“About earlier…” Willa said, taking a breath. “I didn’t mean to just walk off. I was… I was a little stunned, that’s all.”
“Willa…” Ace said. “You don’t have to say anything. Really, I was out of line, and my timing sucked.”
“No,” Willa said, shaking her head. “Ace, I have feelings for you too and I can’t pretend otherwise. Not after what you confessed to me earlier.” Her eyes went to where her kids were. “But the memorial is coming up, and every year around this time, I walk back through the worst day of my life, and I need to get through that first.” She turned her head and met his eyes. The love andunderstanding shining in his eyes was almost her undoing. She sucked in a breath. “I need to be present for my kids.” Her eyes held his. “I need a little time. That’s all.”
Ace was quiet for a moment.
“Willa,” he said. “I’ve already waited twenty years.” The corner of his mouth moved just slightly. “A few more weeks isn’t going to break me.”
Something in her chest released.
“Thank you,” Willa said softly, her voice growing hoarse with the emotion trying to choke her.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Ace promised her. His eyes held hers. “Take whatever time you need.”
Willa opened her mouth to reply when the sound came through from outside. Her eyes widened as she and Ace stared at each other in surprise—it was the sound of a helicopter.
It was low at first, then built steadily, the unmistakable beat of rotors pushing through the last of the wind.
Rad was at the tarpaulin before anyone else had fully registered what they were hearing. He pulled it back and stepped outside. His voice came back in over the sound of the rotors, clear and certain.
“Rescue’s here,” Rad called back in. “Everybody up. Start getting things together as fast as you can.” His eyes swept the cave. “Come on, let’s move!”
The cave came alive.
Willa stood and looked at Ace.
He looked back at her.
Everything between them was exactly where they’d left it, patient and present, in no hurry at all.
She held his gaze for one more second.
Then she smiled.
And turned to bring her family home.
10
JUNE
Two days after the rescue, Sandpiper Shores was trying to put itself back together.
The storm had left the kind of mess that took time, muscle, and patience to address. Harbor Street had lost three awnings and a section of decorative fencing outside the ice cream parlor. Two of the older trees along the waterfront had come down in the night, taking a stretch of the sidewalk with them. The beach was littered with debris the sea had thrown up and then walked away from, as if it had simply lost interest. Cleanup crews had been out since sunrise, and the sound of chainsaws and generators had replaced the usual morning quiet of the town.
June sat across from Holt in his office at the police station with her notepad open and a coffee going cold at her elbow. She looked at the picture of the boards they had built together over the past few weeks, which were locked up at the Sandpiper Inn.
June had been looking at them for the better part of an hour.
Nothing had moved.
That was the honest truth of where they were, and June had spent enough years in courtrooms to know the difference between a case that was building quietly toward something and a case that had simply stalled. The fires, the accidents, the attacks, the stolen safe, all of it sat on those boards exactly where it had been sitting before the storm hit. The storm had not helpfully rearranged anything into a cleaner picture while they were occupied elsewhere.
“I keep looking at it expecting something to shift,” June admitted, setting her pen down.
Holt looked up from the report on his desk. “And?”
“And nothing shifts,” June replied. “We have pieces that should fit together, and they still won’t.”
