Chapter 26
Cole heard Julie’s car on the gravel driveway at half past ten.
Setting his glasses on the table, he went to the door before she got a chance to knock.
A week after being discharged from the hospital, the bone-weary tiredness that he’d felt wasn’t any better. Concentrating on anything was nearly impossible, reading had become a chore.
For the last forty minutes, he’d been staring at the same page of a document, trying to piece together the recommendations that didn’t make a lot of sense.
The only good thing to come out of his time at the hospital was a delay in the hearing and their investors who were willing to give them another few weeks to get the resort back on track.
He opened the front door and smiled. Julie was coming up the path with a basket in her hands, and her jacket unzipped despite the cold.
“You don’t have to keep checking on me,” he said.
“I know. Maria gave me more soup. I’m still trying to get through the first container, so I thought you might like some.”
Cole stepped back and let her in.
She moved through his cottage without making a production of it, shrugging off her jacket, putting the soup in the fridge. She glanced once at the blanket on the sofa and said nothing about it.
Cole had pulled it out at nine that morning and felt mortified about it ever since.
Not because of the blanket itself, but because it was evidence of something he was still adjusting to.
The fact that his body had become a thing that required management.
That he could no longer do everything he wanted to.
He lowered himself into the chair at the kitchen table. His movements were deliberate in a way that still caught him off guard. “James arrives tomorrow for his second visit,” he said as Julie sat opposite him.
She handed him a cookie from the basket. “I know. Noah told me.”
Cole wasn’t surprised. Whether he wanted it or not, a safety net had formed around him where everyone seemed to know what he was doing before he did. “I told him it wasn’t necessary. He only saw me last week at the hospital.”
“He’s coming because he cares about you. You’ve got plenty of room for him to stay here, so it’s a win-win for everyone.”
Cole looked at his hands. “That’s what he said, too. Did Noah tell you about Penny Terry, too?”
Julie shook her head. “Is she Mabel’s daughter?”
“She is. Noah spoke to her this morning and she’s going to provide us with bridging finance to keep the resort on track.”
Julie’s mouth dropped open. “That’s wonderful news. Does that mean you don’t have to use your own money?”
He wished it did, but at least they’d have the funds to keep the bank and their suppliers happy. “I’ll still have to use some of my savings, but it takes a lot of the financial pressure off Noah and me.”
Julie frowned. “You don’t seem as excited by the news as I thought.”
Cole picked up his glasses and turned them over. “We still can’t do any work at Finley Point until the suspension is over. To make it worse, the doctors don’t want me to do any work for another four weeks.”
Julie said nothing.
“I know Noah can look after everything.” Cole looked up. “He’s been managing most of it for months. I’m just worried about the project. Even though the site is closed, there’s still a mountain of work to do.”
“He can handle it,” Julie told him gently.
Cole took a deep breath. “I’m not sure what four weeks of not working looks like. What do I do with myself? Who I am when I’m not—” He stopped again.
Julie held his gaze. “It probably looks like sitting at this table, doing exactly what you’re already doing, and trusting Noah to call you if he needs help.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he said. “I’m not used to sitting still, waiting for something to happen.”
“I know.”
He let that settle. Outside, the wind moved through the pines along the back of the property and went quiet again. “Beth sent a casserole,” he said.
“She mentioned it.”
“And before that, Maria came with some chicken pasta salad and stood in my kitchen until I’d eaten half of it.” He paused. “She pulled up a chair and sat there while I ate.”
Julie shrugged. “She’s like that. It’s her way of telling you she cares.”
“I know that now.” Cole set his glasses down.
The last couple of days had been so different from his usual routine, that it was hard to describe how it made him feel. He’d been surprised when Beth had left the casserole at his door with a handwritten note tucked under the lid
Since he’d been home, Pastor John had called to check on him twice. Even Noah had stayed an extra hour after he’d been discharged from the hospital to make sure he had what he needed.
“I’ve never had people do this,” Cole told Julie softly. “Not like this. Not showing up without being asked.” His throat tightened unexpectedly. “I don’t know what to do with it.”
Cole had built things across four decades and seven states. He’d sat across from investors, commissioners, and lawyers and held himself together through worse than this by a considerable margin.
But Beth’s handwritten note had brought tears to his eyes. It was still on his kitchen counter, and he hadn’t moved it.
When Julie spoke, her voice was level and careful in the way it got when she was offering something that mattered. “You just let people help,” she said. “That’s all.”
He looked at her. He understood, from the way she said it, that she was telling him something she’d had to learn herself. That she wasn’t speaking from the outside of this feeling, but from somewhere inside it.
Cole reached across the table and rested his hand near hers. Not quite touching, but close enough.
She turned her hand over. He held it, and the tightness in his throat didn’t go away, but it changed into something that was easier to carry.
“I keep thinking I should be past this by now,” he said. “It’s been two days and I’ve barely managed to get dressed before eight.”
“You had a serious procedure on your heart,” Julie said. “Your body is doing the hard work right now so you can go back to work later. In another week, you’ll be frustrated you can’t do more, and in four weeks you’ll drive back to Finley Point and wonder what you were so worried about.”
Cole sighed. “That all sounds too easy. How do you know that will happen?”
Julie met his gaze. “Because you don’t leave things unfinished.”
Cole looked at their joined hands, at the table, at the unremarkable kitchen of a cottage he’d rented for a year and somehow started to think of as his. “Thank you,” he said. “For being here. For all of it.”
Julie didn’t wave off his words. She just nodded, and that was enough.