Chapter Thirty
The first thing I noticed that morning was the smell. Rain carried its own perfume, fresh and addictive, and it already seeped in through the old windows of Marigold’s. The sky outside loomed a strange shade of pewter, like someone had swirled dark grey and silver paint together.
Bluebell Cove didn’t get storms often—at least not ones big enough to have every neighbor on edge—but the weather alerts had been buzzing through town since last night. “A real one this time,” Ronnie, who lived through more seasons than the rest of us combined, had warned from his porch.
And if Ronnie believed it, we all did.
Which was why I had three packages of bottled water waiting at home, and every candle I owned displayed on my kitchen table. Now wasn’t the time to hunker in my living room with Easton and hope that my shutters did their job, though. It was my job to make sure that, somehow, Marigold’s survived it.
Although it had rained all night and all morning, the eye of the storm hadn’t even hit yet.
Margot stood in the doorway of the shop in four-inch, knee-high boots, trouser shorts and matching blazer, and a turtleneck sweater up to her ears. She watched me with her arms crossed, looking more like my supervisor than someone who had, once again, offered to help.
“You’re kidding me,” I said, balancing on the step stool as I retracted the awning above the window, getting soaked in the process. “This is your storm outfit?”
She tilted her head at me, lips painted in a red that was an impeccable match to her turtleneck. “What? It’s cute. And technically weather-appropriate. A sweater and a coat!”
“And shorts!” I laughed, shaking my head as I eased myself down from the stepstool. “Those heels aren’t going to do much for you if we have to evacuate.”
“Please. If we have to evacuate, I’ll be carried.”
She glanced down at her phone. The screen lit her face with a pale glow, and for a second she wasn’t the glamorous, unbothered Margot I’d known since birth. For a second, she looked… somewhere else entirely.
I filed it away.
“Anyway,” she continued quickly, slipping her phone into her bag. “What’s the plan? Are we boarding up? Sandbags? Moving your brand-new floorboards to higher ground?”
“You’re making fun of me, but yes. All of that.” I gestured to the stack of wood panels leaning near the door. “Rhett’s dropping by to help all the shops. We’re covering the big windows.”
Her eyebrows rose, and I could practically hear the teasing tone before it left her mouth. “Rhett, huh?”
I ignored her, shaking the lingering raindrops from my coat before stepping inside. “Don’t start.”
Margot only grinned, sauntering toward the counter and gingerly resting her purse there. She waited for me to look before grabbing one of the sandbags and pointedly hobbling over to the doorway with it.
“See? I can do anything in heels.”
I rolled my eyes, but my lips twitched anyway. “Anything but run in the sand.”
“Hey!” She turned to me with mock outrage. “Those shoes are still missing. I’m now in mourning, thank you very much.”
“Already transitioned to recovery instead of rescue?”
Margot strode over for another sandbag with a sniff. “Funny. Very funny.”
We were halfway through hauling the pile of sandbags to the foundation outside when Rhett walked in, eyes falling on us with the kind of casual confidence that made my pulse pick up speed.
It was the first time I’d seen him in five days—since our kiss and eventual argument in my yard.
Just looking at him made my stomach flip and my face burn as the memories pressed into the front of my mind.
“Morning,” he said, pushing damp hair from his forehead. He carried a toolbox in one hand and a coffee cup in the other. His T-shirt was already speckled with drizzle from the shoulders down.
Margot, of course, lit up with a mischievous glow. “Well, if it isn’t Bluebell Cove’s resident carpenter.”
Rhett gave her a polite nod, then turned to me. His eyes softened the way they always did, the way I never saw them with anyone else. As if I was the only thing in view.
“Ready?” he asked.
I swallowed against the sudden warmth blooming in my chest. “Yeah. Let’s start with the big window.”
By mid-morning, the shop was, once again, a construction zone. Rhett knelt outside, drill whining as wood met wood.
Margot supervised from inside where it was dry, perched on a bucket stool that she managed to make look chic.
Her biggest contribution had been her trot across the street to get us all coffee and a snack before the Morning Bell closed for the storm.
She bounced a graceful foot in the air, gaze dancing from me to Rhett every so often as she sipped her cappuccino.
I carried bags of sand into the alley, my arms aching, but the bustle came with a special kind of satisfaction. The clatter of tools, the upbeat hum of passersby as they hurried to prepare, and even Margot’s dramatic sighs.
“This is depressing,” she announced after Rhett secured the last board. “Like, apocalypse-movie-depressing. Should we all be making confessions? Kissing long-lost lovers?” Margot wiggled her eyebrows at me over her shoulder.
Rhett chuckled low under his breath as he repositioned the sandbags at the door, and I shot her a wide-eyed look. “This isn’t the first Bluebell Cove storm I’ve helped prep for. No matter what, I’m sure we’ll all be fine,” he said.
“Wait—” I cocked my head at him, something tugging at the back of my mind. “What year was that?”
He ran a hand through his hair and kicked a sandbag in place. “I dunno, fourteen or fifteen years ago?”
“No way,” I murmured.
Rhett looked up as he closed the door. “What?”
Margot glanced between us from behind her coffee cup, eyes devouring our interaction with poorly hidden glee. I wanted to kick her.
The way he stood at the door, one hand on his hip and the other gripping a drill, light pouring in from the slivers of gaps left in the door’s glass—it all shifted into place. Rhett leaned against the doorway, his shoulders filling the space the same way they had all those summers ago.
For a heartbeat, everything else fell away, and I was ten again, standing in this very shop.
I remember he had come in, drenched from the rain, locks of dark hair plastered to his face and dripping into his eyes. Older than me by only a few years, he held himself straight as a rod, face pinched into a serious expression even though the tool belt he wore dangled loosely around his hips.
