Emily shook her head, her voice gone wobbly. “I miss theideaof it, maybe. In the city, you could always convince yourself there was something better around the corner if you just waited. Here, you have to build it yourself. And we have.”
“Do you remember when I first saw the inside of the inn?” she asked.
He grinned. “It was a dump.”
“A total dump,” she agreed. “And you hated me.”
Daniel laughed, the sound so familiar it made her chest ache. “Eh, I was short-sighted. Actually, we were both idiots.”
“But we made it work. Even when everyone said we were insane. Even when we called each other insane.”
Daniel’s expression gentled. “You never let go. I think that’s your superpower.”
She thought about that—the stubbornness, the refusal to be told no. Her mother had always called it “dog with a bone syndrome,” and had insisted it was a trait she shared with Roy. But there were worse things to inherit.
“I took another leap when I came here,” she said, and now her voice dropped, softer. “It was you.”
Daniel snorted. “I was the easy part. But maybe just as much a fixer upper.”
“You weren’t, actually.” The words threatened to tangle in her closing throat, but she pushed them out anyway. “Youwerethe scariest part. Trusting someone after Ben let me down. After my father abandoned us. After my relationship with Patricia growing up, even as a young adult. We just clashed. It was hard letting someone all the way in. I never wanted to be… dependent.”
“You’re not dependent,” he said, and there was no doubt in it. “We choose each other, every day.”
“I know,” she said. “But I wanted to be sure. That I wouldn’t lose myself in the process.”
“Have you?” he asked, and the question was more honest than most people would have dared be with her. Because, prior to Daniel, she would have closed off at the words.
She considered the woman who she’d been in New York, compared to the one who’d dragged a mattress up three flights of stairs in the half-renovated inn to save a setup fee when there just was no money for a setup fee. Then, there was thenowher. The one sitting with a hand on her belly and a future mapped out in front of her.
“No,” she said. “Not even a little.”
He smiled, looking smitten. “Then it was worth it.”
The porch swing rocked on, slow and steady. The tide was on its way back in. Emily could hear it battering at the stones below the bluff.
Daniel leaned his head back over the swing edge. “You’re thinking about it.”
“The lighthouse?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
She quirked an eyebrow. “I don’t know how not to.”
Ithadbeen a reckless kind of courage, that offer. Not unlike the inn. Not unlike leaving New York. Not unlike loving him. As if summoned by the conversation, Daniel’s phone vibrated hard against the wooden arm of the swing.
They both stilled, and Daniel glanced at the screen.
“Jamie Marsh,” he said.
Emily’s stomach dropped. Her pulse began to pound so loudly she could hear it in her ears. “Answer it. Answer it!”
He swiped to accept. “Jamie? Hey.”
There was a beat. Then Daniel sat up straighter.
“Okay,” he said carefully. “Okay.”
Emily could hear Jamie’s voice faintly through the speaker, brisk, the kind of tone that meant business had already been decided.
