Page 53 of What Remains of Grace

“Because I’m your emotional support teenager,” Emmie said, lifting one bikini top like a prop. “And because you’re terrified he might think you’re weird.”

Jenna peeked through her fingers. “He probably does.”

“Yeah,” Emmie said with a shrug, “but he also asked you to go paddleboarding. So, apparently, he likes weird.”

After Emmie disappeared, Jenna folded the rashguard over her arm and walked to the window. The yard was quiet, the tarp still and silver under the moon.

He wouldn’t come inside out of the rain, but he would meet her at dawn on the water. She didn’t know what that meant. Maybe nothing. Maybe everything. For once, she let the not knowing be enough.

She set the cap by the door with her keys, dug up one of Grace’s refillable water bottles, and turned off the kitchen light. The house settled around her the way it always had when someone was finally ready to sleep.

Tomorrow, she thought, and the word felt less like a promise and more like a tide she was finally willing to meet.

14

Caladesi Island

Cole arrived before the sun.

Not by accident. He needed the quiet, a few minutes to find his footing before Jenna Hart showed up and knocked him off balance again. The Causeway at dawn had always been a reliable thing, predictable in a way people weren’t. The sky still held the last bit of night, deep and bruised at the edges. Pelicans perched on the channel markers. The water barely stirred.

He stood beside his paddleboard, hands braced on his hips, watching the horizon. He wanted the first sliver of light. He wanted calm. He wanted to get his head straight.

Because Jenna . . . hell.

She liked him; he knew she did. He wasn’t speculating. He’d seen the looks, felt the shift in the air when she got nervous, caught the way she loitered in doorways when he walked by. But she wasn’t just any woman. She was avoidant to her bones, a runner. She ran to Atlanta when life got too heavy, and she’d run home when it had crushed her. He didn’t blame her for either, but he wasn’t interested in becoming the next reason she bolted.

Emmie needed her; and Jenna needed room to grieve without him complicating the air she breathed.

He’d looked her up weeks ago, before he ever set foot in the bakery. He knew how respected she was in Atlanta. How people talked about her work ethic, her precision, her results. She was someone you didn’t push. Someone you let come to you, slowly.

He repeated that to himself now: Stay professional.

He was still repeating it again when he heard the crunch of tires behind him. He didn’t turn right away. Just listened.

A door shut softly. Footsteps on crushed shell. Then— “Hey.”

Her voice. Soft, a little breathless. Like she wasn’t sure she should be here. He turned.

And forgot every bit of the speech he’d rehearsed.

She wore a black long-sleeved one-piece, sleek, zipped to mid-chest, modest in a way that only made it worse. It hugged her waist tightly enough to remind him why he had sworn to himself to behave. He didn’t know something so simplistic could unnerve him so intensely. A worn baseball cap sat low over her brow, somehow making her look both softer and braver. She tucked a loose piece of hair behind her ear with a shy flick of her fingers.

He looked away to regain his composure. “Morning,” he said, praying he sounded normal. “Are you ready?”

She smiled, small and real, nerves tucked behind her eyes.

It threw him a little that she looked so vulnerable in that moment. “I think so,” she said, biting her lip.

His grip tightened on his paddle. “You’ll be fine,” he said, and meant it.

They pushed their boards into the water, stepping into the morning like it had been waiting for them.

* * *

They were barely a hundred yards from shore when a smooth gray arc broke the surface beside them.

Jenna inhaled sharply. “Dolphins?”