38. Elodie
THIRTY-EIGHT
ELODIE
The Drifted Spirit smelled like butter and cinnamon and a little bit of chaos.
I stood at the far end of the wide farmhouse kitchen, elbow-deep in a bowl of biscuit dough and wearing one of Cal’s spare aprons. The hem brushed my knees, and the strings were looped twice around my waist, tied in a bow that kept coming undone.
“Flour’s in the bin under the counter,” Helen called from behind the stovetop, where she was managing three sizzling cast-iron pans with the grace and precision of a woman who’d been raised on Sunday brunch and strong coffee.
I could feel the warmth of the oven at my back and the cool marble counter under my fingertips.
The scent of clove and rising dough clung to my sleeves, the kind of comfort that made you close your eyes and just breathe.
“I found it,” I said, brushing a rogue curl out of my face with the back of my hand. A smudge of flour ended up across my cheek, but I didn’t bother to wipe it away.
We’d already served the first wave of guests—retired teachers from Kalamazoo who’d eaten their weight in pecan waffles and maple-glazed sausage—and now we were prepping for round two.
There were a few late sleepers trickling down from their rooms upstairs, and Helen said we might as well keep the griddle going.
The morning light filtered through the kitchen windows, catching in the hanging copper pots and the glass canisters lined up like sentries on the counter. It was peaceful. The kind of slow, cozy morning that felt stitched together by hand.
Cal had been at the hospital since dawn, checking on Wes. The surgery had gone as well as it could have, but healing didn’t follow a timeline, and I knew he was still struggling to wrap his mind around it.
I missed him, but it wasn’t the restless, aching kind of missing. It was softer now. Steady.
Because I knew he’d be back.
Because he’d told me he loved me. And I believed him. There was a quiet strength in being loved out loud. Not begged for. Not bargained. Just ... offered, freely. I hadn’t known how much I needed that until Cal gave it to me.
“How are the biscuits coming?” Helen asked, sliding a golden waffle onto a plate and topping it with a dollop of honey butter.
“They’re going to be ugly,” I warned, lifting a misshapen lump of dough onto the baking sheet.
“As long as they taste good.” Helen gave me a wink.
We worked in tandem for a while, moving around each other like we’d done this a hundred times. She passed me the jam without asking, and I restocked the clean mugs by the coffee bar while she flipped bacon with a practiced flick of her wrist.
There was something grounding about mornings like this. The scent of yeast and fruit preserves. The hum of conversation from the front porch. The sound of the kettle whistling in the background.
I loved everything about it.
“Hey, Helen?” I asked.
She turned, lifting a brow. “Mm?”
“I think I want to keep looking into her.”
Helen wiped her hands on a dish towel, then leaned a hip against the counter. “Into who, dear?”
“The woman,” I said. “The Lady of the Dunes. I can’t stop thinking about her. What if we’ve been telling the wrong story all along?”
Helen’s expression shifted. Not surprised, exactly. Just thoughtful. “What makes you say that?”
“I keep circling back to that letter I found in the trunk,” I said, lowering my voice even though we were alone. “The one that said ‘meet me at the lighthouse’ and ‘he is watching.’ Everyone says she was Alma Lovell, but what if she wasn’t?”
Helen frowned. “What do you mean?”
“What if Alma’s last name wasn’t Lovell?
” I said, the words tumbling out. My fingers gripped the edge of the counter, knuckles whitening.
I couldn’t help but feel as though this wasn’t just about solving a mystery, but about setting something right.
It was about finishing the story of a woman who never got to write her ending.
“What if her last name was really Barker?”
Helen frowned again, deep in thought. “The locket had the initials A.L. That piece doesn’t really fit.”
“It fits if the locket was a gift from her future husband. Maybe it was an engagement gift or a token of their future life together.” My mind was swirling with possibilities. “The engagement announcement you had shown me never listed a last name for her. It only said Alma and William Lovell .”
Helen’s eyes widened just slightly, and then she looked past me toward the hallway, like she was seeing all of the old ghost stories in a strange, new light.
“Alma could have been one of the Barker children,” she murmured. “Now that’s an interesting angle.”
“You even said there wasn’t much known about them, right?” I asked. “They lived here, in the Drifted Spirit, and at one time the inn and the farm were part of the same land. What if Alma was their daughter, had some kind of secret lover, and she hid the trunk in the root cellar in the barn?”
