“We haven’t figured it out in four months.”
“Then what’s another afternoon?” He drew her closer. “I’m not going anywhere, Kate. And neither are you, apparently, since your lab is dark and Tessa needs a wedding planner.”
That earned him a real laugh—short but genuine, and it loosened something in both of them.
“All I know,” he continued, lifting her glasses to slide them on top of her head, “is that the month you were gone was the loneliest month I’ve had since Melissa died. And I don’t say that to guilt you. I say it because this is real for me and I think it’s real for you. The fact is, I’d rather wrestle with the hard stuff together than be comfortable apart.”
Her eyes went soft, the change easy to see with the glasses gone. “See? I knew you’d have the right thing to say.”
He pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her, and she pressed her face into his shoulder. He rested his chin on her head and breathed in the scent of her shampoo and salt air and everything he’d been missing.
They stood like that for a long time, the waves washing over their feet, the sand slowly erasing their footprints behind them.
They turned back toward the house as the sun dropped lower, painting the sky in shades of peach and coral. Kate hadn’t let go of his hand, and he took that as a good sign.
As they walked, she sighed.
“There’s something else,” she finally said. “There’s… something going on with Emma. It’s why I brought her down here.”
He slid a concerned look. “Is she okay?”
“She’s not in danger. But she’s not okay, no.” She swallowed and looked at the house. “I can’t tell you the details yet. She confided in me and I need to respect that. But it’s serious, and it’s why she’s barely come out of her room since we got here.”
He thought about Emma upstairs, the strawberry-blond teenager he’d seen for about thirty seconds last night before she’d disappeared with her earbuds in and her eyes down. He’d assumed she was tired from traveling. Apparently not.
“You don’t have to tell me anything until you’re ready,” he said. “But I want you to know that I’m here for both of you. Whatever it is.”
Kate squeezed his hand. “I know. That’s one of the things I love about you, Eli. You mean it when you say that. You actually, truly mean it.”
“Of course I mean it.”
“Most people don’t.” She said it like a fact, not a complaint, and he thought about the ex-husband who’d been a “safe choice” and apparently not much else. “Give me a little time with her. Let me figure out how to help her before I ask you to help me.”
“Take all the time you need.”
She stopped walking and turned to him, the Summer House visible behind her, its three creamy stories rising above the dune. “Thank you for not pushing.”
“I’m a patient man.”
“You are.” She studied his face, then rose on her toes and kissed him—slow and warm and with real tenderness.
When she pulled back, her eyes were brighter. Like the walk had done what their walks always did.
“We should get back,” she said. “Jonah’s cooking a feast and Tessa’s going to be here soon. We have Wedding 1.0 to celebrate, and I have to drop the bomb that she’s having another.”
“I have a feeling she won’t hate the idea.” He pulled her hand through his arm as they walked back up the beach, and the sensation that settled over him was one he recognized—like he’d said his most heartfelt prayer and trusted it to be answered.
He had peace and, for now, that was enough.
Monday morning came at Jonah Lawson like a freight train with no brakes and a vendetta.
Atlas had been up twice in the night—once at one-fifteen, screaming like an eagle, and again at four, doing that low, hitching whimper that was somehow worse than the screaming because it meant he couldn’t settle. Both times, Jonah had paced the ground floor of the Summer House in the dark, bouncing his son against his chest and murmuring the kind of nonsense that only a sleep-deprived father could produce.
“You’re fine, buddy. You’re totally fine. We’re all fine. Everything is fine.”
Liar. Nothing was fine. Atlas was warm and cranky and kicking like he knew it was Monday and Daddy had to go to work.
And there was no Mommy.