The mountains rise in my memorywithout any effort. The cabin and the glow of the fire in the hearth. The underlying smell of fresh-cut pine in the air. The way I felt there. Warm. Safe. Calm.Whole.
But none of that changes the fact that no matter how I felt, Holt obviously didn’t feel the same way.
He’d all but pushed me out the door, into a life without him.
He’d been confident of my need to go.
And maybe I did need to leave.
Maybe I needed the distance to understand what it was I truly wanted from my life. And that maybe it?—
“Hey.”
My head shoots up. It’s the same guy who’d chatted me up a few days before. He holds his hands up in an “I come in peace” gesture, and I laugh.
“You’re still here.”
I nod. “For now.”
He considers me for a moment and then says, “Maybe what you’re looking for isn’t here.”
“You know what?” I almost laugh. “I was just thinking that.”
His smile is friendly. “A lot of people find themselves here,” he says. “But those people are still looking when they get here. It seemsto me like you might have already found what you’re looking for.”
The words from this stranger shouldn’t mean so much to me, yet they hit something deep inside me that resonates loud and clear.
“I think you might be right.” I offer him a smile of my own.
His gaze lingers a moment longer before he says, “Then I’d say that makes you a very lucky woman indeed.” He gives me a small wave and moves on.
I watch him leave before turning back to the water.
No matter how many times I let myself take in the view, I can’t help but think that the mountains would look better instead of the endless expanse of ocean.
With a sigh, I drop my eyes to my notebook and flip to a clean page.
With the pen hovering just above the page, I feel it.
Not the ocean breeze, but something else.
The unmistakable sensation of being watched.
I tell myself not to look. It’s ridiculous how many times I’ve imagined him in crowded places over the last few weeks, where I’d been so sure I’d caught a glimpseof his broad shoulders in a doorway or the flash of his thick, dark hair in the corner of my vision. Every time I’d been disappointed.
Still, I can’t stop myself from lifting my head.
I see the boots first.
Worn. Heavy and wildly out of place by the ocean.
My breath leaves me before I can stop it.
I follow the line of denim up his body to a familiar T-shirt over his strong chest. His shoulders, his arms. His face.
Holt.
He just stands there like he has no idea how out of place he looks against the backdrop of the ocean, throngs of tourists, and surfers.
