But nor will I push him as I’ve done before. Because my life is here and now and it’s a good one.

And so, my dearest Robert, I must go help with dinner and enjoy my children and my community (I can’t wait to see Patti’s face when she realizes we’re serving blueberry pie instead of pumpkin—perhaps her wig will fall off!) . . . perhaps we’ll even celebrate an engagement. (Knowing Neil, he’ll most likely steal Syd off to someplace private—the seaside or maybe that treehouse he built—and propose away from prying eyes. And he won’t tell the rest of us until every last guest leaves.)

Can you tell I’m procrastinating? I don’t know how to finish this letter. I suppose I’ll simply sign off the same as always . . . one last time . . .

With all my love,

Maggie

P.S. I’ve met Indi’s fiancé, by the way. Only briefly, but it was enough to know there’s a story there. But then, isn’t there a story everywhere?

THE END

Thank you so much for spending time in Muir Harbor with Neil, Sydney, Maggie, and the rest of the Muir family. If you like this book, I’d be delighted if you’d leave a review. Thank you!

Wondering about Indi and her elusive fiancé? You can get a sneak peek of their story, A Seaside Wonder, releasing in early 2022, right here . . .

If not for the proprietor’s name on the little shop’s window, Philip might have let it all go.

His curiosity and confusion at the unfamiliar name he’d seen scribbled in Grandfather’s tight handwriting all those weeks ago. The same name that had rasped from white lips, not even a whisper, that summer night in the hospital.

If not for the little shop and the glare of the sun on the storefront glass and the name staring back at him now, he might have forced himself to forget the letter he’d found, faded and crinkled, and the murmurs he’d honestly thought at the time might be a deathbed confession. Perhaps would’ve been if his grandfather’s eyes hadn’t closed and that flat line on the monitor not appeared.

A late-autumn breeze came sweeping in, wrapping Philip in a chill that hinted at the coming winter and rooted his feet to the sidewalk outside of—he glanced up, taking in the artsy sign above the windows—Bits & Pieces.

An antique shop, perhaps, considering the assembly of trunks and chairs and what looked like an old shutter, painted and repurposed into a wall shelf, on display behind the glass.

He barely spared the items a second look before his gaze scooted down once more.

Proprietor: Indi Muir.

Unusual first name, sure, but it was the last name that set the months-old memories to unspooling. And what else could he do but follow the threads through the little shop’s front door? After all, he’d never been able to say no to a mystery.