28. Hadley
Chapter Twenty-Eight
HADLEY
Tuesday morning brings a duller ache of heartbreak. That’s worse. Like grief finally stopped screaming long enough to settle deep into my bones permanently.
Nearly four months have passed since Nolan walked back into Sweet Gum Café carrying nothing but a marina deed and entirely too much emotional baggage. It still feels impossible that everything could have changed this much.
As I unlock the front doors of “A Page in Time,” the soft morning sunlight illuminating Main Street, a gentle ache of realization washes over me.
The lighthouse smells like coffee and old paper and sea air. Usually, I find this comforting, but today, it just feels empty.
Everything does lately.
No good morning texts. No Nolan waiting downstairs with coffee. No warm hand automatically finding the small of my back whenever we crossed paths.
“You’re brooding again.”
I glance up.
Bailey stands near the café archway carrying pastries and entirely too much emotional awareness for eight in the morning.
“I’m opening for you.”
Bailey studies me carefully while setting pastries behind the counter. “You sleep at all?”
I shrug one shoulder. Not really. Every night I reach instinctively toward the empty side of the bed before remembering. Every morning I wake up already missing him.
Every moment is still devastating no matter how many days pass.
“I hate this,” I whisper.
Bailey’s gaze turns gentle. “I know.”
And God, that makes everything hurt worse again.
Because everyone knows.
All my siblings. My parents. The whole town probably. Coral Bell Cove thrives on emotional awareness and secondhand heartbreak.
I glance toward the lighthouse windows overlooking Back Bay.
The marina is just off in the distance, the masts of the sailboats bobbing in the water beneath bright morning sun.
And my chest tightens painfully. I know he’s over there. Even from this far away, I know Nolan’s walk. The shape of his shoulders. The way he moves when he’s thinking too hard.
I still love him so much. The pain of it physically steals my breath.
Bailey notices where I’m looking. “Oh no,” she mutters.
I tear my gaze away. “He’s probably just working. Too focused on everything else around him.”
The lie sounds weak even to me.
I wonder if he’s standing at the western docks waiting for something. Or someone.
Before I can spiral further, the bookstore bell jingles, and suddenly, my entire body goes still. Not because I see him, but because I feel him.
I turn. And there he is.
Nolan stands just inside the bookstore entrance wearing jeans, a dark Henley, and an expression so openly emotional it nearly knocks the air from my lungs.
The whole world suddenly shrinks.
Grief and hope and love are written openly across his face
Neither of us moves at first.
The bookstore falls completely silent around us while morning sunlight spills across the floorboards between where we stand.
And abruptly every version of missing him crashes through me all at once. His laugh. The way he softened every time I touched him. The future I thought we lost.
I’m overwhelmed.
Nolan looks wrecked. Like the last few days hollowed him out completely, and a part of me wants to run straight into his arms anyway.
Bailey glances between us.
She vanishes into the café without a word because apparently, even she recognizes when a romance novel climax is happening in real time.
Nolan takes one slow step toward me, then stops. Like he’s afraid pushing too hard will send me running.
“Hads.”
My name breaks apart slightly in his voice. And just like that, tears burn behind my eyes again.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper.
Nolan exhales shakily. “Trying to fix the worst mistake of my life.”
Just truth. Strangely, I expected anything but.
I wrap my arms tighter around myself, trying to hold together the emotions threatening to split me open entirely.
“Nolan—”
“No.” He shakes his head once. “Please let me say this before I lose my nerve.”
The vulnerability in his voice nearly destroys me. He takes another careful step closer. And then I notice something tucked beneath one arm.
Blueprints.
My breath catches sharply. Not blueprints, but house plans.
Nolan sees the exact second I understand. Emotion flashes openly across his face. Raw enough to ache.
“I turned down the investor deal,” he says in a low voice.
The bookstore fades away around me.
Everything inside me stills completely.
“What?”
“I told them no.” Nolan’s eyes stay locked on mine. “Dean pointed me toward a different kind of lender. I spent two days rebuilding the projections, separating the storm work from the expansion plans, and documenting every early slip renewal and community commitment.”
Nolan exhales.
“They didn’t care about luxury condos. They cared whether the marina could survive the next storm and still belong to Coral Bell Cove ten years from now.”
I blink.
“Dean? My brother-in-law Dean?”
Nolan nods. “He didn’t offer me money.” A faint smile touches his mouth. “He offered me a better question.”
