Chapter 29
Kate stood on the inn's porch at dawn, watching the sun paint the harbor in shades of gold and pink while she mentally ran through the day's tasks. They had twelve rooms occupied at the same time, their highest number since the previous summer, and a wedding reception tomorrow that Dani had somehow convinced a couple from Portland to book despite their limited facilities. The end of May’s weather seemed to cooperate, making the outdoor wedding plans a perfect way to celebrate the nuptials.
The coffee in her hand had gone cold while she stood there, her mind circling the same problems that had kept her awake most of the night.
Lillian had been in hospice for two weeks now, the cottage she'd rented transformed into a medical facility with the efficiency that money could buy.
Kate hadn't visited. Neither had Tom or James.
Only Dani had gone once, returning with red eyes and no information about what had been discussed.
Inside, the inn was already stirring. She could hear Marcy in the kitchen, the rhythmic sound of her knife work as she prepped for breakfast. Rosa's voice carried from upstairs, directing her daughters, two volunteers for the summer, in the morning routine of room service.
The pipes groaned and settled as guests began their showers, the old building complaining about the demands on its ancient plumbing despite Ben's repairs.
Ben. She hadn't spoken to him beyond necessary construction conversations since that night in his workshop. His declaration of love, although beautifully articulated, felt difficult to answer having been delivered via text.
He arrived each morning, did his work, and left without the easy conversation that had once marked their interactions.
The loss of that rhythm, that comfortable presence, felt like another grief she didn't have time to process. Her inability to commit to him that night had given Ben the only answer he needed. Since that text, Kate knew she’d thrown away the only good thing that had happened to her.
Tom appeared on the porch beside her, dressed for his morning run, though he hadn't actually run in days. Instead, he'd been disappearing for hours, returning with no explanation. This morning, though, he lingered.
“I've been seeing someone,” he said.
Kate nearly dropped her coffee. “What?”
“A therapist. In Portsmouth. I’ve gone twice in the last week.” He stared at the harbor, not meeting her eyes. “After Lillian's confession, I realized I've been running from everything my whole life. Sarah, the marriage falling apart, even coming here was just another form of running.”
“Tom...”
“I'm not going back to Boston. Not to the firm, anyway. I'm going to practice law here. Small town stuff. Wills, real estate, the boring things that actually help people. I’m not leaving the inn.” He finally looked at her. “If that's okay with you. I’d like to do both. That is if you want my help.”
The request beneath the statement was clear: could he come home, really home, not just as a visitor helping in crisis but as part of the inn's future. Kate felt something ease in her chest, a loosening of the fear that her siblings would scatter again once the immediate danger passed.
“Of course I want your help,” she said. “This is your home, too, Tom. It always will be.”
Before Tom could respond, James burst through the door, laptop in hand, excitement radiating from him in waves that reminded Kate of when he was young and had discovered something wonderful.
“We're viral!” he announced. “The wedding photos from last month that Dani posted? Some influencer shared them, and we've got ten thousand likes in the first hour and climbing. The website crashed from traffic, but it’s up again, so no worries.”
This was good news, the kind they desperately needed, but Kate found it hard to match James's enthusiasm. Success felt hollow when Lillian was dying alone in a rented cottage, when Pop didn't know their names, when she'd pushed away the one person who'd consistently shown up for her.
The wedding reception prep consumed Dani, who moved through the inn like a general preparing for battle, checking and rechecking details with an intensity that bordered on obsessive.
She'd hired two local girls to help serve, borrowed chairs from the Methodist church, and somehow convinced the florist to give them a discount in exchange for social media exposure.
Kate handled the regular guests, smoothing over complaints about the construction noise, the limited breakfast menu due to wedding prep, the hundred small dissatisfactions that came with staying in a place balanced between past and future.
Mrs. Porter had returned for the weekend, her usual criticism muted by what might have been concern.
“You look tired, dear,” she said, accepting her coffee. “And thin. Are you eating?”
Kate couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten a full meal. She existed on coffee and whatever Marcy forced on her, her appetite lost somewhere between Lillian's confession and Ben's distance.
