Kate nearly dropped her coffee. “What?”
“A therapist. In Portsmouth. I’ve gone twice in the last week.” He stared at the harbor, not meeting her eyes. “After Lillian's confession, I realized I've been running from everything my whole life. Sarah, the marriage falling apart, even coming here was just another form of running.”
“Tom...”
“I'm not going back to Boston. Not to the firm, anyway. I'm going to practice law here. Small town stuff. Wills, real estate, the boring things that actually help people. I’m not leaving the inn.” He finally looked at her. “If that's okay with you. I’d like to do both. That is if you want my help.”
The request beneath the statement was clear: could he come home, really home, not just as a visitor helping in crisis but as part of the inn's future. Kate felt something ease in her chest, a loosening of the fear that her siblings would scatter again once the immediate danger passed.
“Of course I want your help,” she said. “This is your home, too, Tom. It always will be.”
Before Tom could respond, James burst through the door, laptop in hand, excitement radiating from him in waves that reminded Kate of when he was young and had discovered something wonderful.
“We're viral!” he announced. “The wedding photos from last month that Dani posted? Some influencer shared them, and we've got ten thousand likes in the first hour and climbing. The website crashed from traffic, but it’s up again, so no worries.”
This was good news, the kind they desperately needed, but Kate found it hard to match James's enthusiasm. Success felt hollow when Lillian was dying alone in a rented cottage, when Pop didn't know their names, when she'd pushed away the one person who'd consistently shown up for her.
The wedding reception prep consumed Dani, who moved through the inn like a general preparing for battle, checking and rechecking details with an intensity that bordered on obsessive. She'd hired two local girls to help serve, borrowed chairs from the Methodist church, and somehow convinced the florist to give them a discount in exchange for social media exposure.
Kate handled the regular guests, smoothing over complaints about the construction noise, the limited breakfast menu due to wedding prep, the hundred small dissatisfactions that came with staying in a place balanced between past and future. Mrs. Porter had returned for the weekend, her usual criticism muted by what might have been concern.
“You look tired, dear,” she said, accepting her coffee. “And thin. Are you eating?”
Kate couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten a full meal. She existed on coffee and whatever Marcy forced on her, her appetite lost somewhere between Lillian's confession and Ben's distance.
“I'm fine,” she said automatically.
“No,” Mrs. Porter said firmly. “You're not. Sit.”
It was such a maternal command that Kate found herself obeying, sinking into the chair across from the older woman.
“I knew your mother,” Mrs. Porter said. “Not well, but enough. She had the same look near the end, like she was trying to hold the whole world together through sheer will.”
“I'm not...”
“You are. And while it's admirable, it's also foolish. The inn won't collapse if you take a breath. Your siblings won't disappear if you loosen your grip.”
Before Kate could respond, a commotion erupted from the kitchen. She rushed in to find Marcy near tears, Dani panic-stricken, and what looked like an entire wedding cake in pieces on the floor.
“The delivery guy dropped it,” Dani said, her voice climbing toward hysteria. “The wedding cake. It's destroyed.”
Kate stared at the mess, her mind calculating the disaster. No bakery would have a replacement available with twelve hours' notice. The bride would be devastated. The reception would be ruined. Their reputation, barely beginning to rebuild, would be destroyed.
“I can fix this,” Marcy said, though she looked doubtful. “I'll bake new layers, work all night if I have to.”
“You've never made a wedding cake,” Dani pointed out.
“I've made cakes. How different can it be?”
Very different, Kate knew. Wedding cakes were architecture and engineering as much as baking. But what choice did they have?
“I'll help,” Rosa offered.
“We all will,” James said, appearing in the doorway.
What followed was a kind of beautiful chaos. Tom drove to every grocery store in a twenty-mile radius, buying ingredients Marcy had given him. James set up a tablet with YouTube tutorials on wedding cake construction. Dani managed the rest of the reception prep while periodically checking on the cake progress with increasing anxiety. Even guests got involved, Mrs. Porter offering her grandmother's frosting recipe, a couple from Vermont who turned out to be amateur bakers joining the production line.
Kate found herself in the center of it all, not directing but participating, her hands covered in flour and frosting, her siblings working beside her. The kitchen became a disaster zone of mixing bowls and cooling racks, the smell of vanilla and butter filling the inn. They made mistakes, had to start over twice, argued about frosting consistency and decoration styles.
