Page 138 of Death of a Grill Master

Liddy’s eyes shimmered again. “Always,” she said. “You and Mona are stuck with me—no matter how far I go.”

Hayley laughed, blinking fast. “Good. Because Bar Harbor won’t be the same without you.”

Liddy squeezed her hand one last time before turning toward the gate, Doug close behind.

Hayley, Bruce, and Mona (who was already complaining about the cost of her parking ticket) stood together at the big window watching as the plane taxied, lifted, and then climbed into the soft evening sky.

And for the first time that day, Hayley realized she didn’t feel loss at all.

What she felt was joy.

Chapter 44

The September afternoon looked like it had been staged by a postcard photographer—sky the color of a robin’s egg, clouds so high and thin they seemed sketched in pencil, and sunlight that made the ocean glint like polished glass. The breeze was gentle, carrying the briny tang of Frenchman’s Bay, along with the faint, salt-softened chatter of gulls.

Moving boxes lined the front walk like a cardboard parade. Each trip from the car into the house felt like a small victory, even if Bruce insisted on making exaggerated groaning noises with every load.

Hayley stepped into the foyer, her sneakers whispering across the wide-plank floors worn smooth by decades of sandy feet and lobster-boot scuffs. The house had the kind of calm presence she’d always admired—painted in soft coastal tones that caught the shifting light, filled with big windows framing the water like a work of art.

The view made her pause every time she turned her head. Lobster boats dotted the bay, each pulling a line of gulls behind it like kids chasing an ice cream truck. Beyond them, the Porcupine Islands floated on the horizon in a haze of blue-gray. Along the porch, a bank of hydrangeas nodded in the breeze, their vibrant summer purples now fading into antique mauves.

Bruce was already fussing over a corner of the living room, arranging his desk at the perfect angle to the water. “You realize,” Hayley said, passing by with a box labeled COOKBOOKS & COCKTAILS, “if you stare at that view all day, you’re never going to write a single word.”

“I’ll write,” he said, setting down his laptop with a satisfied sigh. “Eventually. After a reasonable amount of staring.”

Hayley lugged her box into the kitchen and began unpacking her cookbooks in the only organizational system that made sense to her—arranging them by cocktail pairing. Tequila to the left, whiskey to the right, rum dead center. Bruce liked to claim this method was “chaotic neutral,” but she knew it was genius.

They kept passing each other in the hallway, each carrying something, each stopping to glance out a window as if they still couldn’t quite believe this house was theirs. Leroy, meanwhile, was trotting from room to room like a Realtor on commission, sniffing every corner and claiming each sunny patch of floor as his own.

At one point, Hayley stood with a spice rack in her hands, looking out at the glimmering water, and said, “Feels like we’re house-sitting for someone far more responsible.”

By the time the sun began its slow descent toward the horizon, the boxes were mostly unpacked, or at least stacked artfully in corners so they looked like décor. Bruce appeared in the kitchen holding two glasses of wine and a stack of freshly printed pages.

“Dangerous to hand me a manuscript when I’ve been unpacking heavy objects all day,” she warned, following him out to the porch.

They settled into a pair of Adirondack chairs, the wood warm from the afternoon sun. The air was cooler now, touched with the scent of seaweed and the faint, smoky sweetness of a distant chimney fire. Hayley took the pages, curling her legs under her.

She began to read aloud. The heroine was whip-smart, stubborn, and had a habit of being absolutely convinced she was right at all times. By page three, Hayley’s eyebrows were creeping higher. By page five, she stopped and squinted over the stack at him.

“This heroine is insufferable,” she announced.

Bruce grinned. “So’s the muse.”

She swatted him with the pages, but her mouth betrayed her with a smile. They sat for a while without speaking, the laughter lingering between them. Somewhere down the Shore Path, a dog barked.

The tide was inching in, lapping at the rocks below. Bruce reached for her hand without looking, and she let him take it, their fingers fitting together in the easy, well-worn way of people who’d weathered a few storms and come out stronger.

For the first time in months, Hayley felt it—a quiet certainty in her bones. They had survived the chaos, the danger, the heartbreak. And now, here on this porch, with the sea stretching out before them and the boxes of their life unpacked behind them, they were exactly where they were meant to be.