But ten-year-old Georgie thought he looked like a superhero.
Those dark, somber eyes scanned the shop bursting with plants and flowers before landing on me, hiding behind a potted palm tree. My grandmother had left me for a few minutes to help Ruth with the diner, and the wall-rattling thunder and flickering lights made it all seem like a terrible nightmare.
“Hey,” he said, stepping forward slowly, boots squelching against the floor.
“Hi.” I blushed and hid my face.
Young Rhett surveyed the store again. “Are you all alone?”
Hugging the palm’s trunk, I nodded furiously.
He knelt beside me and pushed some of his wet hair back. “I see that you only have half your window covered. Do you mind if I fix that?”
I shook my head, but another clap of thunder sounded, sending me flying into his arms. He caught me with a grunt, laughing into my wild, frizzed curls. Once I calmed down, he patted my back and dipped his chin to look me in the eyes.
“How about this: you’re going to help me, okay?”
Hand in his, he led me to the doorway, where he had me stand where it was dry and hold his tools. Focused on my job of taking care of his things and watching him work, I didn’t notice the pounding rain or the flashes of lightning.
“Thank you,” he said once he’d fixed the final board to the outside of Marigold’s. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without you.”
My eyes sparkled when I looked up at him.
From the door, I watched as my grandmother greeted him beneath her bright orange umbrella, motioning to the windows and leaning down to gather him in her arms. She always said that the shop might’ve been totally destroyed if it hadn’t been for our young guardian angel.
Margot’s voice broke my reverie. “Earth to Georgie. Where did you go?”
I blinked, and it was fifteen years later. He watched me from that same door, head cocked to the side and a tiny smile playing on his lips.
My grandmother’s words in her letter came rushing back:
I can’t tell you what your dreams are. Only you can decide that. Maybe they’re tucked in the Cove, maybe they’re out in the wide world. Maybe they’re in the arms of someone I wish I could’ve met. Wherever those dreams are, don’t be afraid of them.
And it felt like my heart tore open from the inside. She had met him—I just didn’t know it until now.
“Are you okay?” Rhett asked, eyebrows drawn together.
My entire world had been flipped upside down. Yet, nothing had really changed. It was just something else that made my reality all the more crushing.
I shrugged. “You just reminded me of something. That’s all.”
Outside, the sky had darkened another shade, wind tossing branches against the shop windows that weren’t yet covered.
Main Street was alive with activity—people carrying supplies home, hammering boards, and calling across the street to one another.
A current pulsed in the air, equal parts fear and excitement.
It reminded me of festival mornings, except instead of the sweet smell of pie, there was the hum of impending thunder.
???
By noon, the rain had picked up, and with it, the town’s energy.
Rhett drove us in his truck down to a bigger hardware store outside the Cove, where we loaded sandbags for more shop owners.
Margot forced me to sit in the middle, where my thigh brushed against his at every bump.
I shoved my hands between my knees to keep our fingers from accidentally touching.
Back in town, we distributed the bags to everyone who needed it and helped the more elderly shop owners position them outside. My arms screamed in protest, but each drop and each heft felt like a contribution to what really mattered.
If I was going to make speeches about how special the community was, then I wouldn’t back down now.
“I forgot how fast we pull together in an emergency,” I said, brushing wet hair from my face.
Rhett, lifting another bag onto his shoulder, smiled faintly. “Always has.”
My chest ached as he lugged two bags to the Market, where Mr. Henderson waited by his boarded up window. Did he know? Had he remembered that entire time that we’d already met? I shook my thoughts away and reached for another sandbag.
???
Dusk fell and the sky turned the color of old bruises. The first real crack of thunder rolled across the water, shaking the ground beneath our feet.
Rhett dropped me at home just as the rain began to come down in sheets, slamming against the shuttered windows with a force that made my stomach twist. I could hear Easton howling from the street.
Rhett helped me to the sidewalk. “You’ll be safe here,” he said, voice steady even as the wind howled and whipped around us.
I wanted to believe him—to hold onto the warmth of his presence, and the way that everyone in Bluebell Cove felt like a human safety net.
We walked up the steps of my porch. A lock of Rhett’s hair hung in front of his eyes and dripped down his chin. He gave up on a jacket hours ago, so his t-shirt was completely soaked with sweat, rain, and patches of sand here and there.
Eerily similar to the Rhett that arrived on Marigold’s doorstep fifteen years ago.
Rhett’s jaw tensed, and when he stepped closer to me, I didn’t move away. The hope that shone in his eyes made my chest tight. “Will you be okay here alone?”
Alone. I could practically feel a piece of my heart chip off already.
“Yeah,” I murmured, entranced by the way his gaze danced over my face. “Thanks for your help today, Rhett.”
My pulse thumped violently at the base of my throat. I wanted to ask him if he knew we’d met before. I wanted to ask if I’d ever see him again. But the words refused to come out, because deep down, I was too scared to hear the answer.
His face fell as I stepped away and unlocked my door.
As I jostled the knob open, Rhett’s words were so low that I almost missed them: “See you later, Georgie.”
I hurried inside as a wave of nausea hit me like a truck full of bricks. Easton immediately began whining and shoving his face into my palm, and I slipped down to the floor, welcoming the distraction. The lights flickered again. Easton flopped into my lap and trembled.
Later, as I lit another candle for the living room, I couldn’t shake the truth seeping into the edges of my mind.
When I woke up, it would be the day of the Summer’s End Festival.
Either Bluebell Cove would be sodden and flooded, or I would be right, and a decades-long town tradition would be preserved.
No pressure.