Lea reached out and hugged her. The scent of salt and sea burned her nostrils. “I’m sorry, Ro. But you almost lost yourself this past year. Don’t do it again when you’ve just found her.”
“Even if I love him?”
“Even if you love him. Because if you do this, he needs to know the true you. Not the one he wants you to be.”
She sniffed and slowly broke away. “I hate when you tell me the truth.”
“I know. But it’s necessary.” She rolled to her feet. “Let’s do a few more and clear your head.”
Rowan headed back into the ocean with a heavy heart. It was all coming to a crest, and she worried about the ultimate fallout.
For all of them.
Tino had outdone himself.
The sun dropped low behind the palms, painting the beach in molten gold. A trade wind curled through the gathering, warm with salt and plumeria. They’d chosen the far end of the beach—locals’ territory, where the reef curved close to shore and the sand held the day’s heat. Serious surfers came here early. By sunset, it was their church.
Tonight, it washers.
Rowan’s little makeshift family was already gathered—Lea, Tino, Cousin Howie, Brie, Chelsea, and two of the older women from thebeach who had known her dad since she was five. Everett and Kelsey stood slightly apart, as if waiting to be told where to plug in.
“How many boards I’ve blessed?” Howie said dramatically, folding his massive arms. “A million. But this one is my favorite because it’s for my favorite woman in the world.”
Rowan scoffed. “You say that to everyone.”
“I say it to everyone, but I only mean it with you.”
Everett gave him a look. “Do all of you flirt for sport?”
“Yes,” Lea and Howie said at the same time.
Kelsey rushed over to Rowan, practically vibrating. “Rowan, is this the board Tino made with your dad’s—what is it called again?”
“The stringer,” Rowan said. She brushed the pad of her thumb along the thin stripe. “It’s the spine of a board. Everything else is built around it.”
Kelsey smiled. “Like how you and your dad were?”
She couldn’t help pulling the girl in for a short hug. “Yeah. Kind of exactly like that.”
“I like that saying.” Kelsey traced the handwritten words etched in the board. “Find your line. You say that to me a lot.”
“I do. It’s important to a surfer and works well as a life lesson, too.”
Kelsey smiled and fell back to hang with Brie and the girls. Everett leaned toward her. “Explain this to me. I don’t want to accidentally offend anyone.”
Rowan’s lips twitched. “You’re doing great just not wearing a suit.”
He shot her a look that warmed something inside her chest. Teasing had become an intimate way of flirting she looked forward to. “It’s not a religious thing,” she continued quietly. “It’s a thank-you. To the ocean, to the ancestors, to whoever kept us all safe long enough to stand here. And it’s a way of telling the board what we want from it.”
“And what do you want?” Everett asked.
She looked at the ocean. Then at Kelsey. Then at him. “Peace,” she whispered. “And the courage not to run anymore.”
Tino stepped forward with a small wooden bowl filled with seawater and a lei of ti leaves. His voice was steady—earth and tide blended intosound. “Rowan Delaney,” he said, “daughter of the ocean, daughter of Jack Delaney. This board carries the line of the one who taught you. The one who loved you. The one you carry with you.”
Rowan bowed her head.
Tino dipped the ti leaf bundle, letting water fall along the board’s rail like rain sliding off a roof. “May this board take you where you fear. May it bring you home again. May it remember what it was built from.”
