Page 227 of At First Catch

I look over, but he still isn’t looking at me.

“She gets quieter.”

My chest tightens.

“When we were kids...” A faint smile touches his face. “If something upset her, everybody else thought she was fine.”

He finally glances over. “I always knew.”

His words land like a punch. “She’s doing that now.”

“I never wanted to hurt her.”

Holt nods. “I know.”

“That’s what makes it worse.”

“She doesn’t need you to be perfect.” He looks back toward the marina. “She just needs to know she’s not carrying you alone.”

“I’m getting her back.”

Holt studies me, then says, “Good.” And walks away.

Fear spent most of my life convincing me survival mattered more than vulnerability. Hadley spent months trying to teach me the opposite.

I stare toward the old house behind the marina again. The warm porch light glows against the dark.

Every scattered thought in my head aligns into one dreadful clear truth that I don’t need to prove I can survive alone anymore. I need to prove I know how to stay.

Then finally, enough that the words almost disappear into the wind, I repeat, “I’m getting her back.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

HADLEY

Tuesday morning brings a duller ache of heartbreak. That’s worse. Like grief finally stopped screaming long enough to settle deep into my bones permanently.

Nearly four months have passed since Nolan walked back into Sweet Gum Café carrying nothing but a marina deed and entirely too much emotional baggage. It still feels impossible that everything could have changed this much.

As I unlock the front doors of “A Page in Time,” the soft morning sunlight illuminating Main Street, a gentle ache of realization washes over me.

The lighthouse smells like coffee and old paper and sea air. Usually, I find this comforting, but today, it just feels empty.

Everything does lately.

No good morning texts. No Nolan waiting downstairs with coffee. No warm hand automatically finding the small of my back whenever we crossed paths.

“You’re brooding again.”

I glance up.

Bailey stands near the café archway carrying pastries and entirely too much emotional awareness for eight in the morning.

“I’m opening for you.”

Bailey studies me carefully while setting pastries behind the counter. “You sleep at all?”

I shrug one shoulder. Not really. Every night I reach instinctively toward the empty side of the bed before remembering. Every morning I wake up already missing him.