Chapter 14
The knock on her cottage door pulled Cassidy away from the spreadsheet she’d been updating. She’d been cross-referencing vendor quotes with the festival budget, but her mind kept drifting to the dinner at The Sandpiper and the way Bryan had looked at her across the table.
She opened the door to find two women she’d seen around the lighthouse cottages standing on her porch.
“We heard you’re running the festival,” one woman said, holding out her hand. “I’m Emily, and this is Melissa.”
“Co-chairing,” Cassidy corrected automatically.
“Same thing.” The other woman—Melissa, was it?—shifted her camera bag to her other shoulder. “We thought you might need help.”
She blinked. Help. People kept offering that here. The concept still felt foreign.
“Come in.” She stepped back to let them pass.
Emily settled onto the couch while Melissa prowled the room, eyeing the light through the windows with the critical assessment of someone who saw the world in exposures and compositions.
“What did you have in mind?” she asked.
“I could set up a photo booth,” Melissa said. “I’ve got the equipment. Could do instant prints, maybe a digital share option too.”
“That’s actually perfect.” She grabbed her notebook. “We need more interactive elements. Something that creates memories people want to share.”
“I was thinking I could paint some backgrounds,” Emily added. “Instagram-worthy stuff with the festival name. Might not help much this year, but when people post photos later, it spreads awareness for next time.”
She paused mid-note. Next time. Emily was thinking about the festival’s future, not just the immediate event.
“That would be incredible,” she said. “Both of those ideas. Thank you.”
“We want to do whatever we can to help. Just ask if you need anything else.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
“We’re neighbors.” Emily shrugged like it was obvious. “This is what we do.” She got up and headed toward the door. Cassidy stood with them on the front porch. A man was working on one of the other cottages, replacing a section of railing. She’d seen him around but never spoken to him.
“Who’s that?” Cassidy gestured toward the man with the tools.
“Cliff.” Emily followed her gaze. “Winnie’s nephew. He keeps to himself mostly.”
“Unless he’s telling me where I can and can’t take photographs,” Melissa muttered.
Emily laughed. “You two are going to have to work that out someday.”
They wandered off toward their own cottages, and Cassidy stood there taking in the scene with the lighthouse rising against the blue sky. The neat cottages were arranged like protective arms around the garden, and the sound of waves drifted in the air..
All these people. Sally, Jan, the Harbor Ladies, and Bryan’s family. And now Emily and Melissa. They’d woven her into their lives so easily, like she’d always belonged here.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
Everything okay, sweetie?
Her mother. Again. The second text this week asking the same careful question.
She stared at the message. Her mother had been asking variations of that question for months now. Maybe years. Are you sleeping? Are you eating? When was the last time you took a real day off?
Questions Cassidy had deflected with reassurances and the occasional white lie.
She looked at the phone in her hand, then at the lighthouse, and finally at the garden where she’d sat with Winnie drinking tea and talking about things that mattered.
Before she could second-guess the impulse, she pressed the call button.
Her mother answered on the second ring. “Cassidy? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Mom.” She settled onto a chair on the porch. “I just wanted to talk.”
Silence stretched across the line. Her mother was probably checking to make sure she’d texted the right number.
“That’s wonderful, honey. How’s Florida?”
“It’s good. Different.” She traced the edge of the wooden bench. “I’m helping with a town festival.”
“A festival? That doesn’t sound very restful.”
“It’s not work work. It’s just helping the community.” The words felt strange in her mouth.
“Tell me about it.”
So Cassidy did. She talked about the festival, the committee meetings, and the Harbor Ladies. She mentioned The Sandpiper and Bryan’s family, carefully keeping her tone neutral when she mentioned Bryan.
“You sound happy,” her mother said quietly.
She opened her mouth to deflect, to make a joke about Florida sunshine or small-town charm. But she stopped.
“I think I might be,” she admitted. “A little.”
“Good. That’s good, sweetheart.” Her mother’s voice went soft. “I’ve been worried about you for a long time.”
“I know.” Cassidy watched Cliff gather his tools and head toward Driftwood Cottage. “I’m sorry I don’t call more.”
“You’re busy building your career. I understood that.”
“Too busy.” The admission came easier than she expected. “I let work become everything.”
“I’m glad you’re taking this break.”
“I am, too, Mom. I am too.”
