Claire lifted her head, swearing up a storm so strong that the lobstermen would be embarrassed.

Confused by the loud, jarring noise coming from her front door, she pushed up from the couch, moaning at the pounding in her head and pulling her hair out of the dried drool against her cheek.

With a frown, she took in the empty bottles of wine on their sides next to the numerous empty cupcake wrappers on her coffee table and what looked to be a flower explosion in her kitchen. There were dirty bowls caked with dried batter on the counter, used spatulas, and open containers of sugar and flour.

She held a hand to her head and groaned, trying to make her way to the front door with hopes of getting the incessant banging to stop. She unlocked the door and pulled it open just a crack, looking through with one eye open. No sooner had the door moved when Maxine and her mother were pushing their way through and past her into the apartment.

“Mom? When did you get to town? What are you guys doing?” She turned around too fast, and her stomach protested with a sickly lurch. All she could do was wrap her arms around herself and pray for an early end.

That's what she got for drowning her misery in wine and a half dozen knock-off North Cove Confectionery cupcakes that she had baked last night after the town hall meeting.

“Mom?” Her mother shrugged off the question as she placed dirty bowls and spatulas into the sink and turned on the water. “Don't clean.”

Her mother chuckled. “Don't clean? Is that your new strategy in life?”

Maxine walked over to the coffee table and the embarrassing evidence of Claire's misery with a few judgmental clucks. “You're quite the party animal, my dear.”

Claire could argue and fight and resist, but history had already shown her that if Maxine had an agenda, she would see it through. And before she knew it, the two women had her out of her house and walking down the basement stairs of the Cape house.

She stood in the middle of the brew room, facing down huge pressure cookers and barrels of moonshine. “I'm all for getting my hands on barrels of more of your moonshine,” Claire said. “If my broken heart makes you release your tight-fisted grip on it, then maybe I'll ask Mitch to break my heart all over again.”

Her mother rolled her eyes. “Quit being so dramatic.”

“Mom!” Claire couldn’t believe her ears. She shot Maxine an accusatory glare. The woman was a bad influence.

Maxine ignored her and handed each of them an apron as she donned one herself, tying it behind her back. “Making my moonshine isn't just because it's the finest kind. It’s always been very cathartic. When I had to face the reality of losing my son and seeing him as no more than the angry, violent shell of a man that he used to be, when the universe thought it was time to take the love of my life...”

An image of Stuart Van Buren, Maxine's late husband, hung proudly on one basement wall over the barrels of moonshine, and she studied it a moment in silence. Blowing a kiss to the man in the photo, she continued, “Making my moonshine gave me an outlet. Each step, the timing, the care, it helped me see that life was a similar process. You do your best to put together the most delicious combinations, sometimes they work, sometimes they don't, but the process of trying is living.”

She raised her hand to stop Claire from interrupting. “Really living.”

Claire ran her fingers along one stainless steel counter. “I'm living. I'm not Larkin, who was hiding away. As a matter of fact, I can confidently say I helped her break out of that particular shell.”

Her mother gave her a doting smile and ran her hand over her hair. “You did help Larkin, but you were lying to yourself. You kept living as far as starting your event planning business and continuing with some of your art. But you never went back and finished your degree, and you avoided relationships as if they were a death sentence.”

Emotion clogged Claire’s throat, the image of Jimmy’s broken body in the coroner’s office leaving her legs weak and her heart bruised. She sunk to one of the stools. “I can't do it again, Mom. It was one reason I went along with Mitch and the crazy idea of dating without becoming attached.”

“Crazy is right.” Maxine chuckled. “But not in the way you think. For one thing, Mitch is as good as they come. Not a lot of people know it, but that’s only because they’re lazy...and jealous.” She pushed one of the pressure cookers into Claire's arms.

Claire knew only too well how much judgment she’d reserved for the man for simply being happy and carefree.

“Fill this about halfway with distilled water. Tessa, you can begin washing and prepping these berries while I prepare the petals.” Maxine turned on the low hum of Pandora from her phone.

The women moved through the steps of each task in a quiet harmony of their own.

“Let me ask you this.” Maxine popped a berry in her mouth. “If you lost your mother, what would that mean for you?”

Claire paused at the awful question and looked at Maxine as if she’d finally gone crazy. “I would be devastated. What the hell, Maxine?”

Maxine looked at Tessa with a get-a-load-of-this-one shake of her head. “And me? What would losing me mean to you?”

Claire narrowed her eyes. “Well, at the moment that might be my new mission.”

Maxine flashed her a mischievous grin. “I do like to see that spark in your eye, but seriously...”

Claire set the half-filled pot on the large stove with a sigh. “I would feel like a part of me were missing. What are you getting at?”

