“I already told you, there’s nothing to forgive.”
“No, there is,” she insists, eyes shining. “I was so numb. To everything. I knew I missed you, but I didn’t realize how much. If I had, I would have known how badly you were missing me, too.”
“Missing is a gentle word for it.” I smooth her curls away from her face. “Lost is a better one.”
“Lost,” she echoes. “Yes.”
“But now I’ve found you and everything is going to be okay,” I say, cupping her cheek in my hand. “I promise.”
Our eyes meet and slowly, bit by bit, I see her resistance fade. I see the moment she begins to hope and it makes me feel like someone set butterflies loose in my chest. It isn’t belief, but it’s a start, and it feels like the world is finally on its way to being right again.
There’s only one thing that could make this moment better.
“Can I take you surfing now?”
She laughs, a real Sam laugh, one of the sounds I’ve missed the most in the past year.
“What?” I ask when she’s still giggling a minute later. “What did I say?”
“Nothing,” she says, smile still in place. “I was just thinking it would be nice to catch a few waves. Unwind a little after all the crazy back there.”
“Great minds think alike.” I run my hand up and down her thigh, loving the way the thin fabric makes it feel like I’m touching her bare skin. I don’t have any intentions of rushing things—I’ll wait as long as it takes for her to feel ready for more than a kiss—but it’s so good to be able to touch her without her shying away. “I think we deserve the afternoon off to celebrate. One down, three to go.”
Worry creeps back into her expression. “Do you really think we’ll be able to pull the rest of it off without getting caught?”
“I do, but I like to see you worrying about getting caught.”
She arches a brow, “And why’s that?”
“Because it means you’re realizing you’ve got a lot of things to look forward to,” I say, squeezing her leg, not missing the way she shivers in response. “Let’s get out of here. I’ve got a staff meeting tonight, but we’ve got plenty of time to hit the break and get back before dinner.”
“All right,” she says, sliding back into the driver’s seat. She starts the car and shifts into drive, but before she pulls out, she reaches out and threads her fingers through mine. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
We hold hands all the way back to the cabin and that simple thing is enough to make me feel like a lucky man.
Chapter Ten
Sam
“Enjoy when you can,
and endure when you must.”
-Goethe
* * *
We reach the beach just after two o’clock when the morning sun worshippers are packing up to head into town and the afternoon surfers are gearing up to hit the bigger waves as the tide comes in.
The beach is breathtaking—white sand more powdery than what I’m used to, gently swaying palm trees, and a grassy area where locals are grilling and little kids are running around with kites the wind threatens to snap in two. The break is about a hundred yards from the shore, and the ocean floor between the beach and the best surfing is splotchy with coral hidden beneath the waves.
To our right, the sheltered cove ends in a cliff that soars straight up from the sand. To our left, a series of dark, jagged rocks jut up from the ocean like a rotten set of teeth. They make it look like the shoreline is grinning at the surfers, daring them to glide a little closer and get chomped to bits.
Danny rents a second board from a guy with dreads hanging out in the shade near the parking lot, and we head down to the ocean to paddle out.
The warm water, bright sun, salty breeze, and the flash of Danny’s strong arms paddling in my peripheral vision, combine to give me a killer case of déjà vu. For a moment, I feel like the person I used to be. Like the girl who couldn’t wait to spend the weekend bumming around the beach with her boyfriend, eating too much calamari at the Fish House for dinner, and walking home with his hand in hers and the smell of sun-warmed skin and her favorite person swirling all around her, making her feel like any place she went with him would be home.
But the moment fades, the way moments like that always do.
No matter how good it feels to be with Danny or how much I’d like to go back to how we used to be, I’m still the new me, a woman who will never find peace until I finish what I’ve started.
All the way out to the break, I can’t seem to pull my eyes away from the jagged rocks. An inexperienced surfer could get into a lot of trouble at a break like this. It would be so easy to get pulled right instead of left and end up surfing your way into a few broken bones, a concussion, or worse.