“I need you to go as soon as possible,” I say when I step back. “I want her out of here.”
She nods. “Understood. I’ll start getting things in place.”
Now, when I picture Charlotte leaving, the image isn’t quite as bleak as it was before.
We head back to the others. The noise hits immediately. Zara’s on me at once, phone already in hand, another dog video queued up. I sit, watch it with her, and react the way I’m supposed to.
But I’m not really there.
I’m already working through routes, logistics, what Charlotte will need, everything that could go wrong.
Charlotte’s the strongest person I know. I don’t say that lightly. I mean it in the only way that counts—built over fourteen years of having no choice but to be.
She’ll be fine anywhere. She could land in the middle of nowhere and make it work.
I know that, but it doesn’t change anything.
She’s done enough hard things on her own.
This doesn’t have to be one of them.
Chapter 35
Charlotte Gallagher
The beachhere is not the same as the island. The sand’s lighter, the trees sit differently, and the water is a different shade of blue. Despite the differences, some mornings I wake up and just lie there listening to the water, and for a second it’s easy to forget I’m not back on the island.
Until I reach for Dane and find the space beside me empty.
But I’m not alone.
I didn’t expect a relationship with Christina. I didn’t think she’d be much help either, and I was wrong about that almost immediately.
What surprised me more was that she stayed.
When I told her she could go home, she looked at the water, then the cottage, and just shrugged, like the decision had already been made.
She likes it here.
We’ve fallen into something without ever naming it. She makes coffee before I’m up. We cook dinner together—she teaches, I follow. In the evenings, we sit on the porch and watch the light fade. Sometimes we talk. Sometimes we don’t. It’s comfortable either way.
Marcus and the girls come down every couple of weeks—Friday to Sunday—and the cottage that feels just right for two somehow stretches to fit five without it feeling crowded.
By the time Friday rolls around, I find myself listening for the sound of their car in the driveway.
I like having them here.
Zara’s out of the car and straight to the water every time, only stopping long enough to drop her bag. It gets me every time.
Isla hangs back at first—watching, taking it all in, figuring out the place before she lets herself settle. By Saturday she’s barefoot in the kitchen, singing under her breath, her shoes kicked off by the door like they’ve always lived there.
It’s one of those weekends when the cottage feels full in all the right ways.
I leave them to it for a while and head down to the beach.
I’m taking an evening walk along the shoreline when Dane calls. I answer, and his face fills the screen.
There it is—that pull in my chest. Like my breath catching halfway in.
