“Caleb Ransom, you have to ride the Ferris wheel. Fear can’t win.”
“It’s not fear, more like wisdom.” He pointed at the colorfully lit wheel. “I can hear the bolts buckling from here, Emery.”
“No, you can’t.” She released his hand to push him from the back. “Here we go, overcoming all our fears.”
Caleb dug in his heels. “Did you feel that? A sprinkle. They’re shutting down the rides, Quinn. Aw, too bad.”
“We have a chance. There’s a few people getting on.”
She pushed, and he resisted, yet somehow she managed to get him there in time for the last bucket. “You almost missed it,” the ride jockey said. “We’re shutting down after this one. Storm’s coming.”
“What luck, eh, Caleb?” Emery nudged him. “Last spin before the rain.”
“I’m buying a lottery ticket if we get off this thing.” He anchored himself against the seat, feet pressed against the footrest, hands gripping the safety bar, his gills a little green.
“You don’t have to hold so tight.” She tried to ease his grip. “We’re still on the ground.”
Still he held fast. “How is it, sixteen years later, you’ve got me on the dumb thing again?”
“Don’t know,” she said. “Must be love.” She meant it as ajoke, yet the air between them sparked with a subtle truth. “Just kidding.”
But when she looked over at him, nothing about this moment seemed funny.
“Hey, ride jockey.” Emery pounded the side of their seat. “Get this bucket of bolts moving.”
10
CALEB
Love? She just saidlove, and the notion sank in deep. But come on, be serious. Emery Quinn did not love him. They hardly knew each other. Seven weeks one summer followed by sixteen years of silence was barely a recipe for friendship, never mind love.
Yet, man, helovedbeing around her. So much so he didn’t care she witnessed his embarrassing phobia of Ferris wheels. Again.
He eased his grip a little when the ride started. The threat of rain had turned the afternoon sky an eerie, inky blue. Were he on the ground, Caleb would stand on the beach to watch the storm roll in. Instead, he was on a lightning-attracting metal wheel of creaking bolts and flexing steel.
As they neared the top, the bucket shimmied through a gust of wind. Caleb white-knuckled it while Emery scanned the horizon like she was the queen of the world.
“You’re crazy, you know that?” he said.
“Being back in Sea Blue Beach, the resting place of my last carefree days, feels a little crazy. Might as well lean into it.” When she looked back at him, the wind shoved a lock of hair over her eyes, and he flashed on the image of her walking downthe Beachwalk the day he and the guys were picking up trash left by West End High. The twist around his heart felt the same as it did then. “Caleb, why’d you come back to Sea Blue Beach? Are you sure this is where you want to be?”
“You get me three hundred feet off the ground and ask me a loaded question?”
“At least you can’t walk away....”
Everything in her hazel eyes said she cared. She wasn’t being a reporter or filling space with conversation.
“A few months before turning thirty-two, I looked in the mirror and thought, ‘What are you doing in Seattle?’ I’d always had this idea of who I wanted to be, what I wanted to do, and Seattle wasn’t it. A month later, Franklin and I had a talk about our struggling business. Then Mom had surgery for thyroid cancer. The choice to leave Seattle became easy.”
“Do you think we make choices for unknown reasons? Like, we think we’re moving for family or a job but something bigger is going on? Would your sister have dropped Bentley off in Sea Blue Beach if you weren’t here? Would she have driven him all the way to Seattle? I can tell you like having him around.”
“She wouldn’t have brought him home. Nor would she want him so far away in Seattle. She does love him, in her weird way. And yes, it’s fun having him around. He dashes everywhere. Through the house, up the stairs, down the stairs, into the kitchen.” Caleb laughed softly. “It’s only been two weeks, but I’m already dreading when he leaves at the end of the school year.”
“Look at the two of us. You left a big city with lots of job opportunities to live in a small, politically locked, albeit magical small town, to be with your family. Me? I left the big city because the only job opportunity was in a small town—which I partially accepted so I could get away from my family.”
Emery subtly rested her head on his shoulder, and he feltlike she left part of her burden with him. In that second, Caleb knew he could fall all the way in love with Emery Quinn, and shoulder all of her burdens.
Maybe she’d help shoulder some of his.