“I'm fine,” she said automatically.
“No,” Mrs. Porter said firmly. “You're not. Sit.”
It was such a maternal command that Kate found herself obeying, sinking into the chair across from the older woman.
“I knew your mother,” Mrs. Porter said. “Not well, but enough. She had the same look near the end, like she was trying to hold the whole world together through sheer will.”
“I'm not...”
“You are. And while it's admirable, it's also foolish. The inn won't collapse if you take a breath. Your siblings won't disappear if you loosen your grip.”
Before Kate could respond, a commotion erupted from the kitchen. She rushed in to find Marcy near tears, Dani panic-stricken, and what looked like an entire wedding cake in pieces on the floor.
“The delivery guy dropped it,” Dani said, her voice climbing toward hysteria. “The wedding cake. It's destroyed.”
Kate stared at the mess, her mind calculating the disaster. No bakery would have a replacement available with twelve hours' notice. The bride would be devastated. The reception would be ruined. Their reputation, barely beginning to rebuild, would be destroyed.
“I can fix this,” Marcy said, though she looked doubtful. “I'll bake new layers, work all night if I have to.”
“You've never made a wedding cake,” Dani pointed out.
“I've made cakes. How different can it be?”
Very different, Kate knew. Wedding cakes were architecture and engineering as much as baking. But what choice did they have?
“I'll help,” Rosa offered.
“We all will,” James said, appearing in the doorway.
What followed was a kind of beautiful chaos.
Tom drove to every grocery store in a twenty-mile radius, buying ingredients Marcy had given him.
James set up a tablet with YouTube tutorials on wedding cake construction.
Dani managed the rest of the reception prep while periodically checking on the cake progress with increasing anxiety.
Even guests got involved, Mrs. Porter offering her grandmother's frosting recipe, a couple from Vermont who turned out to be amateur bakers joining the production line.
Kate found herself in the center of it all, not directing but participating, her hands covered in flour and frosting, her siblings working beside her.
The kitchen became a disaster zone of mixing bowls and cooling racks, the smell of vanilla and butter filling the inn.
They made mistakes, had to start over twice, argued about frosting consistency and decoration styles.
At some point, Ben appeared, summoned by someone though Kate didn't know who. He assessed the situation and disappeared, returning an hour later with a professional cake decorating kit he'd borrowed from somewhere.
“My sister's friend decorates cakes,” he explained, setting up the tools. “She taught me a few things.”
Kate wanted to thank him, to apologize, to say something about that night in his workshop, but there wasn't time. The cake needed to be ready by tomorrow afternoon, and they were racing against physics and chemistry and the brutal honesty of gravity.
They worked through the night. Around two in the morning, with the layers finally cooled and the frosting achieving the right consistency, Kate found herself beside Ben, both of them carefully smoothing buttercream with tools she hadn't known existed.
“This is insane,” she whispered, not wanting to wake the guests trying to sleep above them.
“This is team effort,” he corrected. “This is what you've built, Kate. People who show up when disaster strikes.”
“You showed up, and I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t.”
“I’ll always show up.”
The weight of that truth, the consistency of his presence even when she'd pushed him away, made her throat tight.
She wanted to say something real, something that acknowledged what he meant to her, but James chose that moment to knock over a bowl of frosting, and the moment dissolved into cleanup and starting over.
She was so exhausted by that time that all she could do was laugh.
By dawn, they had something that looked like a wedding cake.
Not professional, not perfect, but three tiers of vanilla and lemon with buttercream frosting and sugar flowers that Dani had crafted with surprising skill.
It leaned slightly to the left, and the frosting wasn't completely smooth, but it existed.
“It's beautiful,” Dani said, exhausted.
“It's crooked,” Tom pointed out, but he was smiling.
“It's authentic,” Marcy declared. “Made with love and panic, the two essential ingredients.”
They all stood there, exhausted and covered in flour and frosting, admiring their imperfect creation.
Kate felt something she hadn't experienced in years: pure, uncomplicated joy.
They'd faced disaster and overcome it together.
Not her solving it alone, not her directing others, but all of them working as one unit.