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“Where are you staying when you’re not home?”

“Posey has a cute apartment by the water.”

Caleb’s phone pinged with a text. Probably Emery. He pulled i t out to check, but Cassidy snatched his phone before he could see the screen, and without hesitation, hurled it toward the water. “Just when I was starting to trust you.”

“Cassidy, you dimwit!” Caleb ran to the water’s edge, but his phone was fish food. “Why’d you do that?”

“You were going to take my picture.”

“I had a text. Probably Emery.” He stood on the edge of the dock, looking into the dark water. “Guess our deal is off then. I’m telling Mom and Dad where to find you.”

“Caleb, you promised.”

“You threw my phone in the water.”

The back door creaked open, and a couple of airmen emerged. “Cass, is he bothering you?”

“Um, no.” Cassidy glanced at them, then at Caleb, her sly smile evident in the dim light. “But hey, fellas, why don’t you take him for a joyride?”

Joyride? What is a—

Next thing Caleb knew, he was upside down and thrown into the back of a truck, held down by two airmen and driven to who knows where.

After what seemed like an eternity, the driver pulled over. The two brutes in the back dumped Caleb outside the entrance of Eglin Air Force Base and wished him a good night.

EMERY

Now . . .

“They just dropped you off in the middle of nowhere?” She’d leaned into Caleb’s story from the moment he started talking.

A round them, the Blue Plate staff wiped tables and swept the floor. Paige brought out two pieces of cherry pie à la mode. “I don’t want to throw them out.”

Caleb dug in, forgetting he’d already had chocolate cake. This story made him hungry.

“I was disoriented. I’d never driven out there before.

I started jogging down the road, away from the base.

Didn’t know which way was home. Then it started raining.

I got lost. All I kept repeating in my mind was ‘Emery thinks I’m blowing her off.

’ At the first convenience store, the guy behind the counter pointed me in the right direction.

I didn’t even think to ask to borrow his phone—not that I remembered your number anyway.

It was six miles back to the Driftwood. Once I got to my truck, I beelined to the Sands and knocked on your window.

When you didn’t answer, I went around front, saw the windows were dark and your car was gone.

I was exhausted, mad, sad ... I sank down into one of the chairs by the firepit and apparently fell asleep, because the next thing I knew, Delilah was shaking me awake, telling me you’d gone, and I should get home.

Why’d you leave so early? In the dead of night? ”

“The night you helped Dad carry in a platter of burgers was the night they told me Mom was dying. She gave me the Force family pearls because she’d not be there on my wedding day.”

“So that’s why you never answered my texts or calls? I thought you were mad at me.”

“I was mad at the world. Mom, Dad, and I had a million conversations in the following days. I cried so much I was probably dehydrated. I hated Cottage 7. I hated the Sands. I hated Sea Blue Beach. And for a moment, I hated you, because I’d spent most of my summer with you and not Mom. Then I realized I had to talk to you.”

Emery picked at last of her pie. “I couldn’t sleep, so I’d be up all night, refusing to believe Mom was dying.

When Dad showed me the scans and data, it all sunk in, and I didn’t want to leave her side.

I curled on the settee with her for twenty-four hours straight.

She told me stories of her childhood, of her college and early career days, what she learned along the way, what she thought were the important things in life.

I wish I’d recorded those conversations.

Dad, sweet Dad, brought us food and drinks, even read to us.

Looking back, I can see that’s when Mom let go of the facade and started to deteriorate.

Two nights later, she said she wanted to go home.

Dad responded with, ‘Pack up, we’re leaving.

’ Mom went for a walk with Delilah, and I texted you. ”

“Emery, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay, Caleb. I didn’t know how to text, ‘We’re leaving and Mom’s dying.

’ I sat in the palm tree stand crying, waiting .

.. scared. The entire summer felt like a fraud.

We didn’t have this extended family vacation to make memories, to find our vacation place to come back to every few years. No, it was to say good-bye to Mom.”

“When I got your text, the Driftwood Door was right in front of me. I figured I’d run in, find Cass, then head to you.”

“I cried the first hour we were on the road, texting you over and over. I didn’t understand why you didn’t answer.

I finally fell asleep, waking up when Dad pulled into a Marriott about dawn.

At first I thought, ‘What a horrible dream , ’ then I saw Dad helping Mom out of the car.

” Emery shoved her plate aside and took a long drink of water.

“I saw how frail she was, and there was no going back. While Mom slept, I wandered around some Tennessee town, crying off and on, trying to call you. I don’t think Dad slept much at all, just drank gallons of coffee to get us home. ”

“I’m sorry, Emery. Sorry I wasn’t there.” He reached for her hands, his sincerity reflecting in his eyes.

“It’s okay. I look back at the order of events and wonder if it just wasn’t meant for us to have that final night, for me to cry on your shoulder.” She laughed softly. “I had this idea we’d run away together.” She dabbed the tears under her eyes. “I just wanted to be anywhere but in my life.”

“I’d have been tempted, Em. But after confronting Cass at the bar, I swore to myself I’d never hurt my parents.”

“So there is a silver lining to our clouds,” Emery said.

“Once we got back to Cleveland, I put Sea Blue Beach out of my mind. I was going to quit basketball, but Mom refused to hear it. If I wasn’t in class or on the court, I was with her.

By the end, she had a hospice bed in the living room facing the front window. She loved the fall leaves.”

He reached again for her hand. “You loved her well, Emery”

“I tried. She liked you, by the way,” Emery said. “So, what’s the rest of your story? What happened when you got home? Did you tell your parents about the Driftwood?”

“When I got home, two police cruisers were in the street. Mom had tried to call me, but the fish weren’t answering and she freaked.

I didn’t tell them where Cassidy was, only that she was okay and wanted to be left alone.

The next few days were rough, but we found a new normal.

Through other sources, probably the West End coaches, my parents found out she was at the Driftwood Door.

By the time they went to see her, she was gone. ”

“Gone, gone?”

“Gone, gone. For about a year. But to give her credit, she occasionally texted. She showed up six months before I graduated, then left again. The next time she came home, I was a sophomore at Cornell, and she was very pregnant with Bentley.” Caleb reached for the check, then left two twenties on the table.

“It’s been a roller coaster ride ever since. ”

“Roller coaster? Sure you don’t you mean a Ferris wheel?” E mery leaned against him as they walked out the deck door, into the mist settling on the beach.

He laughed. “I’m never living that down, am I?”

“I’m bringing it up at your funeral. ‘Caleb is now riding the big Ferris wheel in the sky ...’”

“You’ll be at my funeral?”

“Sure, but many, many years from now.”

Arms linked, they headed down the Beachwalk, through hazy amber light cloaked in mist. She loved the feel of Caleb’s strong arm under her hand. She loved the sound of their even foot crunch on the sandy concrete.

Maybe being here meant the past did not have to shade her forever. Maybe the mist of time would wash away the sadness and leave behind the good.

Caleb gazed down at Emery, and the look in his eyes was more than friendship. “What do you think your mom would say about you living in Sea Blue Beach sixteen years later?”

Emery raised her face to the misty rain. “She’d be happy, I think.”

“And what about me?”

“You? She’d be glad you were in Sea Blue Beach too.” Emery wiped the dew dripping from the ends of his floppy hair.

She’d deflected his question with her answer, but it felt too soon, too intimate, to confess Mom would be thrilled that Emery was falling in love with Caleb Ransom once again.