Mitch put up two fingers to the bartender working the cash bar inside the town hall. It looked like every citizen in town was arriving to hear updates on the council positions, including the city attorney seat, and the coming weekend’s Cape Van Buren Fall Art Festival being held out on the Cape.

It wasn’t a formal meeting, thank God, because he needed a drink more than his next breath.

The town hall was two stories of open space with large beams and a huge anchor-inspired chandelier. It smelled of Old English wood oil and the briny call of the Atlantic.

“Your regular, Mitch?” The tall, willowy brunette grabbed a tumbler and the Ardbeg from the top shelf. Her knit sweater lifted just enough to hint at the smoothness of her skin, and her jet-black waves skimmed the top of her jeans.

She was exactly his type. Beautiful, kind, and available. In fact, they’d had fun once or twice in the past, but not even one spark of interest nudged him to make a move. Just the opposite. Instead, he wanted to...give her advice.

He dipped his chin, biting the inside of his cheek. Cynthia Marshall had been a bartender since they’d all done their twenty-one run, and he couldn’t help but wonder why the hell she hadn’t gone on to get a formal education, instead choosing to serve drinks. He hated seeing potential go to waste.

God help him. He’d somehow grown old, or worse...

In love with someone else.

With an urgent need to quell the ludicrous thoughts imploding his brain, he grabbed the tumbler and tossed it back, slamming his hands along the bar top and leaning into the pain of the fire burning through his chest.

“Jesus. What’d you do that for?” She reached out to pat his back, but he lifted a hand to stop her and stepped back.

He welcomed the discomfort. It distracted him from all the wanting.

A wanting that only grew exponentially worse since having Claire in front of the fireplace back on the Cape. When she’d asked him to stay, he asked her to repeat herself, unable to believe his own ears. But she’d already fallen asleep.

He’d wanted to shout, yes, he’d stay. He’d wanted to wake her up and make her admit she loved him, then make love to her all over again.

Instead, he’d watched her sleep, soaking in every smooth inch of her face. Memorizing it, the way her brows arched, how her lips turned up at the ends. He’d stroked her silken cheek and smoothed her hair back from her temples.

And all that wanting proved to him more than anything else why he had to leave. As they’d grown closer, she’d never been able to even consider a conversation about what was happening between them. Her pain wouldn’t allow her to.

He had his issues, but she also had hers.

She wasn’t ready.

So, he was going to accept the city attorney seat offered by Portland. Her whispered request had only magnified the importance of distance. He would work to be there for her every day of his life, but there was no possible way to get through forever without hurting her somehow.

He’d promised her that he was a safe bet.

And he’d fucked it up.

She was so terrified of being hurt, of feeling that kind of pain again, that he refused to risk it.

But there was also no possible way he could handle seeing her sweet smile as she made her way down Van Buren Blvd or breathing in her scent that was all Claire and sunshine and sensuality. And now that she was feeling settled in how she could date without forming an attachment, there was no way in fucking hell he’d be able to see her with some Mainer or worse yet, some flatlander, without punching him in the face.

He knew it was an ignorant thought and he didn’t care.

Leaving hurt like hell but staying would be torture.

“You speaking tonight?” Cynthia asked, breaking into his thoughts.

Sliding the glass for another, he waited to answer as she poured two more fingers’ worth. Glass in hand, a calm settled over him, and he dipped his chin in confirmation. “Briefly.”

She studied him, a curious expression in her gaze. “She’s changed you.”

There was no way to experience Claire Adams and not be changed, but he wasn’t about to respond and invite any kind of speculation.

In a town like Cape Van Buren, gossip only created tornadoes from a spring breeze.

Maxine and Janice appeared out of nowhere, sliding their arms through the crook of his elbow on each side, flanking him like thorns on a rose bush. It might be an unkind thought, but these two never seemed to need anything from him that had his best interest in mind.

“What do you want?”

His mother gave him her wide-eyed look of innocence, and all his spidey-senses sprung to high alert.

“What, a mother can’t say hello to her son?” Her red curls were tucked under a paddy cap that Blayne had brought back from Glengarriff.

He stopped, barely aware of the din of conversations around him as he looked at the two women for any sign of what was about to happen. “No. You two have proven time and again that when you band together, bad things are about to happen.”

With a scoff, Maxine grabbed a glass of red wine from a tray that was making its way around the town hall like a celebrity crowd surfing at Coachella. “Oh, please. Like what?”

The deluge of memories from the earliest he could remember including jail, the police, moonshine, and the many different mayors hit him all at once, but instead of going into it with Maxine—because no one ever came out on top—he simply crossed his arms over his chest.

“What.”

Maxine had the gall to look annoyed. “Well, if you’re going to be like that.”

“You’d think I didn’t raise him right with that tone,” Janice added.

A smile quivered at the corners of both women’s lips, making all the warning alarms in his head clang at once.

“No. The answer is no.” He walked away, weaving through the crowd toward the front of the room. But the ladies were on his tail like a moose after an elder tree.

Evette stepped right in front of him, stopping him in his tracks, and as he turned to go around her, Shelly Anne cut him off. What. The. Fuck. A South Cove Madame helping a North Cove Maven? This had to be a first.

“What the hell is going on?”

Shelly Anne grinned. “We’re seeing some of the benefits of working together. Claire had some very good points about her plan for the festival.”

His mother circled him, stopping when she stood in front of him once again. “Remember how the festival is raising money for local kids?”

There was no winning if they were pitting him against children in need.

God damn it.

Out of the corner of his eye, platinum locks glistened in the soft evening light.

Claire. He could feel her, a soft thrumming through his blood, a low humming in his mind. He rubbed at his chest.

“Get to it, Mom.”

