Page 49 of At First Flight (Coral Bell Cove #1)

There’s something about early summer mornings in a small town that reminds me of GiGi’s old photographs, faded at the corners, a little too worn, and soft around the edges.

The sky hangs low and honey-colored, the trees casting long shadows across the gravel drive.

I stand barefoot on the front porch, coffee in hand, while the screen door creaks behind me like it knows I haven’t slept.

Inside, the house is still. Peaceful in a way I never thought I’d earn.

Oliver and Evelyn are still out cold, their soft breathing filling the upstairs hall like music.

It won’t last. Oliver will be up soon asking for cereal, and Evelyn will want “pupcakes,” which are her version of pancakes but with chocolate chips and the absolute demand of a three-year-old tyrant.

But for now, I soak it in. The quiet. The stillness.

And the ache.

Because even in the beauty, the cracks are still there. I pull my phone from my pocket. One missed call. One text.

Dad:

Let’s talk like men. You’re making a mistake .

The words turn my stomach before the coffee even has a chance. He doesn’t say "hello" or "how are the kids." Just that. A warning disguised as concern.

But I know better.

My father has never known how to love without strings. Never offered anything that didn’t come with expectations sharp enough to cut.

He thinks I’m playing house in the coastal town. That moving to Coral Bell Cove is a midlife crisis I’ll grow out of. That I’m not capable of raising Gen’s kids without someone like him and my mom calling the shots.

He’s wrong.

I take another sip and set the mug down. Just as the first sleepy footsteps pad across the hallway inside.

Oliver appears in the doorway, hair sticking up on one side, Star Wars pajamas rumpled.

“Are we making pancakes?” he asks.

“Good morning to you too, buddy.”

He leans against me, warm and floppy and all boy. “Evelyn says she gets the first one because she’s littler.”

“She also said her stuffed bunny is a doctor last night. You sure you want to let her make executive decisions?”

He grins. “Good point.”

We’re still laughing when Lila comes down the hall.

She’s wearing one of my flannel shirts, oversized on her smaller frame, her hair twisted up in a knot that’s already half-falling out.

And just like every damn morning since she moved in, I have to pretend I’m not wrecked at the sight of her.

Suddenly, I need to be closer to her and move back inside with the kids.

She moves around like she’s always belonged here. Like it’s hers. Like she’s ours.

And I know I shouldn’t be thinking like that.

She’s only supposed to be here for the summer—helping with the kids, finding herself again after a breakup that should never have happened to a woman like her.

But every day, it’s harder not to imagine what it’d be like if she stayed.

And despite her words the night before, I know better than to get my hopes up.

“Morning,” she says, grabbing a mug from the cabinet.

Oliver’s already tugging on her sleeve. “Evelyn says she wants syrup on her pupcakes.”

“Then Evelyn’s going to have to say please,” Lila replies with a smile, handing me the spatula. “You’re on breakfast duty. I’m on coffee recovery.”

It’s simple. Domestic.

Dangerously close to everything I never thought I deserved.

By the time the kids are dressed and fed and cartwheeling through the yard, Lila’s on the deck with a book she’s not reading and I’m standing too close without an excuse.

“I got a call,” I tell her, barely above a murmur.

She looks up, and her eyes soften. She knows. “Your father?”

I nod.

She doesn’t say I told you so. Doesn’t press. She just sets the book aside and listens.

“He thinks I’ve lost my mind,” I add. “Thinks this is some… escape fantasy. That I’m endangering the kids by not living in a high-rise and sending them to boarding schools.”

“And what do you think?” she asks.

I look out over the fields, the sunlight catching on Oliver’s hair as he runs. Evelyn’s giggling, her shoes kicked off in the grass, dancing with a butterfly she insists is named Bacon. Soon we’re going to run out of breakfast foods to name the damn things.

“I think I’ve never been more certain about anything in my life.”

Her smile is small but full of something that looks a lot like belief. “Then let him be wrong.”

I want to kiss her.

I want to thank her for being the first person in years who doesn’t look at me like I’m broken or reckless.

But before I can say anything else, my phone buzzes again.

This time, it’s worse.

Attorney:

Guardianship petition officially filed. You’ll be served this week. Hearing date TBD.

My jaw tightens, and I close my eyes, counting to three.

