him.
"Where are you going?"
"I need to make a call."
"No."
"Adrien—"
"You recognized Elena's handwriting."
"I delivered your son."
"That wasn't my question."
The doctor's eyes shifted.
It was tiny.
Barely noticeable.
But Adrien noticed.
So did I.
"You know something," Adrien said.
Dr. Kaplan looked toward me.
Then Luca.
His voice dropped.
"Not here."
Before Adrien could answer, someone knocked against the locked bakery door.
Three hard knocks.
Everyone turned.
A woman stood outside.
Silver-haired.
Long dark coat.
She held something against the glass.
A photograph.
Adrien went completely still.
"Who is she?" I whispered.
His answer was barely audible.
"She was Elena's nurse."
The woman raised the photograph higher.
I could finally see it.
Two women stood together in a hospital corridor.
One was Adrien's late wife.
The other was me.
Except I had never met her.
Then the woman outside mouthed two words through the glass.
May you like
"Ask Emma."
And someone behind us unlocked the bakery's back door.
