Chapter Fifteen
“Georgie, isn’t it?” Claire’s voice was warm, the tone lilting and sweet like honey. It caught me completely off guard. “I’ve heard so much about you,” she added with a blinding smile.
“Oh?” I croaked, gripping my water glass and wishing I could pour it over my head. My cheeks couldn’t possibly be a normal color.
She slid gracefully into the booth across from me before I could invite her, Rhett trailing behind and sitting stiffly at her side. The table creaked and shifted beneath the weight of the extended pause, but if she noticed the tension, she didn’t show it.
Claire folded her hands atop the Formica, nails filed to a point and painted with an elegant French tip. “Yes. Janice spoke very highly of you. Said you’re the heart of this festival.”
Heat crawled up my neck. Of course it was Janice. Who else would be talking about me? Not Rhett.
“That’s… nice of her,” I mumbled and cast a frantic glance to my feet.
Easton, my ever-present guard dog, was sound asleep. Of all the times for him to exhibit his ability to nap through anything, he chose now? Desperate for an interruption, I wiggled my toes and tried to nudge him awake. No such luck.
Rhett cleared his throat. “We didn’t mean to—uh—interrupt your dinner.”
“I know,” I lied. My plate of half-eaten fries begged to differ.
Ruth appeared out of nowhere, wielding her notepad and pen at the ready. “Well, don’t y’all just look cozy?” she crooned with a wink. “Special tonight’s clam chowder. Claire, you’ll love it. Rhett, you want the usual?” There was no pause for an answer before she began scribbling.
“Yes, ma’am,” Rhett muttered.
Claire smiled politely. “The chowder sounds perfect, thank you.”
And just like that, Ruth bustled off, leaving me trapped in conversational quicksand.
“So,” Claire began, propping her chin on her hand. “Tell me everything. How long have you lived here?”
“Uh. All my life.” I absentmindedly gathered the condensation on my glass with my thumb. “Born and raised.”
“How wonderful. I’ve always admired people who can stay rooted.
I suppose I was too restless for that. My work keeps me bouncing from city to city—Boston last year, Paris before that…
” She waved a dismissive hand, as though her international travel was a tedious subject.
“But there’s something charming about a hometown girl, don’t you think, Rhett? ”
Rhett opened his mouth, closed it, then settled for a noncommittal grunt.
I dragged a fry around my plate, the intensity of her sparkling green-and-blue eyes making me want to cower. “Depends who you ask.”
Claire’s smile didn’t falter, but I caught the faintest arch of her brow. She leaned closer to Rhett, pushing a wave of her perfume adrift across the table—something like vanilla and musk, but much more expensive than anything I could get at the Cove Market.
“Didn’t you say you used to sneak into the summer festival? With your friends?” she all but purred to him.
“Alone.” Rhett corrected, rubbing the back of his neck. “My uncle wasn’t too happy about that one.”
Her graceful laugh rang out, turning heads at the next booth. “Oh, I can’t picture you as a troublemaker.”
“He still is,” I muttered before I could stop myself. I could imagine a younger Rhett begging his uncle to let him off work and go to the Summer’s End Festival. What kid wouldn’t want to go? It almost made me grieve for him. Almost.
Both of them turned to me. Rhett’s mouth twitched, which I’d come to know was him fighting a smile. Claire tilted her head and openly studied me.
“Really?” she asked neutrally. “Rhett’s only been here a week.”
I tried to match her smile—I really did. But not even the drained chocolate milkshake to my left seemed to be perking me up.
A couple of high schoolers “casually” wandered by our booth, pretending to search for songs on the juke box while blatantly eavesdropping. One of them whispered—far too loudly—“Is that her? The fiancée?” before being smacked by his friend.
My heart squeezed. Claire didn’t flinch. She reached for Rhett’s arm with delicate calculation, resting her hand there as if it was perfectly normal. “Small towns,” she said, amused. “News travels faster than light here, huh?”
