“I saw you in a movie,” Cora announced, tilting her head back to look up at her. “You had a red dress. Do you know any princesses? Real ones?”
“I’ve met one—at least she claimed to be a princess,” Rowan said. “It’s hard to trust these things sometimes. But she wasn’t nearly as interesting as you.”
Cora’s eyes widened before a wide smile stretched across her face.
Eight-year-old Liam climbed out of the truck at a more measured pace. He stopped a few feet away with his hands in his pockets, a posture so precisely like his father’s that Rowan nearly laughed.
She decided to play it cool with him and kept her voice casual. “Hey, Liam.”
“Hey.” He looked at the ground then back up. “I watchedThe Harborlast weekend. It was pretty good.”
High praise clearly ran in the family.
“That might be the best review I’ve ever gotten.” Rowan winked at him.
Something flickered in his expression before his composure reasserted itself. He nodded and looked toward the excavator with studied casualness.
Jonah, who was four and had no interest in composure, took a more direct approach. He’d walked straight to Rowan, wrapped both arms around her leg opposite Cora, and looked up at her with an open, uncomplicated certainty that completely melted her heart.
“Hi,” he murmured in a high-pitched voice.
“Hi, yourself, little man.” She crouched down to his level. “The last time we met in person, you were only one.”
He studied her face with a serious expression. “You have pretty hair.”
“Thank you. You have excellent taste and a keen sense for beauty.”
He nodded, satisfied with her response and missing the playful undertone—as she’d expected. He reached up to take her hand.
Luke watched everything from a few feet away with a grin. “You’ve always had a way with kids and animals.”
She shrugged with mock self-importance. “What can I say? I relate to their adorableness.”
Luke laughed. As the sound faded, his gaze remained on her. “They’ve heard good things about you.”
“From Mom,” Rowan guessed.
“She may have mentioned it.” The faintest trace of a smile. “Several times.”
She started to say more when a bell rang in the distance.
It was time.
The groundbreaking ceremony was beginning. She’d have to catch up with Luke and the kids more later.
Caleb started the ceremony by saying a few words about the legacy of Refuge Cove.
As he spoke, Wes found his way to Rowan’s side. His hand found hers.
Rowan had spent a long time thinking of this place as where she wasfromrather than what had made her into who she was. The mountains, the community, the family that showed up even when you didn’t ask . . . She’d treated all of it as a launching pad, something to push off from on the way to somewhere bigger.
She understood now that she’d had it backward.
This was where she’d learned everything that mattered. How to be brave. How to tell the truth even when it cost something. How to love people without keeping score.
She’d walked into the hardest days of her life and found the instincts she’d needed most weren’t the ones she’d developed in Hollywood.
They were the ones she’d been given here, long before she knew she’d need them.