“We want to auction off your services.”

All the blood drained from his face, and the world seemed to tilt precariously.

“Ladies, you are terrible. Leave him alone.” Claire to the rescue.

He threw her a grateful smile.

With a pat to his shoulder, she tilted her head as if trying to figure out what the confusion was. “Oh, make no mistake. We do want to auction you off for your services.”

Every fiber of his body tensed at the sight of her before him. The word services falling from Claire’s mouth made him think of slick, sexy nights and cries of pleasures.

“What in the hell?”

“Your legal services, silly.” Maxine pushed a jar of moonshine into his hands. “We’d never do that to you.”

He rolled his eyes in an exaggerated, the-hell-you-wouldn’t arc, and grabbed the moonshine before she changed her mind.

“It’s for a good cause.” Claire’s comment was soft and slid up beneath his dress shirt as if her fingers caressed him.

With a nod, he spoke low for her ears only. “We need to talk.”

Judge Carter grabbed the microphone as if preparing to call the town to order, but instead covered it with his hands and leaned toward Mitch.

“Are the rumors true?”

Mitch furrowed his brow. “Rumors?”

“That we’re losing you to Portland after all?”

The hand that Claire had on his arm fell away to her side, and a look of betrayal crossed her face. She knew he was thinking about it. And hell, it was Portland, Maine, not Portland, Oregon. The commute was barely the length of a good movie.

“Claire.” He tried to grab her hand.

“No. Don’t touch me.”

He could handle her anger, but the pain and something way too close to fear that he saw in her eyes was unbearable.

And there it was, a spring breeze to a tornado.

It was everything Claire could do not to let her eyes fill with the tears of loss that burned behind her lids. “You’re leaving.” This shouldn’t be a surprise to her, so why did it hurt so bad?

The look on his face was shaken. She’d give him the benefit of the doubt that this was the news that he’d hoped to talk to her about, but he should have done it yesterday, hell, weeks ago before she grew so fond of him. Before she wanted to be with him.

But all you’ve ever said is that you never would.

She tried to block out the voice in her head. She had said that, but those words had as much to do with the knowledge that he never wanted to settle down as it had with her own fears. The thing was, she’d grown to count on and crave his companionship.

She never dreamed that would have to end because he’d choose to leave.

Living in Portland wasn’t another country, but it might as well be when it came to the goings-on of her everyday. Suddenly her future was stark and cold.

She hated September.

“Claire, I had every intention of letting you know what my plan was. I didn’t come to this decision lightly. Portland wants me, Mitch Brennan, and everything I have to offer. Cape Van Buren wants an attorney, but they don’t know if I’m the right fit. If they don’t know by now how much I love this town, there’s no convincing them.”

He grabbed her hand and refused to let go as she tried to pull away.

“I need to be able to really do some good; it’s something that has been driving me for a long time. Since I can’t do that here, Portland has made me an offer I can’t refuse.”

Away from the town, away from the Archer Conservation Park of Cape Van Buren where love was supposed to be the piece that completed any of life’s puzzles.

Love.

Pain slashed through her heart. How the hell had she let that happen?

“And my program?” She hated that her voice trembled. Hated that anyone could hear her weakness. They already looked at her as though she’d break if the wind blew too hard. Well, everyone but Larkin and Blayne.

Mitch looked to her best friends, who had joined them within the past few minutes, but they both shrugged and flanked their friend in a united front. They always had her back, and at that moment, a great wave of love washed over her, warring with the loss she felt thinking of Mitch not just moving away.

But choosing it over her. That was the kicker.

“I needed to talk to you about that, too.”

A crushing weight of despair stole her breath. “You aren’t approving it?”

“I am, but...”

His but ruined any hope she’d had.

“This is my life you’re screwing with, Mitch.” Her whisper sounded anguished to her ears, and she cleared her throat to make it stronger. “What the hell was the point of all of this? You deny me because you couldn’t handle the truth about your own damn daddy issues?”

He reeled back as if struck.

She knew it was uncalled for, and immediately regretted the words, but he was taking everything from her, including himself. The one thing she always counted on being safe, being constant. A man she not only called friend but lover and confidant.

And her program, too.

“You talk of wanting to make a difference, well, I do, too. This program, these coping workshops, were my way to make sure the children of Cape Van Buren grew up a little less fucked-up than the rest of us.”

Mitch pulled in a breath, his hands in a tight ball at each side.

Didn’t he understand how badly he was hurting her, how he was stripping away the things in life she’d created to cope with her own tragic loss?

“It’s not no forever, but in order to make the programs as beneficial as you want them to be, you need more leverage. You need to finish your degree, so these classes can constitute as actual art therapy. I think that is the best direction for the Cape Center.”

Throwing her unfinished degree back in her face, making her remember why she’d stopped—the sound of no heartbeat in her fiancé as he lay on the coroner’s table, the sound of no heartbeat from her baby as she herself lay on the examination table—was the last drop of water that turned a wave into a tsunami.

She was done.

“How could you?” She hated the tremble in her voice but couldn’t hold it back.

“Claire, I—” he choked out.

Shrugging away from her friends, she took a step back.

It might not be fair, but at that moment, looking at all the faces she’d grown to love, she needed to protect herself and not worry so much about them as she had been all this time. Alluding to the day she’d met Larkin and Blayne in the park, she said. “Sometimes I wish I could go back. Go back and take another path.”

“You don’t mean that.” Anguish shone from Mitch’s eyes, but it didn’t matter.

“But I do.”

Because then none of it would have led her to befriend the man she’d fallen so hopelessly in love with.

The look on Larkin and Blayne’s faces left her feeling ashamed.

In her own pain, she’d just hurt the only two people who really loved her.