Page 1 of Deacon

CHAPTER 1

CHELSEA

At a quarter past four in the morning, the only ones awake in Salvation were me, Gil Ortiz’s rooster, and whoever was up to no good.

I liked the hour. The ovens took forty minutes to come up to temperature, and in that time I could shape the first batch of rolls, feed the starter, get the coffee going and stand in the back doorway watching the sky go from black to bruise. The streetlights buzzed. Somewhere past the edge of town a truck downshifted on Route 10, and the sound carried for miles across open scrub.

Sweet Thing Bakery had been mine for six years. Before that it belonged to Dolores Pino, who’d taught me to make bread with her hands over mine and told me I kneaded like I was mad at the dough. I usually was. It helped.

By six the regulars started coming. Earl Tate first, always, with a thermos he wanted filled black and a bear claw his doctor had banned. Then the Herrera twins before school, splitting one chocolate croissant so they could spend the rest of their four dollars on candy. Then Linda from the post office, who talked about her son in Albuquerque like he’d moved to the moon.

I knew who’d been laid off, whose husband was drinking again, who paid in quarters at the end of the month. Salvation was down to about eleven hundred people since the mine closed, and most days it felt like I fed half of them.

People asked why I stayed. Usually people home for a funeral, with that pitying look like I’d missed the last bus out. I liked it here, though. The wind, the mountains going purple at dusk, old men arguing about baseball at my window table. Somebody had to keep the lights on. I just happened to also be good at making bread for the town.

Tuesday mornings meant one more thing, and I spent every one of them with half an eye on the door.

Deacon always made a noise before he arrived. The bike first, a low rumble rolling down Main that rattled the window glass, then the engine cutting out and three seconds of quiet while he climbed off. Then the bell over the door.

“Morning, Chelsea.”

“Deacon.”

That was the ritual. Four years of it, give or take. Earl had a theory that no man crossed town twice a week for bread. Earl claimed to know everything, but was wrong about half of it.

He filled the doorway in a way that made the shop shrink around him. Leather cut hanging open over a faded T-shirt, the Unholy Few patch on the back that made Linda clutch her purse a little tighter. Dark hair cropped short, the first few grays coming in at the sides and a trimmed beard. Ink from wrist to shoulder on his right arm, skulls and roses packed so tight I’d spent years trying to work out where one piece ended and the next began. From behind the register, of course, while pretending to count change.

He was about forty years old, according to Earl. Twelve years on me, and every one of them showed in how he moved. The boys I’d dated wanted everything fast and loud. Deacon did everything at his own speed, and I’d have bet my ovens it all came to him in the end.

And the smile. That was the real problem. It was tantalizing in a way I couldn’t explain.

“Two green chile rolls?” I said, already reaching.

“You know me too well.”

“I know your order. That’s different.”

He leaned on the counter while I bagged them, close enough that I had to tip my chin up to look at him. Big hands flat on the glass, rings on three fingers, the silver scuffed dull.

“How’s business?”

“Same as yesterday. Fine, I guess.” I shrugged.

“Fine.” He made it sound like an insult. “Somebody should be doing better than fine around here. Might as well be you.”

“You offering to buy more rolls?”

“If it’d help.”

He paid with a ten and dropped all of the change in the tip jar, and I busied myself with the milk pitcher the way I always did. Then he took one roll out of the bag and ate it at the counter in about four bites and made appreciative noises. I watched his mouth the whole time. It was a mistake I made twice a week.

Usually that was it. He’d say see you Friday, I’d say I’ll be here, and I’d stand there afterward feeling like I’d missed a step on the stairs.

Today he stayed a second longer.

“You look tired.”

“I’ve been up since four. I always look tired, it’s a baker thing.”