Rhett shifted under her touch, gaze darting toward me as he slipped from her hand and leaned onto the table.
I forced down a sip of water, wishing it was something stronger.
Claire leaned back as Ruth returned with a steaming bowl of chowder. “This looks divine,” she declared as it slid before her. “Honestly, I don’t know how you all don’t weigh three hundred pounds with food this good.”
Ruth beamed. “Metabolism, darlin’. Or farm chores.” She decisively tapped her pen on the table before disappearing across the diner again.
Claire’s eyes slid to me. “It really is lovely here. And I can see why Rhett wanted me to visit. He’s always spoken so fondly of Bluebell Cove.”
My glass slipped from my hand, wobbling on the table before righting itself. Rhett winced.
Claire didn’t seem to notice. “Of course, I insisted on helping with the festival. I have some experience organizing large events—charity galas, corporate fundraisers. Nothing as… cozy as this, but I do think some polish could elevate it. Don’t you agree?”
I bristled. “Cozy has been working fine for us.”
For the first time, her smile dropped. “Naturally. I only meant—”
Rhett jumped in. “Claire’s got great ideas. She’s good at this stuff, trust me.”
The words landed with a sharpness that I wasn’t willing to confront yet.
I drew a long breath and began to scoot out of the booth. “Excuse me. Easton needs his walk.”
“He’s asleep,” Rhett replied.
I glowered at him. “Then I need air.”
Before either could stop me, I abandoned my dinner and urged Easton to follow even as he whined in yawn-addled protest. The diners’ stares burned between my shoulder blades as I pushed into the cool night.
The evening breeze kissed my skin with brisk salt and the telltale smell of impending rain, a sharp contrast to the stifling atmosphere I’d just escaped.
Easton trotted beside me, still yawning, the jingling of his tags filling the silence as I made for the beach.
The knot I’d grown familiar with steadily tightened inside my chest, demanding my attention no matter how hard I fought it.
Claire. Smiling, perfect Claire.
And Rhett—the man I couldn’t claim, yet seemed intent on driving me to madness.
I stopped short on the sidewalk of Harbor Street and collapsed onto a bench.
The tide lapped at the sand in the distance, moonlight scattering over the water with a million roiling slivers of pure silver.
To my left, down the dark, narrow road called Mariner’s Way, was Bluebell Point.
At the end of that lean peninsula, partially disguised by a layer of fog, rested a towering lighthouse shooting up from the massive, sea-beaten rocks.
The Cove hadn’t had a keeper in decades, but there was something oddly comforting about watching its beam of light dart across the water.
A familiar clack of heels echoed behind me. I didn’t need to turn.
“Ruth told me that you stormed out of the diner,” Margot began. “A bit melodramatic, don’t you think?” She sat beside me without invitation.
I groaned. “Not now.”
“Definitely now.” She crossed one leg over the other, eyes sweeping the ocean. “So. What’s her deal?”
“Who?”
“Don’t play dumb. I mean the woman in there with teeth so white I’m in fear for my retinas.”
Despite myself, I let out a laugh. “Claire.”
“Right. Claire.” Margot rolled the name around her tongue and wrinkled her nose. “She’s pretty. Annoyingly pretty. And rich. Did you see her shoes? Yeah, those are easily three grand.” She snorted. “And you think I’m bad.”
I sank further into the bench, the warmth of Easton on my feet keeping me steady. “She’s also well-traveled, beloved by both Janice and your mom, and apparently knows just how to save the festival.”
She might as well have introduced herself as Georgie 2.0.
Margot tossed me a sideways look. “And she has Rhett.”
The reminder cut, even though I’d been dancing around that inconvenient truth all night. My throat went dry.
“It certainly looks that way.”
Margot shrugged, though her voice softened around the edges. “That’s all though, right? Rumors and appearances.”
I flicked at the wood beneath my fingers, fighting back the ache in my chest. “It’s just… first Marigold’s, now the festival… it feels like I keep messing everything up.”
