The Harbor Cove Fiancé (Harbor Cove Hearts #1)

The Banner Comes Loose

Emily

Emily Hart had one hand locked around her clipboard, the other pressed to her phone, and a funnel-cake vendor threatening to quit before she had even finished her first coffee.

“No, Benny, your deposit isn't gone,” she said, stepping over a coil of orange extension cord as the banner snapped above the festival arch like a sail trying to make a break for open water.

“It is temporarily delayed behind the insurance rider, the stage repair estimate, and one very irritated fire marshal.”

“That sounds like gone with extra steps,” Benny Kline said.

“It sounds like Monday.”

A metal grommet popped free. The left side of the sponsor banner dropped and slapped Tyler Bell, Harbor Cove High’s most eager and least balanced volunteer, across the face. Tyler staggered backward into a crate of paper lanterns.

Emily lowered the phone. “Tyler, freeze.”

“I’m frozen,” Tyler said from inside the lanterns.

“You’re rolling downhill.”

“I’m frozen emotionally.”

The banner slid another foot. Atlantic Coast Community Bank now hung over the entrance to the festival grounds at an angle that made the town’s anchor sponsor look less like a proud supporter of coastal tradition and more like a business abandoning ship.

Given the email Emily had printed at 6:02 that morning and tucked beneath her vendor map, that visual wasn't helpful.

She put the phone back to her ear. “Benny, I need twelve minutes.”

“You said that twenty minutes ago.”

“Then I’ve been consistent.”

“Emily.” His voice softened in the way Harbor Cove voices did when concern wanted to borrow judgment’s coat. “I’ve got oil, dough, sugar, staff, and a truck that needs a guarantee before Friday. I like you. I liked your dad. But liking people doesn’t pay my niece to work the booth.”

Emily looked across the damp festival grounds.

The main stage sat half-assembled near the seawall.

Folding chairs were stacked under blue tarps.

The lighthouse beyond the marina blinked through morning haze.

Main Street had already hung its summer bunting, every ribbon depending on a festival scheduled to open next Monday.

Seven days.

Friday at five was the gate. Monday was the cliff.

“I know,” she said. “I’m getting you an answer today.”

“Today today or Harbor Cove today?”

“Before lunch.”

He made a sound like he was deciding whether to believe her because of their history or despite it. “Before lunch, then.”

The call ended as the banner’s right corner gave up.

“Everybody back!” Emily called.

Aunt Mabel, who wasn't technically a volunteer because no committee had ever survived putting her on paper, moved closer instead. She had a tote bag full of registration forms, a sun visor embroidered with FESTIVAL CREW, and the investigative instincts of a raccoon in a locked bakery.

“Is that supposed to happen?” she asked.

“Yes,” Emily said. “We added a dramatic reveal this year. Very modern.”

Mrs. Alvarez from the bakery table snorted. Pete Mercer, who ran the marina booth and believed all problems could be solved with rope, was already pulling a ladder from the back of his truck.

“Don’t use that ladder,” Emily said.

Pete glanced at it. “It’s a ladder.”

“It is a lawsuit with rungs.”

“It’s held me for twenty years.”

“So has your cholesterol, and I’m not building a festival plan around that either.”

Mrs. Alvarez laughed hard enough to rattle the tray of almond croissants she had brought as either a bribe or a warning.

Emily made a note to thank her later, assuming the concept of later survived the morning.

Right now, the banner had finished collapsing, the sponsor’s logo lay in the mud, and Grant Whitaker had chosen that exact moment to arrive in polished loafers that had never met wet grass without filing a complaint.

“Emily,” Grant said, pausing beneath the tilted arch as if posing for the before photo of her professional collapse. “Rough morning?”

“No rougher than any other Monday one week before the festival.”

His smile looked sympathetic from a distance. Up close, it had edges. Grant owned Whitaker Hospitality, three vacation rentals, two parking lots, and the ability to make civic concern sound like a takeover bid.

“I heard Benny is nervous,” he said.

“Benny is communicative.”

“And the stage permit?”

“Being handled.”

“Insurance?”

“Handled.”

“Bank review?”

Emily’s fingers tightened around the clipboard before she could stop them. Grant noticed. Men like Grant treated other people’s flinches as data.

“The sponsor confidence review is a standard procedure,” she said.

“A Friday emergency review sounds very standard.”

Aunt Mabel made a small pleased noise. That sentence would be available at the café within fifteen minutes.

Emily smiled. Her mouth had gone dry. “Grant, unless you brought a replacement banner, a certified electrician, or the missing pledge from the Harbor Merchants Association, I’m going to ask you to stand somewhere that isn't directly inside my morning.”

