What hurts isn’t the question itself, but the fact that he could believe I’d go behind his back out of spite. That I would hurt him like that. I wanted to scream at him that I wouldn’t,not ever. That no version of me would want to.
And yet—if he believed it, even for a second—maybe that’s on me. Maybe I’ve held myself at a distance for so long he doesn’t know where I stand. Maybe I’ve spent so much time guarding what’s mine that he never saw what I would’ve truly given.
Winnie’s cottage comes into view, smoke rising from the chimney, butter-yellow walls warm against the snow. By the time I reach the porch, I’m crying again. Embarrassing, but at this point, inevitable.
Winnie opens the door with Goldie on her hip. Heat rushes over me, thick with sugar. Goldie squeals and reaches, small arms wide.
“Hey there, lovely girl,” Winnie murmurs, pulling me in.
My chin wobbles on her shoulder.
Isla appears from the kitchen, dark hair wrapped, cheeks flushed. “Ten minutes,” she says. “Then you’ll have cinnamon buns to soak up the salt.”
My face crumples. “I can’t—” My voice snaps in half. “I can’t do this anymore.”
Winnie tucks my hair behind my ear. Goldie shifts between us, patting at my coat as if to hush me.
“You don’t have to,” Isla says. “Not alone.”
They take me upstairs to Winnie’s room with its shiplap walls and lavender hanging from the latch. The yellow patchwork quilt gives when I sink onto it. Goldie crawls across my stomach and presses her palm to my cheek.
“It’s okay,” she whispers. “You no be sad anymore.”
The kindness is too much. I break into full-bodied, ugly sobs.
Isla strokes my hair. Winnie rubs slow circles between my shoulders.
“I’m so afraid,” I manage. “Every choice feels like the wrong one. If I make the trust, I might regret it. If I stay, I could drown. If Wells and I work it out—if I let myself love him—he’ll break me when it ends. Of that, I’m certain.”
“Then don’t think about endings yet,” Isla says. “Think about beginnings.”
Winnie sighs. “Elspeth loved you without condition. So will we.”
The room hums with their affection, low and steady. I close my eyes and see the Blue Willow sign catching the light on the porch. The chandelier tilting gently above me the first time I kissed Wells. The soft weight of Elspeth’s letters gathered against my chest.
Could I allow myself to be held in the same way? Not only by him, but by these women. This town. Could I set down what I’ve carried for so long and let someone else lift a corner of it for a while?
Not rebuild everything in a day—but begin. Slowly, in a way that doesn’t frighten me.
I think of the girl who left this place needing to prove she could survive alone. Who bent herself around other people’s expectations until she no longer recognized the shape she’dtaken. Who believed that rest had to be earned with exhaustion, that burning out meant you were doing it right.
When I finally broke, selling the inn felt like the most logical path forward. A clean slate. A little money to buy time, space, stillness—whatever version of peace I couldn’t seem to give myself.
But peace doesn’t always mean surrender. It can grow out of what remains.
From the scent of cinnamon buns in the oven. From the way Winnie holds me without asking questions. From Isla’s sure voice cutting through the noise in my head. From a house that still groans like it remembers me. That waits, as if it knows I’m not finished here.
And maybe I’m not.
Maybe what Blue Willow needs isn’t perfection or repair, but presence. A willingness to stay. A willingness to try.
And maybe I need that, too.
“I do want to stay here,” I tell them. “I want to keep the inn. Even if Wells walks away, even if he no longer wants me, even if I end up alone. That home is mine, and Elspeth’s, and every Hart that came before us. I can’t let it go.”
Goldie, beneath the quilt, announces, “I think the blue house likes you a whole big lot.”
I smile. “I think so, too.”