They talked for another twenty minutes. Easy conversation about nothing and everything. Her mother’s garden. The book club drama. The neighbor’s new puppy. Normal things Cassidy had been too busy to discuss for years.
When she finally hung up, the sun was lower in the sky.
Golden light slanted across the courtyard, turning everything warm and soft.
She went back into the cottage. Her laptop sat open on the coffee table inside.
She could see the email notification count from here.
Forty-three new messages since this morning.
She used to check every hour. Every thirty minutes. Every time her phone buzzed.
Now she looked at that number and felt nothing but tired.
She closed the laptop without reading a single message.
The beach was quiet when she reached it. Cassidy slipped off her sandals and let her feet sink into the sand still warm from the day’s sun. She walked toward the water, letting the waves chase her toes.
A pelican swooped low over the surf. She’d learned to identify them now. Pelicans and herons and the tiny sandpipers that raced along the tideline.
When had she learned those things? When had she stopped seeing the beach as scenery and started noticing the details?
She thought about Steve Hodges and the Phillips account. The career she’d built over years of eighty-hour weeks, skipped vacations, and relationships sacrificed at the altar of the next promotion.
That life felt impossibly far away, like something that had happened to a different person.
“Winnie said I might find you here.”
She turned to find Bryan walking across the sand toward her. He’d changed out of his restaurant clothes into shorts and a faded t-shirt. His feet were bare.
They stood there watching the waves roll in. The silence felt comfortable instead of awkward. When had that changed?
“I talked to my mom today,” Cassidy finally said. “Actually talked. For almost half an hour.”
“That’s good, right?”
“I haven’t done that in years. I was always too busy.” She dug her toes deeper into the sand. “She said I sounded happy. And I am.” She glanced at him. “But my sabbatical ends in six weeks.”
“Right. Of course.” He looked out at the water. “Your real life is waiting. You have a career. A successful one.”
“I don’t know about that. I had a breakdown in front of forty people during a client presentation.” The words came out flat. “My boss forced me to take leave because I couldn’t function anymore. That’s not success.”
He turned to face her fully. “What do you want, Cassidy?”
She looked at the lighthouse rising against the darkening sky and the cottages with warm lights starting to glow from their windows. She looked at the man standing beside her with sand on his feet and concern in his eyes.
“I want to finish the festival,” she said slowly. “I want to help make it something the town can be proud of. Something that honors what it’s always been while making it sustainable for the future.”
“That’s five and a half weeks away.”
“I know.”
“And then what?”
The question hung between them like the suspended moment before a wave breaks.
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
Something shifted in Bryan’s expression. Relief maybe. Or hope. He looked like he wanted to say something, but instead he just nodded.
“The vendor contracts came through,” he said. “For the food trucks. We’re cleared for six spots along the waterfront.”
“That’s great.” She pulled her professional mask back into place. Easier to talk about logistics than whatever was happening between them. “Did you get the insurance documentation?”
“Sent it to your email an hour ago.”
“I haven’t checked my email today.”
He raised an eyebrow. “At all?”
“At all.” She said it like a confession, like admitting to a crime.
Bryan’s mouth lifted into a smile. “The Harbor Ladies would be proud.”
“They terrify me.”
“They’re supposed to. That’s how you know they like you.”
She laughed. The sound felt easy and natural.
“I should get back,” Bryan said, but he didn’t move. “Early morning at the restaurant.”
“Right. Of course.”
Neither of them walked away.
The sun was almost gone now, just a rim of gold on the horizon. The first stars were starting to appear overhead.
“Cassidy.” His voice was soft. “I’m glad you’re here. In Starlight Shores. Even if it’s temporary.”
Her heart did a little somersault. “Me too.”
He smiled then, that warm, genuine smile that made his whole face change.
“Goodnight, Cassidy.”
“Goodnight.”
She watched him walk back across the beach toward town. His figure grew smaller against the last light until he disappeared around the bend.
Cassidy stood there alone with the waves and the cooling sand beneath her feet.
Six weeks until her sabbatical ended.
Six weeks that suddenly felt both infinite and desperately short.
She turned back toward Heron Cottage. Her laptop waited inside with its forty-three unread emails. Her old life calling her back.
But for tonight, she was here. With people who’d become friends. With a man whose smile made her forget about career trajectories and five-year plans.
She climbed the steps to her porch and paused with her hand on the door. She could see the lighthouse beam beginning its slow rotation, constant and steady.