Page 53 of Best Laid Plans (Rock Harbor #1)

ONE YEAR LATER

C am wiped his brow and stared through the window that separated the Pierce’s Lobster Co. kitchen and the dining room. Summer in Rock Harbor was in full swing, and as he looked out across the sea of people, he couldn’t believe how much a year could change things.

Tonight was a special occasion, the tables moved to the edges to allow room for the more than a hundred people who’d crammed themselves into the restaurant.

They were celebrating the first year anniversary of the new Pierce’s Lobster Co.

, with Cam at the helm as both an investor and head chef.

He owned a fifty-percent stake, which meant that he and the Pierces always made decisions as a team, though they’d really allowed him to take the reins.

Including tonight, when he’d gladly posted himself up in the kitchen, leaving Jim and Susan–it was still weird to call them that–to mingle with the guests and get the acknowledgement that they both deserved.

Less than two months after Cam had left Gossamer, Michael had been shut down due to multiple workplace violations, and Elle still wouldn’t admit that she’d been the one to place the anonymous tip.

But as far as Cam had heard through the grapevine, there was only one woman who was capable of putting together the dossier that had been handed over to the Attorney General’s office.

Benny had called it a ‘hit job,’ of epic proportions.

Without the possibility of a lawsuit hanging over his head, Cam had been able to focus at the restaurant on what mattered most: the food.

But that didn’t mean that other changes still hadn’t happened.

Mostly at Elle’s hands. A fresh paint job accented the wall running along the right side of the restaurant, the lobsters of the past now a vibrant blue again.

He’d spent his time enhancing the menu, keeping the classics but adding a few of the items that had worked so well at the chowder fest last year.

And to no one’s surprise, he’d declined to participate in the Rock Harbor Country Club annual event, though he had been asked.

He caught Elle’s stare from across the room, and even after a year, it still made his heart hammer faster in his chest. She looked gorgeous, dressed down from her usual business attire that she wore into the office.

Reynolds had practiced what it preached as far as work-life balance was concerned, and Elle had been able to maneuver her schedule so that she went in a little later and got home later, missing both morning and evening rush hours and keeping a similar schedule to Cam.

But even being able to make it work logistically, they’d been talking a lot over the past few months about her joining the Pierce team full-time, what with the possibility of opening a second location and offering nationwide delivery, something that more and more people had been asking for on their social media pages.

There was no one else that Cam would want to enter into the next phase of his life with, both personally and professionally.

They already lived together, which still left him grinning like an idiot some mornings.

Once Elle had paid back her student loans–it was scary what she could achieve so quickly when she put her mind to something–she and Cam had moved into a small cottage situated as an in-law unit on a larger property.

Everything in his life had changed for the better, once he’d finally gotten out of his own way. Once he’d accepted that it was okay to want things. Jim and Susan loved him. Wyatt loved him. Elle loved him. And the best part was, he truly believed it.

He had to because otherwise, the ring that was burning a hole in his pocket would stay there, and he’d never get to ask Elle Pierce the most important question of his life.