25. Nolan
Chapter Twenty-Five
NOLAN
The problem with finally having something to lose is that fear starts shaping every decision before you even realize it’s happening.
And lately?
Fear is everywhere.
It lives in repair estimates, insurance calls, storm projections, investor emails waiting unanswered in my inbox at two in the morning.
But worst of all?
It’s started living inside my relationship too.
Those thoughts run on repeat in my mind Monday morning while I stand in the marina office staring at architectural renderings spread across the desk.
Luxury expansion concepts.
Private membership docks.
Upscale restaurant redesigns.
Corporate marina branding.
Everything about the plans feels wrong.
Polished.
Expensive.
Soulless.
Like somebody took the heart out of Coral Bell Cove and replaced it with money.
Yet—the financial projections underneath those renderings would secure the marina for years.
That’s the dangerous part.
Fear makes compromise sound responsible.
The office door opens suddenly behind me. I flip the renderings closed instinctively, but it’s too late. Walter Greene catches enough of the glossy proposal pages to stop walking entirely.
The silence afterward feels heavy.
“What’s that?” he asks.
I lean back against the desk, trying to look less guilty than I feel.
“Nothing finalized.”
Wrong answer. I know it from the look on Walter’s face.
He walks farther into the office.
“Pierce.”
Christ. Not the disappointed older-man voice. Anything but that.
I scrub one hand down my jaw roughly.
“It’s exploratory.”
Walter stares at me for one long second.
“You considering selling out the marina?”
The bluntness hits hard because somewhere deep down, part of me already fears that’s exactly what this looks like.
“No.”
The answer comes too fast. Too defensive.
Walter notices.
Without warning, exhaustion crashes through me because I genuinely don’t know where the line exists between saving the marina and changing it into something unrecognizable.
Walter studies me before asking, “What’s really going on?”
The office door opens again before I can answer. Holt steps halfway inside carrying a grease-stained toolbox.
“Forgot this.”
He stops, looks between us, then looks at me again.
“Bad timing?”
Walter snorts.
“Depends.”
Holt studies my face for another second, then says,
“She’s quieter.”
I blink.
“What?”
“Hadley.”
Silence. He rests one hand on the toolbox.
“She still laughs.”
Another beat.
“Just not as much.”
His voice stays calm. Matter-of-fact. Almost gentle.
“You notice things like that when you’ve shared a birthday with somebody for thirty-one years.”
He sets the toolbox beside the door.
“Anyway.”
He nods once toward Walter. “See you later.” Then he leaves.
Walter waits until the door closes. “You gonna tell me what’s going on now?”
I look toward the marina windows.
Bright morning sunlight spills across the docks outside while charter crews prep boats for the day. Tourists wander the boardwalk carrying coffees and beach bags while gulls drift lazily above Back Bay.
The marina feels alive this morning. Yet I’m sitting here, surrounded by corporate expansion plans, and guilt crawls up my spine.
“I’m running out of options,” I admit.
Walter’s demeanor transforms. Concern replaces suspicion.
“How bad?”
I laugh once under my breath.
Humorless.
“Bad enough that I’m finally starting to understand why people make deals they hate.”
The truth tastes just as nasty on my tongue as it sounds in my ears.
Walter folds his arms. “You told the Wright girl about this?”
Guilt punches straight through me. She knows enough, but not everything.
“I told her the finances were complicated.”
Walter closes his eyes briefly. “Jesus Christ.”
I look away toward the marina again because the shame sits too heavily beneath my ribs to survive eye contact.
“I didn’t want to scare her.”
“There it is.”
I glance back sharply.
Walter gestures vaguely toward me.
“That thing you do when you decide protecting people matters more than telling them the truth.”
Christ. Hadley said almost the exact same thing.
Walter leans one hand against the office doorframe.
“You know what’s gonna happen if she finds out you’re seriously considering this from somebody else?”
Fear flashes through my chest. Sharp and immediate.
The guilt twists harder.
“I’m still thinking,” I mutter weakly.
Walter looks profoundly unimpressed.
“No, son.” His voice lowers. “You’re spiraling.”
I’ve become so terrified of losing everything that I’m starting to make decisions from panic instead of clarity.
My phone buzzes against the desk, and warmth spreads through my chest anyway.
Hadley
Lunch later? I’m tired of staring at permits.
A helpless laugh escapes me before I can stop it.
I love her so much it physically hurts.
Walter notices my inner turmoil.
“There he is,” he mutters.
I glance up. “What?”
“The idiot who actually knows what matters.”
Unfortunately, I’m not sure that’s true anymore.
