The question hung in the salt air.
Answering would change everything. Whatever she said next would either save them or end them, and there might not be a middle ground.
“I’m asking you to put me first,” she whispered. “To put us first.”
He closed his eyes. And in the silence that followed, Kate watched his face and understood, with the cold clarity of a scientist reading results she didn’t want to accept, that he was not going to say what she needed him to say.
He wasn’t going to choose her. Not over this. He would love her, care for her, and probably marry her. She knew that. But he would not put her above the God he’d given his life to.
And the terrible part—the part that made her want to scream—was that she understood. She understood because it was the very quality she’d fallen in love with. His unwavering calmness. His immovable center. His refusal to bend on what he believed, even when bending would be easier.
She’d loved him for his conviction. And his conviction was going to break them.
“Kate,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “I love you more than I can say.”
“I know.” She took a step back. “But it’s not enough, is it?”
He didn’t answer.
They stood listening to the surf, a distant gull, the peace of the beach wrapped around them.
She had to decide. Right here and now, she had to decide. Were her convictions as strong as his?
Finally, she nodded, certain.
“Emma and I will stay through the wedding,” she said. “Tessa deserves that. But after…” Her voice cracked, and she let it. “After, we’re going back to Ithaca.”
She turned and walked back up the boardwalk toward the house without looking back.
If she had, she would have seen Eli Lawson standing exactly where she left him, his hands gripping the railing, his head bowed, and his lips moving in a prayer that the woman he loved would never hear or understand.
She glanced up to the dark night sky and narrowed her eyes. “You win,” she whispered to no one. “He’s yours, not mine.”
The teaching kitchen at Northwest Florida State College was all Jonah’s on a Saturday morning.
No students, no professors, no one looking over his shoulder or timing his cuts. Just him and the stainless steel and the quiet hum of the ventilation hood, which he’d turned on out of habit even though there was nothing cooking yet.
Atlas was in his portable car seat on a prep table in the corner, gnawing his elephant’s ear. He’d had an early bottle, a diaper change, and was in the sweet spot of contentment that usually lasted about ninety minutes before the demands resumed.
Ninety minutes was all Jonah needed.
He’d booked the kitchen to practice his Brazilian shrimp one more time before the real test at Driftwood next week. Everything was laid out—the shrimp deveined, shells in a bowl for the stock, aromatics diced and waiting in small containers. Coconut milk. Palm oil. Cilantro. Thai chilies. Limes.
The rice cooker was already going—coconut rice, Broussard’s suggested detail that would tie the whole dish together and demonstrate that Jonah understood cohesion, not just flavor.
He started with the stock. Shells into the saucepan, water just covering them, heat low and patient. Fifteen minutes, not twelve, solid flavor-coaxing. He set the timer on his phone and began the aromatics, his knife finding the consistent, even rhythm Broussard had drilled into him.
This was where Jonah disappeared. Where the noise in his head—Atlas, childcare, money, the future—went quiet and the only thing that existed was the sizzle of onion hitting olive oil. The smell of garlic blooming. The precise heat that transformed raw ingredients into something greater than the sum of their parts.
He was fourteen minutes into the stock and tasting the sauté when the kitchen door swung open.
Chef Marcel Broussard walked in wearing weekend clothes—jeans, a button-down with the sleeves rolled, no whites—which meant he wasn’t here to teach. Whatever it was, Jonah wanted the man gone.
At this point, he needed practice, not guidance. “Chef. I didn’t expect?—”
“Neither did I.” Broussard scanned the kitchen, noting themise en place, the stock simmering, the coconut rice in the cooker. His mustache twitched with what might have been approval. “I saw your name on the schedule and came to find you.”
Jonah stared at him, not even uttering the obvious question—why?—because he just wanted Broussard to leave. But the other man leaned against the pass, folded his arms, and stared at Jonah.
