Chapter 12 - Quiet Mornings by the Coast
Morning sunlight cut horizontally across the white cotton curtains of the seaside cottage kitchen, catching the rising steam from a heavy ceramic mug. I wrapped both hands around the warmth, leaning my hip against the pine counter while watching the tide roll in over the gray New England rocks. For the first time in months, the constant, dull knot of anxiety in my chest felt loose enough to ignore.
The cottage sat two counties away from the city, nestled down a gravel drive where salt air clung to the cedar shingles. It wasn’t extravagant, but it was sturdy, quiet, and entirely ours.
Footsteps padded softly down the narrow hallway. Ethan appeared in the doorway, wearing a faded gray sweatshirt and dark trousers, his dark hair slightly rumpled from sleep. He didn't say anything right away. He just crossed the small kitchen, his muscular frame filling the space, and pressed a gentle kiss to the top of my head before reaching around me to set a small glass of orange juice on the counter.
"How are you feeling this morning?" he asked, his voice low and raspy with morning quiet.
"Good," I said, offering a small, genuine smile. "Better than yesterday. The air out here helps."
"Good. Because we have to leave in an hour. Dr. Henderson's office is twenty minutes up the coast in Kincaid."
The local clinic was housed in a weathered shingle building overlooking a small fishing harbor. Dr. Henderson was a retired family practitioner who wore wire-rimmed glasses and spoke with a calm, deliberate Maine accent that instantly put me at ease. After checking my vitals and listening through the cold stethoscope, she smiled broadly, writing notes on a paper chart.
"Everything looks remarkably steady, Grace," Dr. Henderson said, looking up over her frames. "Heartbeat is strong, and your weight is stabilizing just as we want it to. Whatever stress you left behind in the city, leave it there. This little one needs you rested."
Ethan sat rigidly in the metal chair beside the examination table, his large hand resting protectively over my knee. When the doctor mentioned leaving stress behind, I felt his muscles relax just a fraction. He nodded tightly. "We're staying down the road. We'll make sure she rests."
On the drive back, we rolled the windows down, letting the sharp Atlantic breeze sweep through the cab of the truck. The road curved tight against the rocky shoreline, gray waves crashing against jagged granite below. We pulled off at a quiet overlook where rusted guardrails bordered a steep drop to the water.
We walked along the cliff path, our boots crunching on dry pine needles and shale. Ethan kept his hand firmly at the small of my back, guiding me past uneven patches of ground.
"We need to talk about names," Ethan said, his gaze fixed on the horizon where a lone lobster boat bobbed in the gray swell.
"Do we?" I asked, pulling my navy wool sweater tighter against the wind. "We have months."
"Time moves faster than you think," he replied, turning to look down at me. His expression was serious, stripped of the defensive armor he usually wore in the city. "If it's a boy, I was thinking about Thomas. My grandfather's name. A solid man. He taught me how to fish off docks just like these."
I stopped walking, turning to face him. The wind whipped dark strands of hair across my forehead, and he reached out gently to tuck them behind my ear, his thumb brushing my cheekbone. "Thomas," I tested the word. It felt grounded, real, and entirely untainted by the suffocating legacy of his family's foundation. "I like Thomas."
"And if it's a girl?" he asked softly.
"Rose," I whispered. "After my grandmother. She grew them in her backyard no matter how cold the winters got."
Ethan smiled, a slow, deep expression that reached his dark eyes, smoothing the tight lines around his mouth. "Rose. It's beautiful."
We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the weathered wooden porch of the cottage, going over practical lists on a yellow legal pad—cribs, diapers, second-hand dressers we could pick up in town. For a few brief hours, we weren't runaways hiding from a powerful dynasty; we were just two people building a life from the ground up, ordinary and hopeful.
The sharp crunch of tires on the gravel drive broke the late afternoon quiet.
We both looked up. A blue postal van idled by the mailbox near the property line before turning around and heading back down the road.
May you like
Ethan stood immediately, walking down the three wooden steps to check the box. He returned a moment later, holding a single, thick envelope. He handed it to me. The paper was heavy, cream-colored, and bore the embossed gold seal of the family foundation on the back flap.
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