By Wednesday afternoon, exhaustion weighs so heavily beneath my skin that even walking into the bookstore feels harder than it should.
Rain clouds gather low over Back Bay outside the lighthouse windows while humid coastal air presses through the open doors.
Storm weather again.
The marina’s been tense all week because of it.
I step inside A Page in Time during the lunch hour, carrying rain-damp tension, as if it physically weighs something. Then my eyes find Hadley.
She stands behind the café counter, unpacking books beside Bailey while the late afternoon light warms the rich brown of her hair.
“Hey,” I say.
Her face lights up with a subtle warmth.
Even scared, she still looks relieved to see me. “Hey.”
Bailey watches us, her expression heavy with the weariness of someone trapped in a romance novel that isn’t her own. “I’m leaving.”
Neither Hadley nor I look away from each other.
“Coward,” Hadley mutters.
“Correct.”
Then Bailey ascends the stairs with zero subtlety whatsoever.
Silence settles between us afterward, as if we both sense something fragile beneath this conversation.
I lean one forearm against the counter.
“You busy later?”
The question sounds normal, almost too much so, and the second I say it, I realize Hadley notices.
She notices everything.
Fear curls low in my stomach.
“I can be,” she answers.
My jaw tightens before I can stop it.
I exhale toward the floor.
“Nolan.”
My eyes close briefly.
Without knowing the reason, I’m overwhelmingly aware that she’s going to dislike whatever I’m about to say.
I glance toward the lighthouse windows overlooking the bay before finally speaking. “The investor group wants another meeting Friday.”
“And?”
I force myself to meet her eyes. “They expanded the offer.” Every nerve in my body tightens.
“How?”
I hesitate too long. “They want partial redevelopment rights.”
The entire bookstore feels too quiet afterward. Too small. My pulse pounds unevenly while dread crawls cold beneath my skin.
“Redevelopment,” Hadley repeats carefully.
I drag one hand down my jaw roughly. “Higher-end expansion. Membership access. Resort partnerships.”
Every word tastes worse out loud because I know exactly how this sounds. Not like saving the marina. Like dismantling it with prettier branding.
And suddenly fear shifts. Not fear of losing the marina. Fear of losing the way Hadley looks at me.
“What did you say?” she asks.
My silence answers first.
The moment her face falls, a sharp pang of guilt shoots through me.
Because there it is. The thing she’s been afraid of for weeks.
I’m considering it.
“Nolan.” Her voice stays soft, and that makes this infinitely worse.
“I’m trying to keep the marina alive,” I say quickly.
Emotion flashes unexpectedly across her face. “I know that.”
“Then why does it sound like you think I’m betraying something?”
The question leaves me rougher than intended.
But the awful truth?
Part of me already thinks that too.
When Hadley finally speaks again, her voice hurts more than anger would have.
“I think you’re so scared of losing this place that you’re starting to forget why you loved it in the first place.”
The words hit hard enough to physically still me.
She’s right. Not necessarily about the deal itself, but about me. About the fear.
I stare at Hadley across the bookstore counter while storm clouds darken outside the lighthouse windows.
And for the first time in weeks, I realize fear has already started changing me.
Hadley’s words follow me out of the bookstore like a wound I can’t stop touching. I don’t head straight back to the marina. Instead, I wander toward the public docks, letting my feet decide where to go while my brain refuses to quiet down.
The town feels painfully ordinary around me. Kids race down the sidewalk carrying melting ice cream cones. A couple argues good-naturedly over where to eat dinner. Someone down the block strums a guitar outside one of the restaurants.
Life keeps moving. Mine feels like it’s holding its breath.
“Thought I might find you out here.”
I turn.
Dean leans against one of the weathered pilings with a coffee in one hand, dressed like he just left the inn after another meeting instead of a billion-dollar office.
“You stalking me?”
One corner of his mouth lifts.
“Coral Bell Cove isn’t exactly New York.”
Fair.
I lean against the railing beside him, looking out across Back Bay. Neither of us speaks for almost a minute. The silence doesn’t feel awkward.
Dean finally breaks it.
“Lark mentioned the restoration costs have gotten ugly.”
I glance toward the water before answering.
“I’ve talked to three banks. One wanted enough collateral to put the entire marina at risk. Another wouldn’t touch a seasonal business this close to hurricane season. The third offered terms that would bury us before the first payment came due.”
Dean’s face remains impassive, yet a sharper glint appeared in his eyes.
“And the grants?”
“Too slow for the stabilization work. Too restricted for half of what we need.”
Saying it aloud makes the options sound even worse than they did spread across my desk.
I let out a slow breath.
“That’s one way to put it.”