“Obviously,” Wes said. “But it really is useful, right? I mean, no more clipboards or having to look up player positions…it’s all there next to each player’s name. Emergency contacts are listed, and I can call them by clicking the phone number on the screen…” He was in awe, and he’d barely scratched the surface of what the app could do.

“Damn right it’s useful. This thing can even track players’ speed and ball-handling techniques. Where did she learn to upload it for sale?” Dustin asked, playing around with the app’s features.

“Sarah helped her. Apparently, I have to stop by the bank tomorrow to open a bank account for her.” He chuckled at the thought. Marissa was growing up so fast, and so far that summer, she’d learned a lot from Sarah, but more importantly, her own confidence had grown.

Sarah was supportive, offering advice but letting Marissa experiment with her own ways of doing things. Sarah acted like a sounding board for his daughter’s ideas and helped to enhance them. She encouraged and celebrated the wins with Marissa and helped her come up with solutions to the challenges. That meant more to Wes than he could ever verbalize.

“The owner of the B&B? The one Rissa couldn’t stop talking about at dinner?”

“That’s her. She works in technology and offered Marissa an opportunity to work with her the last few weeks.” He peeled the label on his beer bottle.

“That was nice of her,” Dustin said, eyeing him. “Smart and caring—makes sense that Marissa would get attached.”

Wes could hear the implication in Dustin’s voice, so he cleared his throat and nodded toward the phone. “Anyway, that thing is great, huh?”

“This is really impressive for a nine-year-old. Pretty soon she’ll be making more coin than you.” He handed the phone back with a grin.

Wes stared at the app. In just a few days, it had been downloaded almost a hundred times. Marissa was over the moon about it, and he’d seen her drawing of her L.A. mansion that she planned to buy once she was a millionaire from her technological creation.

It wasn’t about the fact that she was making money off something she’d created that had him feeling so freaking proud. It was the fact that despite resistance—mostly from him in the form of lack of understanding—she’d persevered and continued to work toward something she was passionate about.

As much as he worried about her, he knew she would be just fine.

His own life, he was less certain about. Once the inn renovations were done, he didn’t have any big projects scheduled for the fall. Carmen’s visit that evening had definitely been to remind him of that fact.