"She was a rock star," Bree said before Sabrina could formulate a modest response."The kids loved her.I'm officially stealing her from the inn business.She's mine now."
"Joke's on you," Sabrina said dryly."I don't actually have an inn right now."
"Then I call permanent dibs," Bree said."Seriously, though.She's got a gift.Watch her with people sometime.It's like she sees what they need before they know they need it."
Heat crawled up Sabrina's neck."I handed out paper towels and told a kid his blob was a surfing dinosaur."
"You knelt down to look those kids in the eye when they talked to you," Bree said."You listened to them like what they were saying actually mattered.You made that one boy feel like his wave-dinosaur hybrid belonged in a museum.That's not nothing."
"He was very committed to his vision," Sabrina said.
"So are you," Lila said."To people.To making them feel like they matter, like they count.That's rare, Sabrina.Rarer than you think."She wrapped her hands around her tea, her expression turning thoughtful."I saw it the first time I stayed at Norman House."
Sabrina's throat tightened."You stayed there.Before you moved to Copper Moon."
"Two nights," Lila said."I was driving through, scouting locations for the café, not sure yet if this was the right place to put down roots.I showed up exhausted and homesick for a place I didn't even live in yet, and your grandparents gave me the good room, and you were there helping your grandmother bake.I stayed in the room with the morning light and the view of the garden."She smiled faintly."And you left tea outside my door the next morning because you could tell I'd had a rough night.You didn't say anything about it.You just...did it."
Sabrina remembered.Vaguely.A woman with tired eyes and a smile that didn't quite reach them.She'd seemed like someone carrying weight she couldn't put down."I did that for a lot of guests," she said softly.
"Doesn't make it mean less," Lila said."You built something for people, Sabrina.A place where they could rest, where they could feel seen without being overwhelmed.That doesn't disappear just because someone decided to strike a match."
Bree bumped her shoulder gently."We're not letting you float away, you know that, right?That's not how this works."
Sabrina blinked hard against the sudden sting in her eyes."You two are a lot.Like, genuinely overwhelming."
"That's what everyone tells us," Bree said cheerfully."We've decided to take it as a compliment."
Lila lifted her muffin like she was raising a glass for a toast."To rebuilding."
Sabrina hesitated, then lifted her own muffin to match."To...trying.To thinking about cabins, even when it feels impossible."
Bree clinked her muffin against both of theirs, the absurdity of the gesture making all three of them smile."To Norman House Cabins.I'm already designing the logo in my head, just so you know.It's going to be gorgeous."
Sabrina laughed, the sound surprising her as much as them.It came out rusty and new at the same time, like a door that hadn't been opened in a while finally swinging free.
ChapterTwelve
Later that afternoon, Sabrina stood at the edge of what used to be the side yard of Norman House and wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her wrist.
The sun beat down with the particular intensity of late afternoon, when the heat seemed to collect in pockets and hold there.Her borrowed work gloves were already filthy, the leather stained with ash and dirt and the residue of things she didn't want to examine too closely.
The official cleanup crews had come and gone over the past several days, hauling away the worst of the debris in dump trucks that rumbled down the dirt road and disappeared toward the county disposal site.What remained was the stubborn stuff.The pieces that had been missed or deemed too small to bother with.Stray boards half-buried in the ash.Twisted bits of metal that had once been hinges or fixtures or parts of the kitchen she'd known her whole life.Chunks of foundation concrete that had no business being as heavy as they were.
Hank tossed another piece of charred lumber onto the growing pile near the driveway and straightened, stretching his back with a grimace that said he'd feel it tomorrow.His dark hair was pushed back from his forehead, sweat-dampened, and his T-shirt had developed a permanent stripe of dirt across the chest.
"You weren't kidding," he said, surveying the cleared space with an appraising eye."This place has bones for days."
Sabrina braced her hands on her hips, trying to see what he saw instead of what she remembered."Is that a good thing?"
"For what you want to do?"Hank nodded slowly, the kind of nod that meant he was running calculations in his head."Yeah.The ground's solid under all this mess.Good drainage from what I can tell.Access from the main road is straightforward.You've got more usable space than most people would know what to do with."He met her eyes."We can work with this."
We.
There was that word again.Finding her when she least expected it, wrapping around her like something warm and solid.
Colby came up from the lower slope of the property, wheelbarrow handles gripped in both hands, forearms flexing with the effort of hauling the load.He'd stripped down to just a tank top at some point, and she tried not to notice the way his muscles moved under his skin, the way sweat had darkened the fabric between his shoulder blades.
She noticed anyway.
