CHAPTER 1
She had to get Isabella out of Seattle.
The notion had pinged around in her head all morning, but they’d been so slammed that she hadn’t had time to respond. Now, standing behind the counter at the Copper Kettle, wiping down the coffee bar’s surface with a wet rag, she finally had a minute to focus.
Setting the rag aside, Megan McGuire pulled her phone from her apron pocket and reread the string of text messages she’d received from Isabella in the last several hours.
Isabella
Mom! They went on a cruise and left me here with Grandma and Grandpa Larsen. The little kids got to go. Please please can I come to Redemption? I really want to.
They left you home from a cruise? Her blood boiled. Surely Micah wouldn’t do that. Would he? He wasn’t a bad guy. After all, he’d taken on caring for and raising Isabella when he could’ve just walked away.
For that, she’d always be grateful.
But there was a difference between providing for a child and nurturing her. Now that she had the chance to revisit Isabella’s increasingly desperate texts, her stomach clenched in a tight knot. Did Micah want to raise Isabella?
Sammy, the high school student who worked two afternoons a week, scooped ice from the machine, then dumped it into the blender.
Near the sofa in the middle of the room, a toddler screeched in frustration, then tossed his sippy cup on the floor.
Classic rock drifted from a wireless speaker, mixing with the cacophony swirling around her.
Megan squeezed her eyes shut.
C’mon. Think. There had to be a logical solution.
Opening her eyes, she drew in a deep breath and responded to her daughter.
Mom
My shift is almost up and then I’ll have time to chat more. You seem upset. Is your grandmother with you right now?
Micah’s mother had the uncanny ability to calm Isabella whenever she spiraled into a tizzy. Megan sort of wished she possessed the same gift.
Isabella
It’s spring break remember? I don’t have school. They just didn’t want me to go.
“Oh, sweetie,” Megan whispered. “That really stinks.”
“Hey. You ready to go? I thought you were off at three.” Caroline, her sister, stood on the other side of the counter, wearing a purple fleece jacket layered over her gray scrubs. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Isabella. I’ll tell you later. Yes, I’m ready.” Megan untied her apron, strode to the break room, left it on a hook, and grabbed her coat and her purse.
Don’t panic, don’t panic, don’t panic.
She swallowed back the dread that was, in fact, provoking panic, then plastered on a smile as she scooted past the counter on her way out the door. “I’ll put that new shipment of coffee beans away tomorrow.” She waved to Sammy. “See you later.”
“Cool, cool.” Sammy grinned, then poured milk into the blender. “Have a great night.”
Her mind spinning, Megan weaved her way among the tables dotting the shop.
A few discarded cups sat on the raw-edge counter lining the white shiplap wall.
It would just take a second to pick those up and toss them.
She eyed the half-dozen plants suspended from the ceiling in rope-like hangers.
Oh, she’d forgotten to water those. Isabella’s texts had kept her so distracted for most of her shift.
Slowing her steps, she almost turned back.
Nope, Sammy could handle it. Megan sent her a quick text reminder, then followed her sister out the door of the Copper Kettle—her one steady paycheck—and into the cool spring afternoon.
The familiar aroma from the boat harbor enveloped her.
A mix of salty air and low tide mingled with paint fumes from a man on a ladder, who was adding a fresh coat to a sign above the new flower shop on Main Street.
“You look super stressed,” Caroline said. “What’s going on?”
“Isabella’s been texting me all day. She’s miserable.
Her dad…” Megan hesitated. Not exactly true, because he maybe wasn’t her dad, but she couldn’t go there right now.
Couldn’t go there ever, really, which was the whole problem.
“Micah and his wife took their younger two kids on a cruise for spring break and evidently left Isabella in Seattle with Micah’s parents. ”
“Oh no.” Caroline wrinkled her nose. “That’s upsetting.”
“Right? And I just want to call him and give him an earful, but?—”
“He’s on a cruise,” Caroline said.
“And I’m sure, to be fair, there’s more to the story, but this is just a—just another unfortunate event in a long string.
I know Isabella is eleven and she’s probably dramatic, but every time she texts me and tells me she needs to get out of there, everything in me wants to hop on a plane and pluck her out.
” Megan swallowed hard against the lump rising in her throat.
“But I have no right, you know? I’ve pretty much been an absentee mom. ”
“Oh, Squirt, come here.”
Boy, she hated that nickname. On the other hand, she deserved far worse.
