Desi rubbed her temples, her thoughts a tangle of loss and disbelief.Lazy.Thieving.And not Ethan.
She whispered it before she could stop herself.“I miss you, Ethan.”
Camila’s tone softened.“Ethan again?You sure you’re all right, Des?Did you make it down to the wreck?What did you see down there?”
Desi’s heart lurched.What did she see?Caleb’s face.The storm.The flash of the Ring.
She lifted her hand and stared at it.
“The Ring,” she murmured.
“What ring?”Camila asked, edging back slightly.
“Solomon’s Ring, I think,” Desi said faintly, more to herself than to Camila.
Camila sighed, took another sip of her smoothie, and set it down.“Okay, weird day.You need anything before I head out?”
“Just one thing.”Every nerve within Desi tightened at the next question.“Tell me my sister is still alive.”
Camila’s forehead wrinkled.“Of course.As far as I know.Didn’t you just see her?”
A wave of relief rushed over her.At least that hadn’t changed.“Go on home.See you tomorrow.”
Within seconds, the shop door closed again, leaving Desi alone.
The silence roared.She stood for a long moment, staring at the cracked glass counter, the drifting dust motes, listening to the faint hum of the sea outside.Then she turned toward the narrow staircase leading up to her apartment.Each step creaked underfoot, the sound echoing like memories that no longer belonged to her.
She hoped—prayed—that home, at least, hadn’t changed too.
It had.
Her beautiful reef tank was gone, the vacant spot where it had once shimmered now a hollow void that echoed her loss.The ship’s wheel, the salvaged wooden beams, and mahogany paneling she’d painstakingly restored, all vanished, as though her life’s work had been swallowed by the sea.Only her shelves of books remained, along with a few antique relics she’d collected from forgotten shores.Her collection of shells caught the glow of the setting sun.She smiled faintly, until she remembered the pristine ones she’d gathered on that beach onÎle Du Crâne.
And with that, came Caleb.
Plopping on her bed, she buried her face in her hands, doing her best to fight back tears that now spilled down her cheeks.She missed him…the way that errant strand of black hair drifted across his cheek, how he scrubbed his stubbled jaw when deep in thought.His voice—rich, steady, like a deep ocean current—still reverberated in her heart.Those storm-blue eyes that could turn tender or thunderous in a breath.His commanding presence, his fierce protection of her, his honor and decency.
She loved him.And she’d never gotten a chance to tell him.
All that time, she’d fought to return home, never realizing it meant losing him forever.
“Get it together, Desi.”She scrubbed her eyes, forcing air into her lungs.“No use sitting here bawling like a lovesick fool.”
But her words fell flat in the empty room.
Her gaze drifted to the laptop on her desk.Logic—cold, modern—was the only lifeline she had left.She flipped it open.First things first.If Ethan Turner existed, she’d find him.She had to.
An hour later, her hope was dashed.No Ethan Turner.No record.No birth certificates, no obituaries, not even a digital ghost.
“Crud!”She slammed the laptop shut, the sound like a gunshot in the quiet room.“What did I do?”
Only the screech of a gull outside answered her, and the faint lap of waves against the pilings.The last orange ray of sunset fled from her window.Wind whistled through the dock’s rigging, like the sea itself was laughing at her despair.I’m so sorry, Ethan.
Her grandfather’s sea chest sat at the foot of her bed.Inside awaited the journal.The one with a single entry.The one she didn’t understand.
Something deep inside her stirred, a pull that defied reason.
She opened the chest and lifted out the weathered book, its leather cool beneath her trembling fingers.Turning on her lamp, she perched on the bed.The page with her grandfather’s scrawled message fluttered loose.She set it aside and turned to the first page.