I wait.
“Instead of asking how I could afford to keep the marina...he asked whether I’d looked in the right places.”
My chest tightens.
“And?”
“They’re reviewing everything now.”
He shifts the folder beneath his arm before giving a small, almost self-conscious smile. “I hope you don’t mind...”
My brows pull together. “What?”
“I used your tourism report.”
I blink. “My what?”
“The community impact packet.”
Recognition flashes across my face.
“I found it sitting on my desk after one of our planning meetings.” His smile grows softer. “I almost set it aside.”
My heart stumbles.
“But then Walter said something.” His eyes meet mine. “He reminded me they weren’t just lending to a marina.” He lets out a quiet breath. “They were lending to Coral Bell Cove.” His fingers tighten around the folder. “So I opened it.”
I don’t interrupt.
“I spent weeks trying to convince everyone the marina would make enough money.” A faint laugh escapes him. “You spent weeks showing why it mattered.”
Emotion catches in my throat. “I didn’t know if any of that would actually help.”
“It did.” His answer comes without hesitation.
“The repair estimates told them what needed fixing, while the financials showed them how we’d pay for it.
” He shakes his head gently. “But your report...” A smile tugs at one corner of his mouth.
“That showed them what they’d be protecting.
” His eyes shine with quiet emotion. “The lender spent almost twenty minutes asking about the businesses.”
I stare at him. “The bookstore.”
He nods.
“The café.”
Another nod.
“The resort. The charter captains. The festivals.” His voice turns tender. “They wanted to know how all of it fit together.”
A tear slips down my cheek.
“It was the first meeting when I realized...” He looks at me like the answer should’ve always been obvious. “I wasn’t asking them to believe in a marina. I was asking them to believe in a community.” His gaze never leaves mine. “And nobody understands this community better than you.”
“The marina had a better first season than we projected. Slip renewals are already ahead of schedule. Between that, the storm-mitigation grants, and a different financing structure...”
He shrugs.
“There’s a path. I kept thinking that saving the marina meant controlling every possible outcome.” His voice roughens. “But all I was really doing was letting fear make every decision for me.”
He lets out a slow breath, his eyes drifting toward the marina beyond the lighthouse windows.
“The preservation lender wasn’t writing me a blank check,” he says. “They wanted proof the marina would still belong to Coral Bell Cove ten years from now.”
A small, almost disbelieving smile touches his mouth.
“For the first time, someone wasn’t asking me how much money the marina could make. They wanted to know what I was trying to protect. Turns out they weren’t investing in a marina. They were investing in the community built around it.”
This is it. This is the thing I needed him to understand on his own. Not for me. Not for us. For himself.
Nolan swallows hard before continuing.
“You were right. I stopped living inside the life I built because I got too scared of losing it.”
Tears spill silently down my cheeks now. I know how hard this honesty cost him.
Nolan glances briefly toward the marina through the lighthouse windows, then back at me. He lets out another slow breath.
“Do you know what I kept telling myself every night?”
I shake my head.
His eyes never leave mine.
“That if I could just fix one more problem...finish one more repair...figure out one more number...then I’d finally deserve to come home to you.”
Tears blur my vision.
“The stupid part?” His laugh catches painfully. “I already had the one thing I’d been trying to earn.”
His voice drops almost to a whisper. “You. And you know what finally broke me?” he asks.
I shake my head once.
“The marina didn’t feel like home without you in it anymore.”
And just like that—every broken piece of my heart cracks wide open again.
And quickly every ounce of distance I fought so hard to maintain over the past few days starts collapsing beneath the weight of how honestly he’s looking at me right now.
Tears blur my vision while sunlight spills across the lighthouse floor between us.
God, I missed him.
Him.
The man beneath all the fear, overprotectiveness, and panic. The man who loved me so deeply it terrified him. The man standing in front of me now finally understanding that love isn’t something you control into safety.
Nolan takes another careful step toward me. Still cautious. Like he knows he hurt me and doesn’t assume this gets fixed simply because he finally understands what went wrong.
“I should’ve listened to you sooner,” he says.
Emotion catches sharply in my throat.
For weeks that’s all I wanted: honesty, partnership, trust.
Nolan’s fingers tighten around the rolled house plans beneath his arm. Nervousness flickers visibly across his face and the sight nearly destroys me.
“I need you to know something,” he says.