“Two million dollars is a lot of money.”
“It's enough to do it right. To make the inn what it should be without losing what it is.”
“Can you do that? Make it better without erasing Mom?”
Ben touched her face gently. “Your mom's not in the wallpaper or the old fixtures. She's in the way the inn welcomes people, the way it feels like home. That's what we'll preserve.”
Kate wanted to kiss him then. The urge was so strong it scared her. Instead, she stepped back, creating the distance she always created.
“I should get back. Amy needs help with Pop.”
“Kate.”
She stopped but didn't turn around.
“I'm patient,” Ben said. “But I'm not going to wait forever.”
“I know.”
She walked back to the inn, feeling his eyes on her the whole way. In the lobby, she found her mother's chairs occupied by guests, an older couple who were reading and holding hands. They looked comfortable, at home, like they belonged there.
Maybe that's what love was: finding where you belonged and being brave enough to stay.
Pop was in the sunroom with Amy, looking at paint samples Dani had left on the kitchen table. He was engaged, pointing at blues and greens, talking about how Elizabeth always loved ocean colors.
“She painted our bedroom seafoam,” he told Amy. “Said it was like sleeping in a wave.”
Kate watched them, her father animated and present even if he wasn't entirely sure where he was. Amy listened with genuine interest, not just professional patience.
“That's a beautiful memory,” Amy said. “Should we consider seafoam for the guest rooms?”
Pop looked at Kate, and for a moment his eyes were completely clear. “What do you think, Katie-girl? Would your mother like that?”
“I think she'd love it, Pop.”
He smiled, satisfied, and went back to the paint samples. Kate stood in the doorway, watching her failing father plan renovations for an inn he wouldn't remember tomorrow, and thought about Lillian's words: Some things can't be fixed. They can only be endured with grace.
Maybe grace looked like this: accepting help, letting people in, planning for a future even when you couldn't see past the next crisis.
Maybe grace was just another word for hope.
CHAPTER 17
Kate left the inn at four in the morning, before Amy arrived, before her siblings woke, before she had to face anyone's concern or questions. The ice on Goose Pond was still thick enough, though March waned and soon the season would end. She needed this: the silence, the solitude, the simple clarity of ice and fish and cold.
She drilled her holes in the gray predawn light, her movements automatic. The auger bit through with that familiar crunch, and she felt her shoulders drop from their perpetual position near her ears. Out here, no one needed her to make decisions about paint colors or renovation budgets or whether to let their dying grandmother become part of their lives.
The first flag popped within twenty minutes. A decent perch, nothing special, but Kate wasn't here for the fish. She was here for the emptiness, the way the cold made everything simple, binary. Frozen or liquid. Fish or no fish. Stay or go.
She reset the line and sat back on her bucket, looking out across the pond. Other fishermen were starting to arrive, their trucks rumbling across the ice, but they gave her space. Everyone knew Katie Perkins needed her distance on the ice.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She ignored it.
The sunrise came slowly, painting the ice pink and gold. Beautiful and temporary, like everything else. In two weeks, maybe three, the ice would be too dangerous. Then it would be gone entirely, and the pond would return to its liquid state, all evidence of this solid surface erased.
Kate thought about Ben's arms around her yesterday, the solidity of him, the way he'd offered comfort without demanding anything in return. It had felt too good, too easy to lean into him. She'd spent the rest of the day avoiding him, finding excuses to be elsewhere when he came to work on the temporary repairs.
Another flag popped. This time a bigger fish, a bass that fought hard before she pulled it through the hole. She should feel satisfied, but all she felt was empty. Even ice fishing, her last refuge, couldn't quiet the noise in her head.
