And then, not sure what she expects to happen, she stares out at the scene before her, takes a breath, and waits.
“Hey!” a voice calls out behind Grace, yanking her from a deep, dreamy sleep, the sort that makes you forget where you are. “You okay out there?”
Grace’s head jerks up. Her eyes fly open. She gasps. Panic—instant and disorienting—pricks at her newly sunburned skin. Her pulse spikes. How long has she been asleep? Ten minutes? Two hours? She blinks and the scene sharpens. Wide-open ocean. Everywhere.No, no, no. Her stomach lurches. The water, previously lapping at her feet, swirls halfway up her calves.
“Oh my God,” she stammers and scrambles upright, spinning to look back at the coast.
The beach, which had been directly behind Grace when she sat, is several yards away, separated by a pool of deep water. She scans left to right—oh no—her heart its own percussion instrument as she realizesshe’s stranded. Alone. On an increasingly narrow stretch of sandbar. Her own private island.
“The tides shifted,” the voice yells out, as if Grace can’t see this most obvious fact.
Back on the shore, the lifeguard stands are empty, the beach mostly deserted. There’s only one man beside a fishing pole dug into the sand. He waves. And laughs. Not a restrained chuckle. A full body chortle. The kind that makes you hunch over and slap a knee.
“So I see!” Grace shouts back.
The man pulls himself upright, looking entertained. “Are you all right out there?”
“Uh, yeah, I’m okay!” Grace calls back, hoping to sound like a competent adult and not a woman who just marooned herself in the ocean. She eyes the distance between the shoreline and where she stands, gauging if she ought to abandon her chair, try swimming back with it, or possibly sink into the sea and disappear. “I think!” she adds, mostly for her own benefit.
“Hang on!” He steps away from his tackle box, pulls off his T-shirt, and wades into the water. “Let me give you a hand!”
“O-oh, you don’t have to do ...”
Before Grace can completely object, he dips beneath the surface.
“Guess you were having a pretty good dream,” he states through an amused grin a moment later as he steps onto the sandbar.
“I’m mortified,” Grace admits.
“Don’t be.” Tiny droplets of water glint on his tanned shoulders. “You’re not the first person I’ve watched get stuck out here.” He laughs. Two shallow dimples form in his cheeks. “Last week, a mom dozed off with a toddler asleep on her chest.”
“Well, that’s ... comforting?” Grace shrugs, her shoulders pink and burning. “At least it’s not only me.”
“Pretty soon I may have to start charging,” he jokes. “Here.” He reaches for the chair and forces it closed. “Let me take that.”
“Thank you.” Grace squeezes water from the bottom of her cover-up. “I appreciate it.”
“Not a problem.” He hoists the chair under his arm. “Youcanswim, right?” he asks, walking to the edge of the sandbar. “I had to prop the toddler up on my shoulders.”
Grace snorts. “I think I’ll manage.”
“If you say so,” he says, already knee-deep in the surf. “Fair warning that my prices go up with a client’s age.” He dunks under, then reemerges, his head bobbing like a buoy. “If you change your mind, be sure to splash around and give me a sign that you need help, all right?”
Back on the shore, he tosses her a dry towel from his pile of belongings. He takes one for himself, twisting it around his waist, then slides his T-shirt back on. Grace tugs off her drenched cover-up—which, in her frazzled state, she foolishly kept on for her swim—and quickly wraps herself up so she’ll feel less exposed.
“Beer?” he asks, reaching down into a soft-sided cooler bag.
“Oh, um.” Grace hesitates, like a teenager at a beach party, though doing so is ridiculous. She’s been legally allowed to drink for almost two decades. Still, her brain does the old mental tally. Caffeine. Alcohol. Sushi. All the things she trained herself to limit, carefully ration out, and avoid, just in case. A habit that outlived the dream. One that outlived her marriage, too. “Sure.”
“No pressure.” He raises an eyebrow. “I have waters if you’d rather—”
“N-no, I’ll take one. A beer sounds good right now, honestly.” She looks out at the ocean. The water where she’d been sitting is significantly deeper than it was moments ago. “I think after that public display of humiliation, I earned it.”
“Agreed.” He passes her an ice-cold can. “Cheers.”
“Cheers.” She enjoys a long, carbonated sip, the first she’s had in ages. “I’m Grace, by the way. You know, in case you need that information for your rescue log.”
“Caleb. Good to meet you.”
