Rowan adjusted her foot. “There you go. Paddling is small and sharp. Fingers cupped, pull with your whole arm. Not just your hands.”
“What about shark—”
“Nope,” Rowan said, clipping the fear before it grew teeth. “Eyes on me. This is your wave. I’ll push you in. Pop to your feet, look where you want to go. Not down.”
“Got it.” She looked at the horizon with excitement.
Rowan glanced back to the beach. Everett stood with arms crossed, gaze focused. When he saw her looking, he lifted his hand in a half wave. Present. Holding space for his daughter. Warmth rushed through her veins and she turned back to Kelsey.
She pushed the board into position. “Ready?” she called.
Kelsey nodded. The wave hit. Rowan gave a smooth push, felt the board take, and shouted, “Now!”
Kelsey did it. Not perfectly. Her back foot landed a little too forward, and she wobbled, squeaked, almost ate it, then saved it by flinging her arms out and cutting her eyes to the right. She rode the foam straight until it thinned out over the sand.
She grinned, and Everett shook his hand in the air with triumph.
“Again,” Kelsey said, breathless. “Can we go again?”
“As many times as your arms can handle,” Rowan said. “Grab your board’s nose. We’re heading back out.” Rowan paddled beside Kelsey until they reached the pocket where the waves began to steepen. “Okay, this is where you level up,” she said, tapping the rail of Kelsey’s board. “A bottom turn isn’t about muscling it—it’s timing. Let the wave do the work. Drop in, stay low, and as soon as you hit the base, shift your weight to your toes and look where you want to go. Your shoulders lead, not your board.”
Another swell rose, clean and patient. Rowan pointed with her chin. “That one’s yours. Don’t force it. Feel it.” Kelsey paddled hard, popped up smooth and sure, knees bent deep. She hit the bottom, hesitated—then committed. A small but perfect carve, the board responding instantly. Rowan whooped, pride swelling hot and sharpin her chest as Kelsey cut down the line, finally starting to look less like a beginner and more like a surfer.
They worked the board back through the waist-deep water. Wave two was better. Kelsey planted the front foot exactly where Rowan had tapped earlier. She bent her knees deeper, low and strong. She rode longer, face lit and mouth open in a squeal that made a couple of teenagers sitting on the inside laugh. Not mean—the kind of laugh that said they remembered that feeling, too.
“Paddle wide on the way back out. Don’t go straight into the impact zone,” Rowan reminded her.
Kelsey paddled for the next wave with all the eagerness of someone who’d tasted her first real carve and wanted the next hit. She popped up clean, rode the face a few seconds—then panicked. Instead of dropping low into the turn, she locked her knees and leaned too far on her heels. The board skittered out from under her like a frightened puppy. She tumbled into the foam with a splash big enough to earn a few sympathetic hoots from the lineup.
Rowan winced and paddled toward her. Kelsey surfaced with a groan. “That wasterrible. I forgot everything. My feet went stupid. My brain went stupid. My whole body betrayed me.”
Rowan bit back a smile. “Welcome to surfing. If you’re not falling, you’re not learning.”
Kelsey flopped onto her board, scowling at the horizon. “I had it. Ihadit. And then I just ... freaked.”
“Yep,” Rowan said lightly. “That was a classic ‘my body panicked because the wave got real’ moment. Happens to everyone.”
Kelsey pushed wet hair off her face. “So what do I do? To be better?”
Rowan tapped the rail of her board with her knuckles. “Your instinct was to freeze, and freezing makes you fall. Next time, when you feel that drop and your stomach flips? Bend your knees deeper. Low is stable. Look where you want to go. Your shoulders steer the board—your fear doesn’t.”
Kelsey let out a shaky breath. “So, get lower. Look ahead. Turn off my mind.”
“Easier said than done. That’s why it’s called learning. Trust yourself. You know the mechanics now. Let your body remember them.”
Kelsey chewed her lip, then nodded. “Okay. Fine. One more.”
Rowan felt a surge of pride. Stubbornness was a surfer’s greatest asset. “Good. Because the next one? That wave already belongs to you. You just have to claim it.”
After another great fall, Kelsey rode the next one in perfectly, nailing the turn. “I did it!” She ran back, splashing through the shallows, board bobbing behind her. “Rowan, I surfed at North Shore!”
“You did,” Rowan said. Pride swamped her, unexpected and pure. It hit the place in her that had shrunk in that dark year after her father died, when she’d stopped letting herself feel much of anything. Dad would’ve loved watching Kelsey learn and grow, calling her “grom” and teaching her how to read the sets with that slow patience of his.
For a moment, she swore she felt him in the wind, teasing her hair free from the messy bun she’d wrangled it into. It was the first time in a while the connection held.
They cycled through waves. Kelsey wore that private glow surfers did when they’d left a piece of themselves inside a moving wall of salt and come back changed.
Everett never moved or reached for his phone. He clapped and swore under his breath when she fell and came up laughing. Once, he caught Rowan’s eye after a longer ride. Their gazes held. His mouth softened and her stomach did that slow dip. She wasn’t a woman who got butterflies, yet being around the man felt like she was caught in a free fall.