When I open them, Lila is standing. She’s already read the message over my shoulder, and her hand finds mine without hesitation.

“Whatever he throws at you, we’ll handle it,” she says. “You’re not alone in this.”

I want to believe her, but I’ve been alone so long, I’m not sure I remember how to let anyone carry the weight with me.

Still, I squeeze her hand back. Because I want to try.

By late afternoon, the sun hangs low and heavy in the sky, casting a golden sheen over the dock.

The kids are knee-deep in a makeshift mud kitchen out back.

Oliver’s in charge of stirring with a stick, Evelyn is yelling about the need for “unicorn spice.” Lila crouches next to them, laughing with that unguarded sound that makes my heart hitch every damn time.

I’m not sure how I got this lucky.

I lean against the deck post, arms crossed, soaking in the scene like a man about to lose it all. Because I know it’s only a matter of time before the papers arrive. Before my father makes good on his threat and rips a hole straight through the life I’ve built here.

And I also know something else, something worse: the person who makes this feel like more than survival—the one who walked into my house with hesitant hands and a fierce heart—could walk out just as easily.

No matter what feelings are involved inside either one of us, I’d never ask her to give up her dream.

Lila looks up and catches me staring. Her smile falters, just slightly, like she knows what I’m thinking.

She makes her way over, wiping mud from her hands on her shorts. “You look like a man who’s bracing for impact.”

“Feels like it,” I admit.

She stands next to me, our shoulders nearly touching. “You said your father never did this before. Never tried to take the kids when your sister would leave them with the nanny.”

I nod. “He used guilt. Shame. He didn’t need court documents. He used her.”

She’s quiet for a moment, processing.

“And now?”

“Now he’s going to try to prove I’m unstable. That I walked away from the legacy. That I’m playing house in the middle of nowhere with a nanny and two kids I barely know how to raise.”

Her head snaps toward me. “Is that what you think this is? Playing house?”

“No.” My voice is rough. “But that’s how he’ll spin it. He’ll look at you and see an easy target. A woman who moved in too fast, who doesn’t have a permanent job, who—”

“Who loves your kids,” she cuts in, eyes flaring. “Who puts them first every single day. Who walked away from a life she thought she wanted because it didn’t feel like home anymore. You think I don’t know what this is?”

I stare at her, stunned by the fire in her voice.

“You think I don’t know what it means to be accused of being temporary?” she continues. “Because that’s what people say about women who put their career first. We’re flings. Fill-ins. The ones who show up in the middle of a storm and leave once the sky clears.”

“You’re not a fill-in,” I say, stepping closer.

Her voice softens. “I don’t want to be. But I need you to believe that I won’t run if you don’t push me.”

I reach for her hand, curling my fingers around hers. “I don’t want to push you. I just… I’m afraid of asking too much.”

“Then don’t ask,” she says. “Just let me stay.”

It’s not a promise. Not yet. But it’s a beginning.

And it’s enough to get me through the next few hours, which is good.

Because when the black SUV pulls up the driveway, I know exactly who’s behind the wheel. He doesn’t bother knocking. He never has. I'm pretty sure he’d tear down the door if it were locked.

He walks in like he owns the damn air we’re breathing. Same as always.

The silver in his hair is perfectly styled, not a strand out of place, like time itself wouldn’t dare muss him up.

He’s tall and lean, but imposing in that sharp-edged way that makes people stand straighter when he enters a room.

His bespoke suit fits like a second skin, every seam and stitch a reminder that his money doesn’t just talk—it sneers.

Arrogance drips off him in waves, subtle but suffocating.

He doesn’t need to speak to make a point. His posture alone says it all. Chin slightly lifted, shoulders pulled back, eyes skating across the room like everything in it is beneath him.

Including me. Always me.

“I got your attorney’s message about serving you,” he says without preamble.

I square my shoulders, planting myself between him and the living room. “Then why are you here?”

He glances around, taking in the house details with thinly veiled disgust. “What I know is that you’re hiding behind old barns and small-town clichés. That this”—he gestures broadly, like the house offends him—“isn’t the life you were built for.”

“I built this life,” I bite back. “Every piece of it.”

He scoffs. “And now you’re dragging your sister’s children through the mud of your rebellion.”