What follows tests every bit of faith I have in his seamanship. The storm hits like a physical blow, waves rising to heights that turn my stomach and wind screaming loud enough to drown out the engine. Rain drives horizontal, cold enough to steal breath, and I cling to the rail with both hands while Grayson fights the wheel with a determination that borders on fury.
He moves through the chaos like he was born to it. Every wave that threatens to swamp us, he angles the bow to cut through. Every gust that tries to spin us sideways, he compensates before I even register the danger. His hands on the wheel are steady, sure, the calluses I noticed earlier now making sense in a way they didn't before. These are working hands. Fighting hands. The hands of someone who has wrestled the sea his entire life and learned how to win.
My attention locks on him so completely that the rogue wave catches me off guard.
It hits broadside, a wall of water that comes from nowhere and everywhere at once. The deck tilts at an impossible angle,and my grip on the rail isn't enough. My feet slide across the slick planks, the hungry gray water reaching up to claim me.
Then his arm is around my waist, hauling me back from the edge with strength that shouldn't be possible. He pulls me against his chest and holds me there while the wave passes, one hand pressed flat against my spine and the other gripping the wheelhouse frame to anchor us both. My face is pressed into the hollow of his throat, and his heart pounds against my cheek, steady and strong despite the chaos around us.
Heat blazes through me, sharp and undeniable. The cold spray, the howling wind, the terror of almost going overboard—none of it matters in this moment. All I can feel is the solid wall of his body against mine, the warmth of him cutting through the chill, the way his arm tightens like he's afraid to let go.
"I've got you." His voice rumbles against my ear, low and rough. "I've got you."
We stay like that longer than necessary, longer than safety requires. The boat steadies. The wave passes. But neither of us moves.
Then the moment breaks. He releases me slowly, making sure I have my footing before stepping back, and the distance between us feels colder than the storm.
"Hold onto something solid." His voice is gruff again, professional. "We're almost there."
He guidesDeepwatchthrough a gap in the cliffs that I would have sworn wasn't there moments before. The entrance is barely wider than the boat itself, jagged rocks rising on either side like teeth in a giant's mouth. But he navigates it with the same impossible skill he's shown all morning, and suddenly we're through, emerging into a cove so sheltered that the storm might as well be happening in another world.
The water here is glass-smooth, reflecting the gray sky like a mirror. Cliffs rise on three sides, weathered stone carvedby centuries of wind and wave into shapes that seem almost deliberate. There's a narrow strip of beach at the far end, dark sand scattered with driftwood and shells and what looks like the ruins of an old stone structure half-claimed by the sea.
I've studied every map of this coastline. Examined satellite imagery. Cross-referenced historical charts going back centuries. This cove doesn't appear on any of them. Storms this violent do not appear and vanish this fast. Not unless something other than weather is driving them.
"Where are we?"
Grayson cuts the engine and moves to drop anchor. The chains rattle in the silence, impossibly loud after the storm's fury.
"Somewhere safe." He doesn't look at me. "Somewhere the storm can't reach."
"That's not an answer."
He finishes securing the anchor and straightens, finally meeting my eyes. Whatever he sees in my face makes something in his expression soften, just slightly, around the edges.
"Some places don't appear on charts for a reason, Isla. Some places aren't meant to be found by people who don't already know where to look."
Everything about this situation screams danger, screams run, screams turn back before you go too far. An unmapped cove, a man who clearly knows more than he's telling, cliffs blocking any view of the outside world.
But fear isn't what I feel as I look at the hidden beach, at the ancient stones, at the water that seems to glow with its own inner light despite the overcast sky. My grandmother's pendant pulses warm against my collarbone, and somewhere deep in my chest, a tension I didn't know I was carrying finally releases.
The storm rages beyond the cliffs. Inside this cove, everything is still.
"I know this place," I say softly, though I've never been here before. "I don't know how, but I know it."
Grayson watches me with an expression I can't read. Then he nods, just once, as if I've confirmed something he already suspected.
"Your grandmother was born on Skara," he says. "Wasn't she?"
The question hits like another wave, unexpected and overwhelming. I haven't told him about Gran. Haven't mentioned the photograph or the letter or the reason I came to this island in the first place. But he knows. Somehow, he knows.
"How did you?—"
"The sea remembers everything." He turns toward the bow, looking out at the hidden beach and the ruins that wait there. "And so does this place."
The pendant burns against my skin, and the water around the boat begins to glow.
CHAPTER 5
