My heart stutters at those last words.
Beau continues. “Those messages are: we’re sorry for the hurt we’ve caused in the past, and we want you here.”
Murmurs of assent ripple through the room, and I swallow, pressing my hand against my mouth to keep my lips from trembling. Those words—we want you here—hit me square in the chest. I hold Beau’s gaze, still unsure what exactly he’s saying.
He smiles broadly at me. “It’s my honor to let you know that Sunset Harbor’s residents came together and raised $30,000—an amount we hope will allow your grandma to remain at Seaside Oasis while arrangements are made for the house sale.”
I blink—again and again and again—as clapping fills the room.
$30,000?
Beau keeps smiling at my bemused expression as people in the chairs around me start to walk over to me. They shake my hand, hug me, and tell me they hope I’ll stick around too.
I try to gather myself enough to receive their well-wishes, but my head is spinning like a top.
Finally, it’s Beau whose arms are around me. “You look like you just woke up on Mars.”
“Ifeellike I just woke up on Mars. Beau”—I swallow because my throat is suddenly thick—“how?”
He pulls back and looks at me as people file out of the room. “Like I said, it wasn’t my idea. I just facilitated it.”
A thought occurs to me. “Wasthiswhat you were working on the other night? The thing you couldn’t talk about yet?”
He smiles mischievously. “Elaine and I had a top-secret meeting. We started reaching out to a few people with a donation link that night. That link got spread around the island, and”—he lifts his shoulder—“here we are. We raisedwaymore than we thought we would, which just goes to show how peoplereally feel about your family, Gemma. Every single household on the island willingly contributed.”
I can’t even formulate a response.
Beau doesn’t expect me to, though. He just holds me while I bury my face in his shoulder.
“So,you’re not mad at me?” I ask incredulously as Mia cleans her guitar on our video call. I’m seated cross-legged on the floor of my room in Grams’s house, my phone propped on the window sill.
Mia laughs and puts down her cloth to look at me through the camera. “Of course not.Andbecause I’m such a good sister, I’ve even prepped Mom and Dad so it won’t take them by surprise when you break the news.”
I blink. “Sheesh. Was I that obvious?”
She sets her guitar aside carefully. “I knew you were spending a lot of time with him, Gem, so when there started to be multi-day gaps between your very short texts instead of daily calls to complain about him, I figured what was happening.”
“Okay, fair enough. Be honest, though. Are you just alittledisappointed?”
She cocks a brow. “Would it change anything if I was?”
My guilty silence has her smiling.
“I’m happy for you, Gemma. Really. If I’m being honest, part of me kind of hoped this would happen. What has Grams said, though?”
“A lot, as you can imagine. And yet, I think she’s coming around. Beau loves to spar with her, and I think she likes that about him. He doesn’t back down, you know? What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
She stares at me with a huge smile. “Because you’re grinning like a fool, and it tells me all I need to know.”
The door opens, and I look up to find Beau in the doorway. He comes over and leans over until his face is in the camera. “Hey, Mia!”
“Hi, Beau,” she says. “Been hearing a lot about you.”
“Rave reviews, right?” He sits down next to me and kisses me on the cheek. He’s lucky I already told Mia about us.
“Well,” she says, “they used to be ravingreviews but now they’re just rave reviews.”
“I’ll take it,” he says.
