by Hearth Thistle

The Bread Knife

Tess Aubel inherited the bakery on Cooper's Lane two summers ago and is, by most measures, doing fine. Then someone takes the upstairs room she hadn't planned to rent — a sober quiet stranger named Aldous who pays in advance and asks if she'd mind him keeping a small lamp burning in the rear pantry, for reasons. Tess minds. Tess also keeps not asking why the bread has been rising better since he arrived.