Page 82 of Meet Me at Sunset Cove

The ferry pulled up to the dock, and Hunter swallowed a heavy breath.

“Where are you headed?” Tara asked.

“I’m supposed to be heading to my mom’s wedding…”

“You know,” Tara leaned toward him, her shoulder bumping his. “Sometimes people leave when things get hard…but sometimes they stay, Hunter. And sometimes they come back…if you let them.”

Hunter thumbed the seam of his coffee cup. “That sounds like a pretty good way to get hurt all over again.”

Tara let out a peaceful breath. “Yes, it does. But God calls us to trust Him that when we get hurt, He’ll stick around to pick up the pieces”

Do you know why we built the trust that way?…To create a legacy built on faith.

Hunter’s brow furrowed as he absorbed her words. He swallowed. “I’m not sure I know how to trust God.”

“That’s a hard one to learn, so I’ll just tell you what helped for me.” Tara wrapped an arm around his shoulder, giving it a motherly squeeze. “It takes practice, and prayer, and most importantly, listening. God’s not going to hide from those who seek Him. He doesn’t walk away, Hunt.”

The ferry began to load with passengers.

“You getting on?” she asked.

Hunter took in a deep breath. “Yeah, I think so.”

* * *

Daisy’s dreams were dead. And so were her plants. Maybe that was being a little dramatic, but as she stood at the window of her Los Angeles studio apartment with her cute little watering can and tried to revive a crispy brown pothos plant, she wasn’t so sure.

Giving up, Daisy set the watering can aside and turned back to the pitiful little apartment. She’d arrived home a few days ago and still the studio smelled like dust and stale air. Daisy shuffled the three feet to the couch and slumped face down into the cushions.

“You hoo!” Robin called from the front door.

Daisy groaned in response.

Her friend lived conveniently across the hall and had been “popping by” to check on her every few hours since Daisy’s return. Apparently, there was just something about her that screamed, ‘I’m not okay!’ She couldn’t imagine what it was.

“Oh,” Robin said, edging gently into the living room area. “All right, we made it out of bed. That’s a start.”

“Yaaaay,” Daisy said flatly.

“Okay, sweetie, why don’t we sit up. I’m a little worried about airflow,” Robin said, pulling Daisy up. “Great job, babe.” She stood and glanced around the room, apparently taking note at the lack of change since she’d last been there. “So, how did your little assignment go?”

“What assignment?” Daisy mumbled.

“Your assignment to do just…one thing.”

Daisy pointed at the laptop, sitting open on the coffee table, her bathrobe slumping down over her finger. “I edited the last episode.”

Robin’s brows rose in surprise. “Okay! Well that’s something.”

“Don’t think I’ll upload it though…not sure what the point would be. We’ve got like three followers left. And I’m pretty sure two of them are in this room.”

Robin let out an exasperated breath. “Come on, Daisy. This isn’t you.”

Daisy looked at her hands and dropped them back to the couch dramatically.

Okay, sure, she was being a little melodramatic. But her career had been catastrophically destroyed, her love life torpedoed, and all her plants were dead. What did this woman expect from her?

“Okay, well. I’m going to need you to do whatever you gotta do to pull yourself together because…I got you into that meeting with the HGTV execs! We’re flying out Monday morning, and we’ll be in the office by that afternoon,” she announced, as though that were the greatest thing to ever happen to both of them. “It took some convincing, but they are willing to hear us out and talk options for the future.”

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