Page 32 of Back in the Bay

I wipe sweat from my brow and look up to see Mabel in the front garden, sunlight catching in her brown hair as she tends to her lavender plants. Lily sits nearby on a blanket, her chubby hands gripping a wooden toy train I made for her first birthday. At two years old, she's already got her mother's determined expression and my blue eyes—a combination that melts me every time I see it.

"Dada!" she calls, spotting me watching them. Mabel turns and smiles, that same smile that's been knocking me senseless since high school.

I set down my tools and cross the yard, scooping Lily up and spinning her until she giggles. "How are my favorite girls today?"

"Mommy made dirt castles!" Lily announces, pointing at the newly planted herbs.

"Your girls are just fine." Mabel rises to her feet and brushes soil from her knees. "We’re getting some much-needed sun." She leans in to kiss me, tasting like the lemonade she's been sipping all morning.

Even now, after three years of marriage, that simple touch still sends electricity through me. Sometimes, I wake up wondering if this is all a dream. Three years ago, I was convinced I'd lost Mabel forever.

Those three months of long-distance love were harder than we expected. We'd try to make it work—scheduled video dates, constant texting, weekend visits when her caseload allowed. But the silences grew longer, the conversations more strained. I could hear the exhaustion in her voice and see the dark circles under her eyes through pixelated screens.

The night I called to tell her I was packing up my contracting business to move to Portland, she went quiet for so long that I thought the call had dropped.

"Cole, don't." Her voice was barely a whisper. "Don't uproot your entire life for me."

"What are you talking about? Mabel, I love you?—"

"I know. God, I know you do. But I can't watch you sacrifice everything that makes you happy."

I remember staring at the boxes I'd already packed, feeling like the floor had given way beneath me. "So what are you saying?"

"I'm saying maybe it's time I stopped running from the one place that's ever felt like home."

She showed up on my doorstep a week later with a U-Haul and a job offer from Cedar Bay's only law firm, which she promptly took over. We were married a month after that, in the same church where we'd first kissed after prom fifteen years earlier.

Now she's here, dirt under her fingernails, our daughter babbling, and I finally understand what contentment feels like.

"Want to see what Daddy's been building?" I ask Lily, who nods eagerly. I hoist her onto my shoulders, her tiny hands gripping my hair for balance.

"Not too high," Mabel warns, but she's smiling. She follows us toward the deck extension, her gardening gloves tucked into her back pocket.

"Almost finished," I tell her as we approach. "Just need to stain it and install the railing. Your desk will go right against that window."

Mabel runs her hand along the fresh lumber. "It's perfect, Cole."

There's something in her voice—a catch, a softness—that makes me set Lily down on the grass with her toy train. "Hey, you okay?"

She nods, then shakes her head, then laughs. "I got a call from Jeremy this morning."

Jeremy Palmer, the senior partner at her old Portland firm. My stomach tightens. "And?"

"They want me back. Full partnership, corner office, the works."

The hammer I'd left on the deck suddenly looks very interesting. I pick it up and test its weight in my palm. "That's... quite an offer."

"It is." She watches me thoughtfully, those blue eyes missing nothing.

"When do they need an answer?" I try to keep my voice neutral, but memories of those painful three months flood back—the empty bed, the pixelated smiles that never reached her eyes, the growing silence between calls.

"I already gave them one." Mabel takes the hammer from my hand and sets it down. "I told them I'm exactly where I need to be."

Relief washes through me so strongly that I have to sit on the edge of the deck. "You sure about that? It's the corner office you always wanted."

She sits beside me, our shoulders touching. "Three years ago, I thought success meant a certain address, a certain title. But you know what I realized when I moved back?"

"What's that?"

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