“You’re right about that.” Helen nodded slowly.
“The Barker children were a boy and a girl. Or, at least, that’s what the old records and photographs tell us.
A lot of those details are spotty at best. But there was always some speculation about what happened to the children after the family moved away. ”
I set the tray of biscuits aside, my pulse kicking up. “I know it sounds like a wild theory, but something about it just ... fits.”
Helen studied me, then smiled—soft and proud. “Well, if anyone can give the Lady’s story a real ending, I suppose it’s you.”
I blinked. “You don’t think it’s silly?”
“Honey.” She shook her head. “Half the people who come to Star Harbor do so because of that ghost story. But you’re the only one who’s ever cared about the real woman behind it. I think that says something.”
I swallowed, the warmth of her words hitting harder than I expected.
“If you want to dig, then dig,” she added. “There are old albums in the storage room—stuff from before the inn was even the Drifted Spirit. Who knows what you’ll find.”
I stepped forward and hugged her on impulse, flour and all.
She made a grumpy sound but hugged me back. “Just don’t burn the biscuits.”
I laughed. “Noted.”
As we pulled apart, Helen returned to the stove. “So how’s your mystery investor working out?”
I scrunched my nose. “Cal told you?”
Helen’s smile softened as she nodded. “He’s so happy for you.”
I swallowed hard. The past few days were a whirlwind of paperwork and deadlines and dreams coming true, but I was also still wrapping my brain around the fact that if all went according to plan, Star Harbor Farm would be mine.
Well, ours .
I still had one last trick up my sleeve and was relieved Cal had been occupied at the hospital with Wes. I didn’t need him getting suspicious. Despite calling JP at 2:15 in the morning, he’d taken my call and seemed just as on board with my idea as ever.
“What can I say about JP King?” I turned to grab the tray, my stomach doing a little somersault as I tamped down my giddiness. “He’s ... professional. Generous. A little intimidating. He’s not the least bit worried that someone will outbid us at the auction.”
“He can freeze hell with one look, that one.” Helen chuckled. “He came out here before, you know.”
I paused, my face scrunching. “He did?”
She flipped the last of the bacon, not looking at me. “Yeah, not too long ago. Cal’s financial adviser set up the meeting, I think. He said he wanted to see the place. I didn’t think much of it—figured he was considering investing in the inn.”
I went completely still. The tray in my hands felt suddenly too heavy, the room around me too quiet. A spark lit in my chest—something that felt like disbelief, followed by a swell of knowing so visceral I nearly dropped the biscuits. The breath caught in my lungs.
“Wait a minute,” I said carefully, setting the tray back down. “JP King was here before I ever met him?”
Helen nodded. “Mm-hmm. Can’t mistake that looker. Tall. Crisp shirt hiding some muscles. Fancy shoes. Not the type we usually see out here.”
My heart thudded once. Twice. “And you said Cal’s adviser sent him?”
“Pretty sure. Mentioned something about food ventures or hospitality investments.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Why?”
But I didn’t answer—I couldn’t—because my brain was already sprinting ahead—connecting the dots, one by one.
Cal.
He had known.
He’d known all along that JP had the power to help me. JP’s offer hadn’t been luck or fate or some happy accident.
It had been Callum.
And he’d never said a word.
The kettle screamed behind me, a shrill whistle that yanked me back to the present.
I turned it off with a trembling hand and stared out the window, past the orchard, past the barn, to the land that had somehow become home.
He hadn’t done it for credit.
He’d done it for me.
Just quiet, radical love in the background of my life. I pressed a hand to my sternum, like maybe I could hold my heart in place before it split open entirely. I had never loved him more than I did in that exact moment.
“Are you okay?” Helen called, but I was already moving out of the kitchen, desperate for air.
A breeze rolled in from the lake, rustling through the orchard behind me. I turned toward the barn, now glowing soft and blue in the late-morning sun, and felt the full weight of what I’d just learned settle over me like a blanket of starlight.
The man I loved had given up his dream to protect mine.
I closed my eyes and let the emotions wash over me—gratitude, awe, and something deeper. Something that tasted like wonder. Like coming home to the kind of love I hadn’t believed existed.
He saw me. All of me. And he chose to lift me up anyway.
As soon as I walked out of the kitchen, I saw him.
Fresh from the hospital, Cal was already wielding an axe, grunting and ripping down the fence between the Drifted Spirit and the cottage.