home, and then your grandmother and I went back to the card club.”
Natalie cocked her head to the side. “Why?”
“That’s what I kept asking your grandfather on the drive back over! I was livid! I thought he was going back to gamble.”
Natalie searched her grandfather’s eyes. “What did you go back for, Grandpa?”
“To pay Charlie’s debts,” the man answered.
Natalie sat back. “You’re kidding?”
Grandpa Hal’s cheeks grew the slightest bit pink. “Your grandmother wasn’t wrong. I was a bit of a hooligan and a card shark in my day. So, I had the money.”
“But that was all your grandfather’s money—every last cent. And I knew the minute that he went back to that club and paid off Charlie’s debt that he was the kind of man I could spend my life with,” her grandmother answered.
“And then there was all the kissing,” her grandfather added, causing her grandmother to blush, and the twist of a grin pulled at the corners of her grandfather’s mouth. “And it wasn’t all my money. We found a crinkled one-hundred-dollar bill in the glove box of my old Chevy. That’s what I used to pay for your grandmother’s ring, and then, we spent the money we had left on the hotel room we stayed in for our wedding night when we—”
Nat closed her eyes and shook her head. “Fast-forward through that part, please,” she blurted, not ready to picture her grandparents like that when a question popped into her head. “And what did Charlie do when he learned you got married?”
Her grandmother Bev’s expression grew serious. “My sister told me that when Charlie found out I’d married Hal, he packed up that day and moved out west.”
Natalie glanced between them. “You didn’t tell him that you’d paid off the gangsters?”
Hal sat back and steepled his fingers. “I have a feeling Charlie knows what I did, but I didn’t need to rub it in his face.”
Natalie’s thoughts spiraled. “Did you ever consider giving the land back?”
Her grandparents shared a serious look, and Grandpa Hal nodded.
“We’d considered it. But when we got here, I knew we’d done the right thing by keeping it. When Charlie looked at this land, he only saw dollar signs. But the moment we arrived and stared out at the ocean, we knew this place was special. We knew we were meant to be stewards of this land and do our best to share the beauty of this perfect slice of Maine with as many deserving people as possible.”
Natalie stared out the window toward the ocean and imagined her grandparents, young and wild and free, staring out at the sea and promising to make a life together.
Her grandfather patted her cheek. “Here’s the thing. Life is like the tides. The tide comes in, and the tide goes out. All you can do is accept what it brings and go from there.”
“Did you really consider selling?” she asked as her gaze lingered on the sparkling water.
“What we considered was who would be the best choice to take over. So, we invited everyone here then stepped back, and with Fish’s help, we were able to see what happened when someone needed to step up,” her grandfather answered with a sly grin.
Natalie’s hand flew to her chest. “You invited all the community groups to show up at the same time.”
“And only two people came forward and made sure that everything ran smoothly,” her grandmother replied.
“And those two people were you and Jake,” her grandfather finished.
Bev gave her a knowing smile. “When your grandfather and I first got here, we knew that our lives were meant to intersect. We had an instant connection to each other and to this place. You and Jake share that, too.”
Nat closed her eyes and pressed her fingertips to her eyelids. “How do you know that Jake didn’t do everything to try to trick us into selling? How do you know he wasn’t pretending?”
“People who are pretending don’t look at each other the way he looks at you and the way you look at him,” her grandmother replied.
She sighed, and her gaze drifted back to the ocean. “Did he leave?”
“He did. Fish drove him into town,” her grandfather answered.
“Not to the airport?” she replied, hating herself for the thread of hope that wove its way through her heart at the notion that Jake could still be nearby.
Grandma Bev patted her hand. “We don’t know where he went from there, dear.”
She nodded. “And the camp? Do you still trust me to run it on my