Chapter One
One day of gray skies and buckets of rain could soothe the soul. After five days of heavy storms, Jack Cruz decided his soul had been so thoroughly smoothed it had been rubbed raw.
He stood at the edge of the boardwalk, staring out at the fog rising off the coast. The beach beckoned him, even as the mist hovered over the waters, stubbornly clinging to the air. Moisture refused to leave, but at least the rain had stopped, and the waters had receded.
His feet sank into the sand as he stepped off the wooden planks. Drawing in a long breath, he savored the salty air filling his lungs. He rolled his shoulders and stretched his legs, ready to feel the burn of a good run.
At the water’s edge, he paused for a moment, stood still to inhale another breath of the ocean air he loved. This is what he needed. The walls had been closing in on him for months, but the last five days…they had been brutal. If he’d had to spend another twenty-four hours in the house, he wasn’t sure he would have survived with his sanity intact.
Life was changing.
He didn’t like change.
An odd trait of someone who steered clear of commitment.
He sighed as he took off running. Part of the problem was that his life was only changing because of the changes of those close to him. Kelly, his younger sister, was expecting her second child with her husband Tommy. He’d have another niece or nephew in the upcoming months, which he was thrilled about—he adored his niece, Reagan—but it was a reminder that his baby sister was leap years ahead of him on the schedule of life.
Owen, his older brother, had joined him on the bachelor track, until he’d moved back to Grace Harbor and reunited with his ex-girlfriend. Haley and Owen had married on New Year’s Eve, leaving Jack as the only Cruz sibling, the only one not moving forward in life.
Even Joy, the woman he’d dated for a few months over winter, had moved on. When she accepted a position with a company in Savannah last month, two days before Valentine’s Day, they’d mutually agreed to end their relationship. The dissolution of their relationship didn’t upset him. Truthfully, they both had known they were better as friends but were determined to prove they had it in them to settle down.
A terrible excuse for a relationship if he’d ever heard one. He’d known that but had proceeded regardless. Joy’s job offer had been a blessing in disguise. Had she remained in Grace Harbor, only God knew how long they’d continue with their sham of a relationship.
He closed his eyes for a few seconds while running, trying to clear the thoughts from his mind. Hadn’t he dwelled on those feelings enough over the last five days? All he knew was that he wanted more from life. A family, but only with the right woman.
Opening his eyes, a quick glance to his left told him he’d run a mile already.
“I’ll run another mile before I turn around,” he said out loud to no one.
A few hundred feet later, he passed another man out for a morning run. He nodded a greeting then pressed forward. His head was finally clearing. The sun peeked out from behind a cloud and broke through a line of haze.
Ahead of Jack, a ray of light reflected off an object on the beach, sending a blinding glare his way. He blinked and moved to the side where the reflection wasn’t as harsh. Storms always washed trash to the shore, a fact which never failed to irritate him. Grace Harbor was his home, and a beautiful place to live and visit. Not a single resident appreciated trash left behind.
He walked over to the object, intending to pick whatever it was up and throw it away in the nearest bin. There would likely be twenty more pieces of trash for the one he picked up, but he’d do what he could with this one.
Stooping down, he reached for the glass bottle. A rolled-up paper inside looked like someone had torn off the label, rolled it into a scroll and shoved it inside. He carefully picked up the bottle, quickly realizing this wasn’t an ordinary bottle, and it was sealed with a cork.
Though he was not an antiques expert, Jack suspected the glass was vintage at its youngest possible age. He peered inside. What he had thought was a label was a piece of paper. Crooking a finger under his chin, he tried to make out any words on the paper, but it was impossible with it inside the glass.
People didn’t write messages in bottles in real life, did they? Wasn’t that only done in movies for drama? Yet, it appeared he’d found exactly that.
Curiosity got the better of him. He tucked the bottle in the kangaroo pouch of his sweatshirt and jogged to his car. Once he returned and was sitting in the driver’s seat, he pulled at the bottle stopper. The seal was strong, and he tried loosening it by twisting the cork.
After several seconds, the seal popped free. He tipped the bottle, hoping the paper would slide out. The note had unraveled just enough inside the bottle that the scroll’s diameter exceeded that of the bottle opening. He attempted to remove it with his finger, but every way he tried failed, short of damaging the paper.
He needed tweezers or something like them to squeeze the paper without tearing it. Digging through his truck’s console, he searched for any gadget that might work, but he kept a tidy vehicle with few extras inside.
Thankfully, Saturday mornings weren’t typically busy for him. Though he worked for a large chain of souvenir stores along the coast, his position as marketing director allowed him most weekends off unless he had to attend a special event. He drove straight home, put on a pot of coffee, then went to his bathroom and grabbed the tweezers from the cabinet.
The bottle stood tall on the counter. The cork seal rested beside it. Jack took the tweezers, slowly and gently gripped the paper with them until the roll fit through the opening. His pulse jumped with excitement. If this turned out to be nothing, he’d be sorely disappointed.
A thought gave him pause. Should he touch the paper with his bare hands? It was already yellowed and fragile from what he could tell. The natural oils from his skin couldn’t be good for the paper. He remembered his first aid kit had several pairs of nitrile gloves, and he withdrew a pair, slid his hands into them.
He rolled the letter flat, keeping one hand at the top and one hand at the bottom to prevent the persistent rolling.
At the top, in a neat, feminine script, was writtenSeptember 17, 1899.
“Whoa,” he muttered. If that date was correct, he’d found a message in a bottle nearly a century and a quarter old. He sat dazed for several seconds before returning his gaze to read the message.
