her future.
Somehow they ended up leaning back against a big rock.
Cam kissed her forehead and wrapped his arms around her. She rested her head against his chest as the sun performed its nightly color show and the salt-scented breeze blew through and the little waves churned quietly behind them.
“I’ll love you forever, Had,” he said. “I always have.”
His arms came around her more tightly. “I love you too, Tony.”
Epilogue
October
Jagger, no, sweetie!” Hadley pulled the dog out of the patch of petunias running along the old stone walkway of what used to be the Millers’ house. Jagger’s ear and tail instantly wilted as he gave her a stricken look that made her want to tell him he could eat all the petunias he wanted, except she wasn’t sure that was a good idea for a dog. “I know you love your new yard, but doggies don’t eat petunias, okay? Let’s go in and get you a cookie.”
That made him jump for joy. She reached into her shorts pocket and tossed him a dog biscuit to keep him away long enough so that she could lift the sign she was painting on the patio out of reach. But the wind blew off the ocean just then, ruffling the sign, and Jagger, thinking she was playing a game, came and sat right on it, smearing the paint.
“Oh!” Hadley said, biting down on the No! that almost spilled from her mouth. Jagger was a sensitive soul, and she always tried her best not to yell.
She succeeded today. She ran the sign into the screened porch and set it on the old picnic table, Jagger at her heels. “Well,” she said to the dog, “glad you put your artistic touch on it. Butt painting just might catch on.” Besides, there was nothing she could do about it now. She had a big surprise for Cam, and she couldn’t wait to show him.
* * *
The first thing Cam saw as he walked up the path to the house at the end of a long day were petunia heads strewn all over. He couldn’t help smiling that Jagger was at it again. In the past few months, he’d settled in enough to be his usual slightly naughty self, which Cam felt was a good sign.
Hadley might not agree, especially insofar as her carefully tended flowers went.
He lugged the samples he carried—boards of tile, chips of paint, a hunk of granite—up to the screen door. He was exhausted, in a good way. He’d spent most of the day speaking with contractors and reviewing plans. The old Crab Shack was no more, and in its place was a half-constructed vintage-inspired building that would one day become his restaurant. The ton of samples he was dragging home were for Hadley because his knowledge about decorating could probably fit on the head of a straight pin.
It was their four-month anniversary, and he had a surprise for her. They’d packed a lot of living into those months. First, they’d bought the Millers’ house and moved right in. An impulsive move, yes, but they’d both figured they’d wasted enough years apart.
Every night as they chilled with a glass of wine on the porch, listening to the ocean, they talked about their plans. A brand-new kitchen. Real patio furniture, not the aluminum folding chairs they’d scrounged up and the old two-seater glider his dad had given them that Hadley had spray-painted a bright aqua blue. They’d been too busy with their respective businesses to agree on what they exactly wanted for the house, and they’d decided not to rush it.
Sitting next to her on the squeaky glider, sharing a bottle of wine, looking into the sea and into their future, was as close to his idea of heaven as it got.
They didn’t need fancy furniture for that.
He opened the screen door to find newspapers strewn over the picnic table the Millers left behind. On top was a bell jar full of paintbrushes sitting in murky-colored water.
“Hadley?” he called. No Hadley, but Jagger was there, of course, always ready to greet him at the door. And from the near distance came the yipping of a much tinier dog.
Freddie, the once-runty puppy, was scratching at the bars of her crate and immediately began jumping and twirling her tiny tail as he blew through the kitchen. He stopped to love her up a little before he checked his cell for a text. It wasn’t like Hadley to not tell him where she was. Tonight they’d planned to