Meg leaned into him slightly, letting her shoulder rest against his chest. “I’m not great at letting people figure things out.”
“You’re getting better.”
“Am I?”
“You haven’t reorganized my kitchen once this week.”
“Your kitchen doesn’t need reorganizing. Everything’s already where it should be.”
“I know. It’s very disappointing for you.”
She laughed, and some of the tension in her shoulders loosened. This was what she needed. Not the chaos of the house, not the endless small emergencies that gave her something to manage. Just this. Sitting with someone who knew her, watching the sun go down, letting the world be what it was.
The last sliver of sun disappeared below the horizon. The sky held onto its color for a moment longer, then began to fade toward purple.
“You could stay tonight,” Luke said. “If you want.”
Meg looked at him—his profile in the fading light, the patience in the way he held himself. Not pushing. Just offering.
“Yeah,” she said. “I’d like that.”
He smiled, and they sat for a while longer, watching the first stars appear over the water. The waves kept their rhythm below. Somewhere in town, Tyler was probably staring at a folder full of requirements, trying to figure out how to have a conversation he’d spent sixteen years avoiding.
Meg couldn’t have that conversation for him. She couldn’t fix this one.
But she could sit here, with Luke, and trust that her brother would figure it out.
One way or another.
CHAPTER FIVE
Margo stood in front of her easel first thing in the morning, a cup of coffee cooling on the windowsill and a decision to make about yellows.
Cadmium was too bright. Lemon was too sharp. Naples yellow—warm, soft, the color of morning light on weathered wood.
Naples yellow. Definitely.
She loaded her brush and made the first stroke, adding warmth to the corner of the canvas she’d been avoiding. The painting had been started years ago — set aside when the Shack demanded more hours than she had, when Richard got sick, when life kept insisting it was more important than art. She’d found it in her closet last month, buried behind old frames and drop cloths, and something about seeing it again had felt like permission.
Permission to finish what she’d started. Permission to want something for herself.
Through her kitchen window, she could see the Shack a few blocks away. Tyler’s truck was already in the lot. He’d taken over morning prep, arriving before seven most days now, working through the opening routine with a quiet competence that still surprised her.
Six months ago, he would have found an excuse to be somewhere else. Anywhere else.
Her phone buzzed on the counter. Tyler.
Delivery truck’s early. Anna’s handling it. All good here.
Anna was handling some of the deliveries. Margo set down her brush and read the message again, waiting for the follow-up. The one that saidActually, we need youorSmall crisis, never mind.
Nothing came.
She set down the phone and picked up her brush again. Maybe it really was all good. Maybe they were figuring it out. Or maybe “all good” was Tyler’s way of not worrying her, and she’d arrive sometime to find the walk-in freezer had died and nobody knew where the backup supplier list was.
Fifty years of running that place. Hard to trust “all good” without seeing it herself.
They were figuring it out. All of them. Tyler showing up for morning prep. Anna learning tochannel her energy into systems instead of chaos. Meg building structures that actually worked. Bea covering shifts as she could.