“I brought perspective.”

“Unfortunately, we’re overstocked.”

Mrs. Alvarez covered another laugh with a cough.

Grant didn't bother looking embarrassed. “The town board meets at ten. People are worried. They want reassurance that the festival is bigger than one person’s pride.”

There it was. Wrapped in civic ribbon, still a knife.

The Harbor Cove Summer Festival had been her father’s favorite week of the year.

When he ran the music tent, he forgot invoices, overpaid teenagers, undercounted chairs, and somehow made every visiting family feel as if the town had been expecting them personally.

After he died, the committee had become careful around Emily in that sticky way people got when grief and competence became community property.

She had spent three years proving she could be the person with the answers.

This week, the answers kept growing teeth.

“It isn’t pride,” she said. “It’s a schedule.”

Grant’s gaze dropped to her clipboard. “Schedules can be revised.”

“Not when the stage rental is locked, vendors arrive Saturday, the parade permits are printed, and every room from here to Blue Heron Bay is booked because visitors assume Harbor Cove knows how to open its own festival.”

“Exactly my concern.”

The first fat drop of rain landed on the bank logo in the mud.

Emily looked up at the sky. “No.”

The sky, having never once respected a committee chair, answered with another drop.

Chloe Rivera jogged across the grass from Main Street with two coffees, a canvas bag, and the expression of a woman who had already heard three versions of the morning and rejected all of them as underdeveloped.

“I leave you alone for eighteen minutes,” Chloe said, handing Emily a cup, “and the bank falls down.”

“The bank is resting.”

“Face-first.”

“It’s doing its best.”

Chloe glanced at Grant. “Morning, Grant. Love the shoes. Brave choice for wet grass.”

Grant gave her a tight nod. Chloe had the local privilege of being liked by nearly everyone and intimidated by almost no one. Her café fed half the town, employed the other half’s teenagers, and served coffee strong enough to revive dead committees.

“We have a board meeting at ten,” Grant said.

“We?” Emily asked.

“I’m attending as a concerned business owner.”

“Of course.”

“And because several board members asked me to present an alternative stabilization plan if needed.”

Pete Mercer stopped wrestling with the ladder. Mrs. Alvarez stopped rearranging napkins. Aunt Mabel stopped pretending not to listen.

Emily took one careful sip of coffee so her hands would be busy doing something other than making a fist.

“An alternative plan,” she said.

“Only if the sponsor situation worsens.” Grant’s voice gentled for public use. “No one wants to see the festival fail.”

“No,” Chloe said. “Some people want to be photographed saving it.”

Grant’s smile flickered. “Careful, Chloe.”

“Always.” She looked at the fallen banner. “Emily, we need that logo out of the mud before someone takes a picture.”

Too late.

Aunt Mabel’s phone was already up.

“Mabel,” Emily said.

“What? It’s for the volunteer archive.”

“You don’t have a volunteer archive.”

“I could start one.”

“Delete it.”

Mabel lowered the phone, wounded. “Fine. But if the Gazette asks why I failed to document local history, I’m naming names.”

The Gazette. Perfect. Emily checked her own phone and found four unread texts, two missed calls, and one email notification from Atlantic Coast Community Bank. The subject line made her stomach fold itself into something small and efficient.

Re: Friday Confidence Review Materials

She opened it because not opening it wouldn't make it less real.

Dear Ms. Hart,

Following this morning’s site concerns and pending board discussion, Atlantic Coast Community Bank requests the attached stabilization plan, updated vendor payment schedule, insurance confirmation, and community leadership statement no later than Friday at 5:00 p.m. Sponsorship release remains conditional upon review.

Conditional.

Such a polite word for a trapdoor.

Chloe read over her shoulder and went quiet.

Grant didn't need to see the email. He saw their faces. “That’s unfortunate.”

“It’s administrative,” Emily said.

“It’s leverage.”

“It’s private.”

“It’s predictable.” He folded his hands in front of him. “Emily, you’re excellent at details. No one doubts that. But this isn’t a checklist problem anymore. This is confidence. Optics. Capital. The festival needs someone with broader reach.”

“And I suppose that someone wears loafers.”

“I suppose that someone can pick up a phone and reassure the bank.”

Chloe’s eyes narrowed. “Or reassure them into owning the stage, the parking, and half the vendor contracts.”

Grant sighed. “This town treats business sense like a crime until the invoice arrives.”

Emily’s phone buzzed again. Benny, probably. Or the electrician. Or the universe asking whether now was a good time to drop a gull on her head.