Dusk Snow Hides All Return (Rowan and Adrienne) novel Chapter 26

Adrienne was pulled out of the river.

The freezing water didn’t take her life. But it took away the last of her madness.

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She spent half a month in the hospital. When she came out, she was a completely different person.

She stopped going after Rowan. She didn’t even try to show up in his line of sight anymore. Two streets over from his she took over a small storefront and opened a café.

The name was simple. The Waiting Room Café.

She learned how to brew coffee, do latte art, and make simple desserts.

apartment,

She traded the expensive dresses for cotton–linen shirts. Nothing about her said Merritt heiress anymore. She looked like a real café owner–quiet, pulled in, eyes gone still.

She’d finally learned what real respect meant.

If he didn’t want to see her, she didn’t show up.

If something went sideways at his job, she took care of it behind the scenes with no trace left.

If his life was steady and good, she just watched from far away.

Mr. Ashford Sr. and Mrs. Ashford went back home. Every year on his birthday, a huge wire transfer hit his bank account right on

schedule.

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He never touched it. Never asked about it either.

Mrs. Ashford developed clinical depression. She spent her days crying over a blurry childhood photo of him. Mr. Ashford Sr. went white–haired overnight, looking old and frail now.

News about Desmond came fast. Adrienne had pulled together every piece of evidence on him–the guy he’d hired to attack Rowan, the fraud, the fake medical records, the setups–all of it organized, clean, and handed over to the police.

The evidence was airtight. Desmond went to prison.

Word was that he had lost his mind in there, spending his days muttering that he was the eldest heir of the Ashford Family and Adrienne Merritt’s fiancé.

No one visited him. No one brought him up anymore.

Rowan fully put down roots in Montreal.

A year later, he married Viena.

The wedding was simple and warm, attended by just a small group of friends.

He wore a clean–cut white suit, with a soft smile and the light back in his eyes.

Adrienne didn’t get a wedding invitation.

The day of the wedding, she closed the café and sat on the bank of the St. Lawrence River for the entire day.

She watched the sunset turn the water gold, watched the gold fade out, and watched night fall.

She didn’t cry. She just sat there, quiet, like a silent statue.

After that, his life was peaceful and happy.

Every now and then on a weekend afternoon, he’d go to the bookstore across from The Waiting Room Café. He’d order a fruit tea, pick the spot by the window, and read for the whole day.

< Chapter 26

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And Adrienne would be behind the café’s glass window, quietly making coffee, wiping down cups, occasionally glancing up, her eyes traveling across the street to land on that quiet figure by the bookstore window.

Sunlight came through the glass, watching in the ends of his hair.

He’d be bent slightly forward, lashes throwing soft shadows under his eyes, completely focused.

They were one street apart, separated by traffic and foot traffic and the whole moving world between them, like two parallel tracks running quietly and never crossing.

One spring afternoon, the sunlight was beautiful.

Rowan was browsing the shelves at the bookstore. His fingertips brushed over the spine of a Chinese poetry collection. Almost on autopilot, he pulled it out.

He flipped to a random page. His eyes landed on one line.

“You are the one I’d want to kiss even with my oxygen tank pulled out.”

His fingers paused.

A moment later, he closed the book, put it back where it was, and turned toward his seat by the window.

As he sat down, his eyes drifted out the window without him thinking about it.

Across the street, the glass window of The Waiting Room Café was polished clean.

Adrienne was behind the counter, head down, focused on making a pour–over coffee. Her profile in the afternoon light looked especially calm and still.

She was wearing a simple white button–down, sleeves rolled to her elbows, a stretch of forearm showing.

Her movements were easy and practiced, her expression was peaceful, and there was not a single trace left of the obsession and madness from before.

In a small planter on the windowsill, a few sunflowers were in full bloom, their golden faces turned to the light. Rowan watched for a few seconds and slowly pulled his eyes back.

He picked up the slightly cooled fruit tea, took a sip, and dropped his gaze back to the open pages in front of him. The wind chime on the bookstore door gave a soft ring.

Viena pushed the door open, a small bunch of fresh sunflowers in her hand, smiling as she walked toward him. “Did I keep you waiting? Saw them on the way. Thought you’d like them.”

Rowan looked up, took the flowers, and gave her a small smile.

“Not long.”

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Sunlight came through the glass, wrapping him and the sunflowers in his arms in a warm, soft glow.

Across the street, Adrienne poured the finished coffee into a porcelain cup and set it on a tray.

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