Todd didn’t make it there in fifteen minutes. It took him twenty.

By that time, they’d gotten Abe to his feet and moved him to a bench. He seemed tired and slightly embarrassed about the fall, so she told him about the time she’d tried to slide down a stripper pole after six shots of tequila and ended up with a sprained wrist. That made him laugh at least. Todd arrived in his truck looking concerned, and Piper helped Abe into the passenger side, wads of balled-up paper towels pressed to her chest. She made him promise to give her a call later, and off they went, disappearing around the corner of the block.

Piper was almost scared to look at her phone, but she gathered her courage and checked the time. Oh God. Half an hour. Half an hour late.

She started running.

She ran as fast as her feet would carry her toward the harbor, trying to hold on to the faith. Trying to ignore the voice whispering in the back of her head that Brendan kept a tight schedule. Or that he’d given up on her. Please, please, don’t let that be the case.

At Westhaven Drive, she whipped a right and almost knocked over a restaurant’s specials board set out on the sidewalk. But she kept running. Kept going until she saw the Della Ray in the distance, traveling out to sea, leaving a trail of white, sloshing wake, and she stopped like she’d hit an invisible wall.

A deafening buzz started in her ears.

He’d left.

He was gone.

She’d missed him and now . . .

Brendan thought she’d chosen LA.

A great hiccupping sob rose up in her chest. Her feet carried her toward the docks, even though going there was useless now. She just wanted to make it there. Making it was all she had, even if she would have nothing to show for it. No kiss. No reassurance. No Brendan.

Her eyes were overflowing with tears by the time she reached the slip of the Della Ray, her surroundings so blurry, she almost didn’t notice the other women standing around, obviously fresh from waving off the boat. She vaguely recognized Sanders’s wife from the first night she and Hannah had walked into No Name. Another woman’s age hinted at her being the mother of one of the crew members, rather than a significant other.

Piper wanted to greet them in some way, but her hands were heavy at her sides, her vocal cords atrophied.

“It’s Piper, right?” Sanders’s wife approached but recoiled a little when she spotted the tears coursing down Piper’s numb face. “Oh. Honey, no. You’re going to have to be a lot tougher than that.”

The older woman laughed. “It’s a good thing you didn’t show up here with that face, making your man feel guilty.” She stepped over a rope and headed toward the street. “Distracted men make mistakes.”

“She’s right,” Sanders’s wife said, still looking uncomfortable around Piper’s steady waterfall of tears. The boat was just a dot now. “Especially if you’re going to be with the captain. You need to be reliable. Hardy. They don’t like to admit it, but a lot of their confidence comes from us. Sending them off isn’t an easy thing to do, week after week, but we do what’s necessary, yeah?”

Piper didn’t know how long she stood and stared out at the water, watching a buoy bob on the roll of waves, the wind drying the tears on her face and making it stiff. Fishermen wove their way around her, guiding tourists to their boats, but she couldn’t bring her feet to move. There was a hollow ache in her stomach that felt like a living thing, the pain spreading until she worried it would swallow her whole.

But it wasn’t the end of the world, right?

“It’s not,” she whispered to herself. “He’ll be back. You’ll explain.”

Piper filled her lungs slowly and ambled off the dock on stiff legs, ignoring the questioning looks of the people she passed. Okay, fine. She’d missed the boat. That sucked. Really, really bad. It made her sick to think he’d be under the assumption that their relationship was over for two days. It wasn’t, though. And if she had to scream and beg when Brendan got home, she would. He’d listen. He’d understand, wouldn’t he?

She ended up outside of Cross and Daughters but didn’t remember any part of the walk. It hurt to be there when so much of Brendan filled the space. His pergola. The chandelier he’d hung. His scent. It was still there from the day before.

Pressure crowded her throat again, but she swallowed it determinedly.

She had to call distributors and confirm deliveries for Monday’s grand opening. She didn’t even have an outfit yet, and then there was the meeting this afternoon with Patty and Val. To help plan the party. She was up for exactly none of it, but she’d soldier on. She could make it through the next two days. Her heart would just have to deal.

That afternoon, Piper and Hannah met Patty and Val in Blow the Man Down, and they divvied up responsibilities. Hannah was, of course, the DJ and already had an end-of-summer soundtrack ready to fire up. Patty offered to bring firework cupcakes and Val suggested raffling off prizes from local vendors. Mostly they day drank and talked about makeup, and that helped numb some of Piper’s heaviest anxieties that Brendan was lost to her. That he’d already given up.

Have faith.

Have faith.

* * *

It was noon on Labor Day when Daniel called to cancel.

Piper was busy stocking the bins behind the bar with ice, so Hannah answered the phone—and one look at her sister’s face told Piper everything she needed to know. Hannah put the call on speaker, and Piper listened with her hands unmoving in the ice.

“Girls, I can’t make it. I’m so sorry. We’re having some last-minute casting issues, and I have to fly to New York for a face-to-face with a talent rep and his client.”

Piper should have been used to this. Should have been prepared for their stepfather to flake at the last possible second. In his line of work, there were always flights to New York or Miami or London at the eleventh hour. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how badly she was looking forward to showing Daniel what they’d accomplished with Cross and Daughters. For better or worse, Daniel was the man who’d raised her, given her everything. She’d just wanted to show him it hadn’t been for nothing. That she could create something worthwhile if given the opportunity. But she wouldn’t get that chance now.

After Brendan left without a good-bye, her stepfather’s cancellation was another blow to the midsection. Neither one of them believed in her. Or had any faith.

She had faith in herself, though. Didn’t she? Even if it was beginning to fray around the edges and unravel the closer it came to grand-opening time. But Brendan would be back tonight and the certainty of that calmed her. Maybe he’d return angry with her or disappointed, but he’d be back on solid ground and she’d fight to make him listen. She’d keep fighting until his belief in her returned.

That plan helped center Piper, and she worked, stocking beer and setting out coasters, napkins, straws, pint glasses, orange wedges for the wheat beer. She and Hannah did some last-minute cleaning and hung the grand opening banner they’d painted the previous night outside. And then they stood in the center of the bar and surveyed what they’d done, both of them kind of dumbstruck at the transformation. When they’d arrived over a month ago, the place had been nothing but dust bunnies and barrels. It was still kind of a dive, but hell if it wasn’t chic and a lot more welcoming.