Chasing the Sun (Star Harbor Book 1)

by Lena Hendrix

But Cal was proof that not everyone saw things in the same romantic, gold-filtered light. Sometimes that same dream was like wearing someone else’s too-small shoes.

It wasn’t just that she looked beautiful. It was that she looked like she belonged. Elodie was still fighting for this place even though every logical reason told her not to. Most people would’ve given up by now—hell, they would’ve packed up and gone the second the will was read. But Elodie was out there with her hands in the soil, probably whispering soft encouragements to vines like they were old friends or acting like pumpkins needed pep talks and stubborn hope to grow. She was breaking my damn heart.

JP King didn’t belong here. He sat in one of the armchairs by the window, his posture straight, phone in hand, a suit sharp enough to slice through the quiet. He looked like a man used to closing deals in boardrooms, not small-town inns.

Maybe it was the way Elodie still tended that pumpkin patch like it might save her. Maybe it was the way Levi had started talking about her in the plural—like we were a we now, and not just two separate people orbiting the same four walls of this home. Maybe it was the part of me that knew, deep down, that dreams built on someone else’s ashes never tasted the way you imagined. I sat there for a long time, staring at the dying fire, thinking of all the ways a man could love something enough to let it go.

And how sometimes, that was the only way to make it real.

I answered on the second ring. “What is it, man?” Brody didn’t waste time. “There was an accident. Hayes and Wes. It’s bad.” Everything in my mind went still, but my body was moving, searching for my clothes and tugging up my jeans. “An accident?”

I walked in to find Brody standing near the vending machines, arms crossed tight over his chest, his police radio clipped to his shoulder like a second skin. His expression was grim. He didn’t bother with preamble. “Hayes has a few bruises and a busted lip. Lucky, all things considered. Wes pushed him out of the way when the driver came around the bend too fast.” My throat burned.

When Brody sat patiently, I started prattling on. “I’ve been holding on to this idea. Of who I was supposed to be. What I was supposed to do with my life.” Brody didn’t interrupt. I looked over at him. “But what the fuck are we even doing? All it takes is one distracted driver and everything’s gone?” My thoughts spiraled as my anxiety crept higher. “What if I’ve been gripping so tight that I can’t see what’s right in front of me?”

“You know what Wes said to me last week? We were sitting on his porch, talking about nothing. He looked out at the lake and said, ‘I think sometimes we wait too long to start living like it’s already ours.’”

And I knew. I knew with everything in me what I had to do next. The dream I had imagined was beautiful, but it wasn’t mine anymore. She was.

“I don’t get it,” Levi murmured. His voice was so quiet I almost missed it. “Wes is like . . . invincible.” I opened my eyes and looked at him. His face was pale, drawn tight in a way that made him look younger than he ever let himself act. My heart twisted. “He’s still fighting,” I said, my voice thick. “That matters.”

“Be strong. He’ll need to see your face and not your fear.” I nodded, fighting the sting behind my eyes. Helen leaned closer, her voice dropping even lower. “And no matter what you see tonight, remember, people are more than their worst days. That boy in there”—she nodded toward Levi—“he gets that strength from somewhere. Cal is tough, but he’ll need a shoulder to lean on too.”

through the silence. “I should’ve seen the car coming.” I walked closer, resting a hand on the metal bed rail. “Sounded to me like you didn’t have time.” He shook his head once. “That’s not true. I saw it. I froze.” His voice cracked like something fragile and furious. “He pushed me out of the way, El. I didn’t even warn him. He just . . . reacted.” I moved around the bed and sat beside him. “You’re alive,” I whispered. “That means something.” Hayes dragged a hand through his hair. “Not if he loses his leg because of me.”

“I can’t lose him,” he said, the words barely audible. “You won’t.” I swallowed hard. “He’s still fighting.”

And then, on a warm, sunny morning that felt impossibly normal, I sat on my front porch, legs curled beneath me, journal in my lap and a mug of stale coffee clutched in both hands. The air smelled like fresh soil and blooming lilacs. It should have been comforting. Instead, it felt like a lull before a storm.