She let Caroline pull her in for a quick side hug, because her family loved her, and she knew that. Had always known that. But would they always see her as a screw-up—the one who needed her mistakes fixed and her wounds cleaned?
She’d failed so many times. She couldn’t fail her daughter. Not again.
“Come on.” Caroline pulled away. “Let’s pop into the hardware store and grab some boxes and tape. I want to help Lainey get a few things packed this afternoon. Then I’m heading to Tisha’s place to babysit Sadie and Brody so she and Ethan can go out to dinner.”
Megan fell into step beside Caroline as they strode down the sidewalk toward the hardware store. “I still can’t believe Lainey sold the bed and breakfast.”
“Me either. I can’t believe she let Theo convince her to move to Shelter Cove and manage a hotel. What if she hates it?”
“I guess she can always move back,” Megan said. “She and Theo have a solid friendship. Since he’s filming a movie there this summer, maybe she feels like she knows at least one person there, so she’ll be okay.”
“I hope so,” Caroline said. “I’m really going to miss her.”
“Same.” Megan’s phone buzzed again in her pocket. She checked her messages.
Isabella
Grandma just showed me some pictures Dad posted online. Looks super fun. Why is he doing this to me?
Oof. Megan winced, then tucked her phone away. She’d hold off on replying. For now, anyway. Just until she came up with a way to reach Micah. Or found the right words to offer encouragement to her hurting daughter.
Across the street, a truck pulled up to the curb outside Redemption Outfitters—also the building where Caroline lived.
They both stopped and watched as the passenger door opened and a man slowly emerged, wearing faded jeans, work boots, and a ball cap pulled low. He spoke to whoever else was in the truck, then reached behind the seat and plucked out a backpack crammed so full it looked like it barely zipped shut.
Megan’s breath hitched as she zeroed in on his profile.
After he fished a battered suitcase out of the bed of the truck, he offered the driver a wave.
The person behind the wheel bleated his horn in two short blasts, then tapped his blinker and drove away, leaving the man standing on the sidewalk in front of the sporting-goods store.
Megan let her eyes roam to his shoulders. Noted the familiar slope. Admired the impressive curve of his biceps. Then she tracked his movements—deliberate, unhurried. His angular jaw and the slight bump in his nose sent a shiver dancing along her spine.
No. It couldn’t be.
When he set the suitcase down and faced them, her whole world tilted.
“Oh my word.” Her vision tunneled, and she clutched Caroline’s arm. “Caroline,” she wheezed, “is that…”
“Trevor Kelly.” Caroline finished the sentence for her. “Sure looks like him.”
The whole street went quiet. A tabby cat darted among parked cars beside the flower shop. Two kids riding bikes wobbled to a stop at the intersection. Even the guy on the ladder paused, paintbrush hovering in midair.
She couldn’t decide whether to cry, scream, or fall on her knees in the middle of Main Street. Her phone hummed in her pocket. Again. Probably another text from Isabella. Isabella, who had his eyes and that same reddish-blond hair.
A long-buried memory from her high school graduation night resurfaced.
Standing in her cap and gown, casually surveying the gym for Trevor.
Heat flushing her skin when they locked eyes.
Later, her heart in her throat. Trevor’s hands at her waist, his mouth on hers, and the night stretching out in front of them, every cell in her body humming with anticipation.
“We have to go talk to him, Meg.” Caroline tugged on her sleeve. “Ethan’s not going to believe this.”
Trevor Kelly was alive, standing ten feet away from her—and there was no way she could tell him he had a daughter.
He’d rather replace a car’s dead battery during a blizzard with a wind chill of forty-five below than stand here on this sidewalk and try to rebuild his fractured memory.
Trevor Kelly gripped the straps of his borrowed backpack and turned in a slow circle, soaking it all in: the lush green mountain range hemming the bay, snow still clinging to jagged peaks.
Something about those mountains pressed a dull ache into his chest—an ache that sharpened into the phantom roar of a plane engine in his ears, there and gone before he could make any sense of it.
He gritted his teeth and scanned the shops lining Main Street.
Flower baskets with pink blossoms sprouting from their edges hung on the lampposts.
A couple of storefronts had recently been replaced—fresh paint, still some exposed plywood here and there, stickers on the plate-glass windows.
He’d read about the tidal wave that had nearly wiped the place clean.
Probably some local folks would have more to say about that.
Maybe even the same locals who’d met him in the last fifteen months and told him who he was, where he belonged, that this was home.
Home.
What a strange word when he had nothing sentimental or meaningful to attach it to.