Margot’s brows knit together. “What about Marigold’s?”
My heart hammered as I stared at a far-off mound of sand.
I had been so sure that no one should know.
Somehow, some way, I would valiantly pull myself from the depths of debt and save my grandmother’s shop.
How could I make Margot and everyone else believe this town was worth staying for, if my own life was splintering at the seams?
Still, something had been gnawing at the back of my mind these past few days. Why should I expect Margot to be honest when I couldn’t be myself?
So I told her everything—from the negative bank accounts, to the empty fridge, to the small business grant.
At first, it came out as a trickle. Margot stared intently, completely silent as my nerves subsided and it all came gushing out like a burst pipe.
I had expected to be embarrassed; what I hadn’t anticipated was the rush of pure catharsis that washed over me the more I spoke.
In the end, I was simply left to wonder why I hadn’t done it sooner.
“Well,” she said with a heavy sigh once I’d finished. “That’s a lot to carry around for something you don’t even love.”
It was just like Margot, in her clear-eyed, incisive way, to cut straight to the heart of an issue.
“How’d you know?” I returned, stomach twisting and then unsnarling.
“If you’re passionate about something, you don’t talk about it as if it’s a weight shackled to your ankles.” She hesitated and pressed her lips together, as if fighting her own outpouring of truth telling, but shook her head. “So, why are you doing it?” Margot added.
“Because,” I began, “I owe my grandmother everything.”
The words came out in a surge, steady at first, and then strangled. I desperately clawed at my chest. Biting thorns that I thought had disappeared suddenly wrapped around my heart and squeezed until I took notice.
“But you don’t owe her your future.” Margot took my hand for a second and squeezed before letting go. For her, it was as good as a hug. “She wouldn’t have wanted that.”
I quickly swiped at the tears trailblazing down my cheeks.
Beneath it all, I knew that my grandmother would have never asked me to do this.
That wasn’t the point, though. She sacrificed two decades of her life to love and support me when my mother disappeared.
Marigold Wheeler was my lighthouse—the one who stood beside me when everyone else left.
“You just don’t understand,” I whispered, voice wavering as I struggled to keep more tears at bay.
Margot turned to me, a fresh sharpness in her voice as she said, “You’re right, Georgie.
I don’t. Your grandmother loved you—and you know what that means?
She wouldn’t want you to die on the vine because of some misguided loyalty.
” I blinked at her, stupefied, as she gathered a breath and continued, “I just can’t believe you’d cheapen your grandmother’s legacy to four walls and a few buckets of flowers. ”
I sputtered under the impact of her verbal gut-punch, mentally grasping for a rebuttal but coming up empty. Margot watched me as I gasped and flicked away a few stray tears, the honesty to her words both devastating and liberating.
Barely above a whisper, she added, “Your grandmother was there for me when my own mother wasn’t. I don’t need Marigold’s Flower Shop to remember Marigold.”
Beneath it all, buried behind some layers I hadn’t unwrapped, something dislodged. I wasn’t sure what just yet, but I could feel the release down to my bone marrow.
We sat there for what felt like hours, watching the waves roll in with a crash and recede with rhythmic urgency. Margot didn’t move to comfort me—she never needed to. Her presence alone was solid, holding my feet to the ground when I’d otherwise be in danger of pushing myself out to sea.
It occurred to me that, after seven years of polite superficiality, we finally had a real conversation.
She stood suddenly and crossed her arms. “Listen. Claire might be polished, but you know this place inside and out. It was people like your grandmother who kept this town feeling like Bluebell Cove—and now that’s you.”
A reluctant smile tugged at my lips. “You’re right.”
“Exactly. It’s your job to keep reminding Bluebell Cove who it is.” Margot poked my shoulder. “You have what no one else does, okay? So start acting like it.”
“Thanks,” I said softly.
“Don’t thank me yet. You’ve still got to survive her.”