Page 226 of At First Catch

Everything is eventually.

Anger burns clean through weeks of fear.

Me

Not this.

Then I block the number.

For a long moment, I stand there. Old instincts whisper that I should already have another plan. Another backup. Another impossible solution resting on my shoulders.

Instead, I pull my phone back out and pull up Dean’s contact information.

Me

Thanks for pointing me toward the lender.

I quickly type out a message to Walter.

Me

Appreciate you sticking with me.

Before I can put the phone away completely, something catches my eye through the marina office window. A blue folder. Half buried beneath contractor estimates and engineering reports. I recognize it immediately.

Sweetspire Marina: Community & Tourism Impact Assessment

Written in Hadley’s curvy handwriting. I’d almost forgotten she’d left it sitting on the corner of my desk after one of our planning meetings.

Curious, I walk back inside and flip it open. Tourism projections. Downtown foot traffic. Weekend occupancy reports. Restaurant revenue during waterfront festivals. Letters from Bailey and Mrs. Pace, the charter captains, even the Needle Palm.

Every page answers a question I’d been too busy asking the wrong way. I’d spent weeks trying to prove the marina could survive. Hadley proved why it mattered.

My eyes drift over the lender packet still sitting open beside my laptop. Community commitments.

Walter’s words echo back through my head. They’re lending to Coral Bell Cove.

A slow breath leaves me. Not because she’d solved the financing. She hadn’t. I still had to make the numbers work. Still had to rebuild the projections. Still had to earn the loan. But she’d handed me something I’d been missing from the very beginning—the story behind the numbers.

Without thinking twice, I pull the folder beside my laptop and begin reorganizing everything. Engineering reports. Repair estimates. Cash-flow projections. And then Hadley’s folder.

Exactly where it belongs.

Silence crashes around me afterward. Emotion surges through me so violently I physically brace against the railing.

I should feel relieved. Instead, all I can think is that Hadley isn’t here. None of this means anything if I still lose her. Not the marina. Not the town. Not the future.

The truth crashes brutally through my chest. I don’t want a life that only looks stable from the outside anymore. I want messy breakfasts. Her books scattered across the apartment. A future that feels lived-in instead of controlled.

I want Hadley.

Footsteps sound against the dock behind me. I don’t turn right away. Surprisingly, I already know who it is.

Holt stops beside me without saying anything. We stand shoulder to shoulder, watching the marina lights ripple across Back Bay.

For nearly a full minute, neither of us speaks. Finally, he nods toward the water.

“You know what she does when she’s hurting?”