Epilogue
A month later, I stood in that same shop, staring at the wooden sign that swung in the wind outside. Customers milled through the displays, chattering to each other every so often.
I still hadn’t gotten used to that—people wanted to buy something I made. Some days, it felt like I could barely keep up with demand. That was strange enough in itself, but it turned out, life in Bluebell Cove just seemed to get stranger by the month.
Margot strode through the door wearing loose trousers and a sweater. She paused, lowered her sunglasses with a single nail, and strutted toward me. “You’ve really gotta get rid of that sign.”
“Rhett made it,” I replied, glancing outside with a wistful smile. “It was a romantic gesture. I’m not just going to throw it away.”
Admittedly, it was bright yellow—an homage to our day in his workshop—and the lettering looked a little like a first grader was hopped up on sugar and broke into the paints. But every time I saw it, I remembered that night.
“Romantic gesture or not, it’s ugly,” Margot replied. She pushed her glasses back on her head and slid my drink toward me. “And I’m pretty sure it’s scaring the customers away.”
I laughed and rolled my eyes, shooing her away as a young girl ambled up to the counter.
“Excuse me, did you say that your sign was a romantic gesture?” She set a mug down as I nodded. “Oh my, that’s just so— so—”
“Romantic?” Margot finished flatly, watching her from behind a coffee cup.
The girl didn’t seem to mind, instead launching into a sparkly-eyed story of the boy she liked back at home.
I wrapped her mug and rang her up, tucking a business card in the bag and telling her to come back and give me updates the next time she visited Bluebell Cove.
Margot waited for the bell to chime as the door closed before speaking again.
“So,” she said, “When are you going to hire some help?”
A burst of excitement unraveled in my chest. Not long ago, I thought I would be going down with the Marigold’s ship, and now I was so busy with Georgie’s that I needed help.
I leaned on the counter and hummed. “Let’s see—I believe my best friend Margot is still in town and unemployed.”
“Hey now, uncalled for,” she quipped, but the corner of her maroon lips lifted.
“I don’t really have a retail personality.
I’m more suited for—” Pausing, she snapped her fingers and mock-gasped at the flyers on my counter.
“Would you look at that? The Fallfest is coming up, and as it turns out, your favorite assistant is still available.”
“Oh really?” I pursed my lips and studied my cuticles, pretending to think about it.
“You’re ridiculous,” she muttered.
Laughing, I took a long swig of my drink and set it down with a sigh. “Of course I’m kidding. And it will sorta be a bit of a reunion!”
Margot looked uncharacteristically confused.
“Well, you know the Summer’s End Festival got all sorts of press coverage thanks to the Governor.” She nodded, so I continued: “And as it turns out, Travel and Taste wants to cover Fallfest! It’ll be a whole spread, and supposedly it’ll make tourism skyrocket—”
“Travel and Taste?” Margot interrupted, face blank.
“Oh, right. You might not know. Teddy works there now as their travel photographer.”
She paled, her lips parting but no sound leaving them. I frowned.
Her sunglasses slid back over her eyes, shielding whatever flickered there. “Well. Isn’t that… interesting.”
And with that, she strutted out the door like a woman headed for battle.
“Is everything okay, Margot?”
I trailed her outside, eyebrows stitched together, and watched as she marched straight to the diner and disappeared. They had dated in high school, but it was so brief and she never mentioned it again. I made a mental note to pry some more later.
“Everything okay, Georgette?” Joe asked, braids gathered on his head as he swept the stoop.
“Yeah…” My eyes lingered on the doors to Captain’s for a moment longer before I turned to him, wrapping my cardigan tighter against the creeping autumn chill. “How’s business?”
He smiled. “Booming. You really didn’t have to share that grant with me.”
“We all deserved it,” I replied, “But I’m glad I could help.”
“Well, you’ll never believe it—” He leaned closer and dropped his voice to a whisper, as though his next words were unfavorable.
“They’re loving the romance section. Turns out you’re not the only one, Miss Wheeler.
” Joe paused and squinted at me. “But how much longer will it be Miss Wheeler, I wonder?”
A furious blush colored my cheeks.
“Not as long as I can help it,” A voice behind me answered, before I was swept backward into two strong arms.
“Don’t encourage the gossips,” I hissed at Rhett and twisted in his hold. “Next thing you know, they’re all going to think we’re engaged.”
He lifted a brow at me, eyes glittering. “Why is that a bad thing?”
My cheeks flamed, stomach doing an acrobatic routine. I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him, tossing our PDA rule to the wind. When we broke away, my eyes caught on that familiar doorway, and all the moments I’d forgotten played in my memory.
I couldn’t believe that it had slipped my mind.
Straightening his collar, I said, “Can I ask you a question?”
“Are you about to drop down on a knee and propose, Wheeler?” That wide, lopsided grin nearly undid me.
“No.” I smacked his chest and sucked in a breath. “The morning we met in Marigold’s to talk about the booths—that wasn’t the first time you’d been in there, was it?”
His eyes softened as he tucked an errant curl behind my ear. “I was wondering if you’d ever remember.”
Something squeezed my chest as I thought back to that night fifteen years ago, when I stood not far from where I was now and watched my grandmother meet our guardian angel. The memory slipped into place with startling clarity, and tears blurred my vision before I could stop them.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Rhett murmured, gently wiping my face.
“You met my grandmother,” I whispered. My voice wobbled. “She thought she’d never get to meet the man I ended up with… but she did.”
Rhett’s arms closed around me. He didn’t speak, just held me until my tears quieted, and in the silence I felt something settle—as though all the threads of my life had finally tied themselves together.
When I pulled back at last, he was smiling at me, goofy and crooked. “So you’re going to end up with me, huh?”
“Oh, of course that’s what you got from that,” I said, rolling my eyes as I turned toward Georgie’s.
But he caught my wrist and pulled me back against his chest with a thud.
“This feels oddly familiar,” I whispered, biting back a grin as he tilted my chin up with his fingers.
“Hey, Wheeler?”
“Yeah?”
“I love you,” he said, the words falling out like they’d been waiting all along.
For a heartbeat, the world went still. Then I smiled, because the answer had always been there, waiting too.
“I love you,” I whispered back. Not the fleeting kind, not the break-your-heart kind.
The staying kind.