Her mother called her by her childhood nickname. “Monkey, don't you see? You can't hide from attachment, and you can't avoid pain by keeping love out of your life. What are you going to do? Not be close to me and your father? Turn your back on Larkin and Blayne, like I heard you stupidly implied at the town hall meeting last night?”

She ran a loving hand over Claire’s hair, and she leaned into it. “Closing yourself in a bubble doesn't protect you from love, sweetheart. It simply starves you from everything good in life, and you end up hurt anyway. You already have so much to lose simply by being a part of this amazing community with your friends and your family. I don't see you ever giving that up.”

Claire swallowed hard and shook her head. How many times had her dad tried to get her to move home? So many she couldn’t count. And every time, she’d told him that as much as she loved them, Cape Van Buren was where her heart was.

“Of course not.”

Her mother grabbed one hand. “Then why are you trying so hard to turn away from the man you love? From the future you know you want?” She swallowed and cleared her throat. “Jimmy was a special young man, moving on doesn’t change that. And the sweet angel that looks over you? She wasn’t your only chance at motherhood. I can feel it.”

Claire shook her head. “I can’t. I feel like...”

“What, monkey? What is it?”

Every shard of her broken dreams seemed to tear at her all at once, and her voice cracked. “I feel like if I move on that, I’ll lose her forever.”

Her mother wrapped her in her arms. “That’s not how it works, my sweet girl. She’s with you in every breath you take, every laugh, every moment of joy. In every sunrise and crashing wave. I bet you see her in everything you do.”

“How did you know?” Claire whispered, comforted that her mother understood so clearly. The ache in her chest forced its way in tears down her cheeks.

“Because it’s how I feel about you. It’s how Larkin feels about Archer. It isn’t the loss of your baby that makes you feel that way. She’s a part of you. You are her mother. And you’ll feel the same about any other children you bring to this world.”

Claire rested her head against her mother’s chest for a moment, comforted by the gentle rhythm of her heartbeat. “I love you, Mom.”

Her mother pressed her lips to the top of her head.

“You, too, Maxine.”

Maxine nodded. “And I you. Now, go find your best friends and make things right. Your mother and I will finish up here.”

Claire grimaced. “Are they really upset with me?”

Her mother raised a brow. “I heard about it all the way in Portland. How would you feel?”

Shame clogged her throat, and she simply dipped her chin.

“Here, take these, I hear they can go a long way with an apology.” Maxine handed her a couple jars of moonshine.

Claire took the generous gifts, but she wasn’t sure if Maxine’s moonshine could even get her out of this mess.

“What is this about?” Blayne demanded as she and Larkin approached Claire at the cemetery.

Her friend was dressed to kill in a fitted pencil skirt and polka-dot top, her hair in its usual vintage updo, and a look that warned of a mood Claire didn’t want to test. Larkin was more casual in jeans and a sweater, missing her usual smile.

Blayne stood as if ready to pounce.

“I'm sorry.” Claire faced them, ready to face her consequence of being an awful ass.

Larkin looked away and then back, her eyes wavering. “Really?”

“That was a pretty crappy thing to say.” Blayne didn’t ease her stance at all, though her voice had a slight tremor to it.

Claire nodded. “It was. It's not the first time I've ever said something shitty, right?” Giving them a silly grin, she shoved her hair back from her face, hoping they’d find the humor in something that wasn't funny.

Larkin's shoulders dropped, and Blayne’s protective stance relaxed. “We know you were hurting.” Blaine reached out her hand, and Claire didn’t hesitate to take it, relieved for the connection. One she trusted with all her heart.

Larkin looked around. “Why are we here? You already dealt with all of this. In fact, you're the one who made me face my demons with my dead ex-husband.” She made a face at Blayne. “Claire had me yell like a crazy woman at John for what he did.”

Claire scuffed her foot into the cold ground. “It was a little different. You had a very real reason to be mad at your ex-husband, and it left you feeling guilty. I didn't have to yell at Jimmy, nor did I feel resentment for anything that happened with the accident. Not in the same way. I said goodbye, I cried.”

She sucked in a breath, happy to fill her lungs against the suffocation of her pain. “It looked like I was moving forward with my life, with my new business, but I was avoiding everything I was and truly wanted. I'm so afraid of ever feeling that kind of pain again.”

And it finally hit home to her that pushing Mitch away and deciding not to have him in her life hurt every bit as much as if something had happened to him. In the end, the result would be the same. Her, alone, without the man she had grown to love.

She should have told him.

The idiocy behind her actions pushed a strangled laugh from her throat. “I don't know how to fix this.”

Her friends slid their arm through hers. “We can help, but I want to meet your baby,” Larkin said.

“So do I,” Blayne whispered.

Their ready acceptance and acknowledgment of her child conceived by a great love eased a measure of the heavy weight she'd been carrying in her heart for a long time.

Losing love was an experience filled with immense pain, but being loved was one of such incredible joy.

She wished she’d realized it sooner.