I gave her a look. “The Morning Bell is barely thirty feet away.”
“True,” she admitted casually, but still appeared on edge.
I pushed the broom onto its hook in the closet. “Why don’t you brainstorm names instead? I’m stuck betweenGeorgie’s Pottery Shopand something more… whimsical.”
Her phone buzzed against the plastic bucket. Margot’s hand darted out to silence it more quickly than I’d seen her move since her last high school soccer game.
I raised an eyebrow. “Secret admirer?”
She plastered on a fake smile. “Please. If I had one of those, you’d be the first to know.”
I wanted to say that was far from the truth, but I didn’t feel like pushing any further.
Margot tilted her chin, phone cemented to her lap. “So—name ideas. What about…Claymates? OrMug Life? Even better—Kiln It!”
I groaned. “You are officially banned from brainstorming forever.”
She shrugged. “Fine. But admit it,Kiln It!is catchy.”
“Catchy in the way the flu is catchy.” I picked up a rag to wipe down the counter, only to realize it streaked mud across the surface instead of cleaning it. This was going to take a while.
We carried on like that for another hour, alternating between bursts of actual progress and stretches of chaos. At one point I attempted to hammer a nail into the wall for a mock display shelf, missed, and shrieked when the nail shot across the room like a tiny missile.
“Weaponized carpentry,” Margot had said.
By the time the afternoon sun angled through the front windows, the shop looked halfway like a construction zone and halfway like a garage sale gone very, very wrong. Margot’s jumpsuit was streaked with dust and soil, the once-pristine fabric now the color of dishwater. I should have felt triumphant, but all I could think about was Janice’s folder sitting on the counter.
When Margot left—claiming she needed a shower and a “decontamination face mask”—the silence pressed heavily in my mind. I locked the door behind her and leaned against it for a moment, letting my eyes travel the room.
Empty shelves. Scratched counters. Boxes of supplies I should’ve tried to sell.
I crossed the shop slowly, dragging my hand across the cool surface of the old florist’s counter. I could still see faint stains from years of flower stems in the grout. My grandmother’s fingerprints lived here, in every nick and scratch.
Now it was mine to shape.
Or at least, itcouldbe.
If the grant came through. If I found other funding. If my heart could take another disappointment.
I sat on a bucket, the folder still waiting where I’d left it. For a long time I just stared at the neat stack of papers inside—charts, deadlines, bureaucratic jargon I barely understood.
Blowing out a breath, I stood and crossed to the big front windows. The glass was streaked and caked in dust, but when I wiped it with my sleeve I could see the whole street—the Morning Bell across the way, a few kids riding their bikes to the beach, and Mrs. Henderson locking up the Market for the night.
Bluebell Cove remained small, stubborn, sometimes stuck in its ways. But it was also home. If I could build something here—something real and something entirely mine—maybe that was enough.
I pressed my palm to the cool glass, whispering a promise to my grandmother, and to myself. “I’ll figure it out.”
Behind me, the folder sat silent, propped open by Margot’s forgotten coffee cup, lipstick mark smudged on the rim. I didn’t know what she was hiding, or if she’d even tell me when she was ready. But for now, it was just me and Easton, the mess, and the thousand steps between this dusty room and Georgie’s Pottery Shop.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The next morning, I found myself at Cove Market, determined to focus on Sunday’s festival and not the heap I’d left for myself in Marigold’s. Rhett’s leftovers hadn’t lasted long, and now even the Morning Bell’s day-olds couldn’t fill the constant hum of hunger.
So I idled at the deli counter of the Market, arms crossed, basket dangling. Mr. Henderson, the butcher, gave up on trying to help me long ago.
Steaks weren’t in my budget, even if I could figure out how to cook them without transforming it into some sort of meat rock. Chicken or turkey were my best bet. Sure, I had no idea what to do with thoseeither, but they’d make less of a dent on my emergency credit card.
The seasonings Rhett brought would have to do. I was pretty sure hot chocolate wasn’t a good poultry marinade.