I frowned. “So you’re like a real estate fairy godfather?” His lips pressed into a flat smile, a bit of humanity leaking into his blue-green eyes. “I’ve been called worse.”

Who would do that for me? Who would believe in me enough to make this happen? The answer danced just out of reach. But the feeling it left behind burned hot and aching in my chest. It didn’t make sense. None of it did. When I closed my eyes and exhaled, I knew one thing with aching certainty: Someone had opened a door. Now it was up to me to walk through it.

Every scraggly tree felt familiar now, even though I hadn’t planted them. They’d been Stan’s, then Elodie’s. Maybe someday they’d be someone else’s, but for the moment, in the haze of dawn and grief, they felt like mine too.

It was never supposed to be this way. Wes was supposed to be invincible. I remembered him crouched beside me in the dark, desert wind whipping through a busted-out window in Kandahar, his voice low and even as he dressed a bullet graze on my side. “You’ll be fine,” he’d said, steady as hell. “You’re too stubborn to die.”

“I keep looking at all the versions of life I’ve tried to build,” I continued. “Levi. The inn. The restaurant. I thought if I could just get one thing right, everything else would settle.” The breeze stirred the leaves above us, a low rustling sound that felt like it was listening too. “But my time with you? That’s the only thing that’s ever made me feel . . . alive.” Her breath hitched and fuck it, I was too exhausted to keep denying it. “I love you,” I said.

“I’ve been holding it in,” I said, the truth catching in my throat. “Every time you laugh. Every time you fight like hell for this place. Every time you look at me like maybe I’m enough. I’ve been falling, Elodie. I love you and not in a someday, maybe kind of way. Not if things work out or when the timing’s better. I love you now. Completely.” I turned to face her fully.

“Even if all I get to do is bring you coffee and fix fences, Elodie, I’m in. I’m all in.”

“You wrecked me, Callum Blackwood. And I don’t even care. I love you so damn much I can’t see straight.” Her eyes blazed as they searched mine. “I got the money. I don’t know how or why, but it’s happening. I can’t stand the idea of some stranger taking it away from us.” Her words ran into one another as she rambled. “But I don’t want you to think that I’m taking this lightly. I know what it means for you to not have the restaurant, I⁠—”

“What can I say about JP King?” I turned to grab the tray, my stomach doing a little somersault as I tamped down my giddiness. “He’s . . . professional. Generous. A little intimidating. He’s not the least bit worried that someone will outbid us at the auction.”

Cal. He had known. He’d known all along that JP had the power to help me. JP’s offer hadn’t been luck or fate or some happy accident. It had been Callum. And he’d never said a word. The kettle screamed behind me, a shrill whistle that yanked me back to the present.

The man I loved had given up his dream to protect mine. I closed my eyes and let the emotions wash over me—gratitude, awe, and something deeper. Something that tasted like wonder. Like coming home to the kind of love I hadn’t believed existed. He saw me. All of me. And he chose to lift me up anyway. As soon as I walked out of the kitchen, I saw him.

“I wanted you to win, El. Even if it meant I didn’t.”

“I want Star Harbor Farm to have a farm-to-table restaurant,” I said. “A real one. Cozy. Local. Booked-out-every-weekend kind of place.” His lips parted, but I pressed on. “And I want you to run it. A true farm-to-table setup. Your food. Your vision. Something we build together.” Cal went still. So still I wasn’t sure he was breathing. “I want the inn and the orchard and the ghosts in the trees and all of it. I want you. I want Levi. I want early mornings and burned toast and a place where people come to slow down and fall in love.”

“Love doesn’t have to mean someone loses,” I said, voice barely above a whisper. “It can mean we both win.”

“You’re the first thing I’ve ever wanted that didn’t come with a blueprint. You didn’t just walk into my life like a storm, you rewrote every line I thought I’d already figured out. And thank god you did, because the life I was building before you? It didn’t hold a candle to this. If you’ll let me, I want to spend the rest of my life building something that doesn’t need plans or fences or backup options.”

Some people waited their whole lives for a love that felt like safety. My safety was wildfire and wonder and warmth. Elodie was the reason I tore down every fence I’d ever built. She was the sun. And loving her? That was the only thing worth chasing.