Page 62 of As a Last Resort
Epilogue
SAMANTHA
Eighteen months later
The wind changed on the island once the tourist season officially ended. It became cooler, either from the lack of bodies crowding the local restaurants or the shift in weather—I wasn’t sure.
It felt good to call the island home again.
New memories started to take away the sting of the old ones and there were fewer landmines the longer I stayed.
It didn’t feel like a gut punch every time I drove by the light pole downtown.
I still made Austin in charge of the weekly grocery store runs to avoid kindergarten teachers and late-night regrets of my mother.
I was making progress, but no need to overachieve.
It was a strange and disorienting thing sometimes, walking around the town and living a new life where an old one used to be.
Mom ended up staying at the rehabilitation clinic and took a job as the activities director.
She was the unofficial cheerleader of sobriety.
Whether it was because she liked it so much, or didn’t trust herself outside of its four walls, she never said.
But I was thankful she was there, taking it one day at a time, sober.
Her daily calls dripped with gossip from clinic patients instead of high school acquaintances, but her sobriety was more than I could have hoped for.
Ivy was on the island way more than she intended.
I was beginning to think she liked it more than she let on.
She was a beast at getting the media to pay attention.
After a whirlwind deal and fast-track construction schedule, a small section of the resort opened early for travel partners, agents, and influencers, and the reception had been incredible.
We’d been written up in the top travel magazines, touting “an unparalleled boutique resort experience that will change the landscape of tourism.”
The few weeks we’d been operating under the radar couldn’t have gone any better. The soft opening was scheduled in the offseason to get staff acquainted with the ins and outs of the resort as the rest of the compound was built. It wasn’t even technically season yet and the weather was perfect.
I moved in with Austin temporarily. But that turned into a more permanent situation when he wouldn’t let me leave. I still went back to the city every month for meetings, but I was happy when I got home, not missing the familiar noise outside my city window that used to lull me to sleep.
Austin’s ferryboat business expanded. Patrick and his cousin—whose name tag read WILL SMITH —ran the ferries across, including the new five-hundred-person passenger boat the resort footed the bill for.
We negotiated a partnership where Scuttle’s Ferry was the exclusive party responsible for the Lighthouse guests sea transportations, which allowed Austin to focus his efforts on the fishing business.
His uncle Harold still offered fishing charters but only deep sea, which apparently was his dream, which left inshore for Austin.
His little old lady fan group made another trip down from New Hampshire and booked one of the first fishing charters he had.
Ethel hooked a humongous tarpon and he had to help her reel it in.
Her grandson had just downloaded TikTok on her phone before the trip and no one knew how to use it.
Turns out Shirley was livestreaming the whole thing and had no idea.
And of course, it went viral. His schedule was booked up overnight. He now had a fleet of three fishing boats that ran weekly in addition to managing the ferries.
Austin and I took As a Last Resort back over to the Birchwood Beach. It had become a special place for us, being the inspiration for the Lighthouse Collection idea as well as one of the first places he took me.
I loved how Austin and I fit. He made me feel safe and loved. He made me think I could take on life without getting road rash. I thought about how much my dad would have loved him.
After we anchored the boat, he led me under and around the downed branches and laced his fingers in mine. “Ivy told me she’s heading to South Carolina this week. You think it’s the next one?”
We found a new plot of land for sale in a coastal South Carolina beach town.
On paper, it was perfect. The spot mirrored Rock Island.
Miles of beach stretched across flat land with a small community already established and thriving.
But it flew under the radar from tourists and publications.
Ivy was set to scout out the location, then was planning on being back on the island for the month after the grand opening.
“I think it’s got potential to be our first retrofit for this place.”
He sat on one of the trunks and pulled me down next to him. “I thought it’d be nice to catch a glimpse of the revamped lighthouse before the official grand opening. Kind of a good luck thing.”
Some of the money from the resort development had been allocated to restore the original lighthouse, and not only did it become operational, it was a mini museum of the island with ship logs dating back fifty years and the full story of the Birchwood Beach.
Looking north, you could barely see the cupola from where we were sitting.
“You’re not one for superstition.”
“Figured it couldn’t hurt.” He scooped me from his lap and helped me balance standing up onto the trunk.
I walked along it taking in the scene around me.
I felt a sense of pride that this beach, a one of a kind as far as I knew, would be preserved because of what I had done.
I still couldn’t decide whether the beach was breathtakingly beautiful or heartbreaking.
I guess things could be both at the same time.
We got to the top and looked out below us. “It’s still hard to believe this entire world exists underneath the water most of the day.” I wouldn’t have believed it myself if he hadn’t taken me during high tide to see it with my own eyes.
He nodded signaling me to go even farther, so I started climbing. “If you climb to the top of that tallest branch, you’ll see the rest of the lighthouse from here.”
“You want me to climb all the way up there?”
“Well, Scuttle, at this point if you don’t, it’ll be bad luck.”
I turned to face him and put my hand on my hip. “Don’t you think it’s time we retired that? I feel like I’ve done a pretty good job of growing out of that weird uncle nickname the last ten years, don’t you?”
“Weird uncle nickname?”
“Yeah, you know—Scuttle is the weird uncle character of The Little Mermaid . He’s always awkward, goofy, and rocking that just-rolled-out-of-bed-after-an-all-night-bender vibe.”
“You think I nicknamed you Scuttle because you were the awkward one?”
I looked away embarrassed. “Well, obviously. I was thirteen and very off-kilter when you started calling me that.”
He bit back a smile, then turned serious. “Scuttle is my favorite character in that movie. He makes everything in the room brighter just by being in it. You did that. You still do that.”
The reality of what he said slowly seeped in. “Austin. I don’t even—”
He squinted his eyes just past me.
“What?” I asked. I turned around and on a small part of the branch, something glittered. “What is that?”
“I don’t know. Must be something that got caught during the tide change.”
I scooted over and plucked a small shiny piece of metal off the branch.
And although I had never seen this tiny little circle before, I knew what it was, and I knew I’d hold on to it for the rest of my life. I turned it over in my hand—a silver ring with a solitary emerald-cut diamond. It was perfect.
He pursed his lips together, losing a battle with a smile. “I couldn’t find any swans. Or ducks. But I have been growing this forest since before you were born and I think that’s pretty romantic.”
The sting of tears came swiftly. “It would smell funny if there were a bunch of ducks.”
“And it would be loud,” he added, tears pooling in his own eyes.
“I love you, Samantha Leigh. There’s no one else I’d rather talk about imaginary worlds that live just underneath the surface with.
I promise to shield you from your elementary school teachers in the grocery store, forever and always, if you’ll let me. ”
I laughed through the monsoon of water streaming down my face. “I’m in.”
Sometimes, the last resort is where you end up, but it’s exactly where you were meant to be all along.