“Harper’s going to owe you.”
“I like Finn. He’s a good kid.” She paused, a flicker of wistful and complicated emotion crossing her face. “Your whole family is great, Braden. You’re lucky.”
“I know.” The words came out rougher than I intended.
She was quiet for a moment before returning to her laptop. But I caught the shift in her expression, the hint of longing that made me wonder what she was thinking. If she’d started thinking of this place as home again. If she looked at my family and saw herself woven into it the way I did when I looked at her.
But I didn’t ask. Because I was afraid of the answer. Afraid it would shatter the fragile, perfect thing we’d built these past few weeks.
The few nights I'd spend alone in my cottage after she’d returned to her rental, anxiety crept in like fog rolling off the Gulf. I’d pour myself a beer and sit on the back deck, listening to the distant sound of waves and the chorus of tree frogs. The same ritual I’d done for years, one that used to soothe me. Now it just gave me too much time to think.
The Great Barrier Reef. I’d told her I understood it was a huge opportunity. And it was. It was the validation she’d been chasing her whole life. It wasn’t a choice between me and a job. It was a choice between me and her destiny.
How could I ever win that fight?
Before I knew it, we were in the final stages of planning the awareness event, now just a few days away. Tessa was in full project manager mode, coordinating vendors and volunteers and educational materials with the focused intensity I recognized from my own work.
“We need to run through the setup timeline one more time,” she said, spreading a hand-drawn map of the beach across my kitchen table. The map was covered in her neat handwriting, every detail labeled and color-coded. “I want to make sure we’re not missing anything.”
I leaned over her shoulder, close enough to catch the scent of her sunscreen and shampoo. “Food trucks here, information booths along this line, kids’ area here.”
“Main stage for presentations here.” She tapped the map with her pen. “I’m giving the keynote about the reef research. Then we’ll have a panel with local fishermen, Zane and Kaia, as well as some marine biology students from the university.”
“Sounds perfect.”
She glanced up at me, her expression suddenly serious in a way that made my stomach drop. “This has to work, Braden. If we can get community buy-in now, we can start fundraising for the center.”
“It will work.” I cupped her face, brushing my thumb along her cheekbone, trying to anchor both of us in the moment. “You’re brilliant, Tessa. And you care about this place. People are going to see that.”
Her eyes searched mine. “I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“That I’ll screw this up. That I’ll disappoint people.” She paused, and her next words came out quieter. “That I’ll disappoint you.”
My chest constricted so hard it hurt. “That’s not going to happen.”
She kissed me then, soft and searching, and I let myself sink into it. Let myself believe that this moment, this connection, this life we were building together was real and solid and permanent.
But even as I felt her melt against me, the clock in my heart kept ticking.
That night, after she left, I sat on my deck with a beer I didn’t drink and stared at the dark horizon. My ritual failed to soothe me. The Scripps contract was three months. She’d been here for two. That left four weeks. Twenty-eight days. The number sat in my chest like a stone.
She hadn’t said she was staying. She’d said she was thinking about it and had applied for a job halfway across the world. And the voice in the back of my head—the one that sounded suspiciously like my eighteen-year-old self—kept whispering the same refrain.
She left before. She’ll leave again.
I took a pull of the beer. I could feel myself building walls again. Small ones, subtle ones. Pulling back just a fraction when she reached for my hand. Keeping my voice light when I wanted to beg her to stay.
It was self-protection. And it was poison.
I was sabotaging my chance at happiness because I was too afraid to believe I deserved it. Because if I held something back, maybe it wouldn’t destroy me when she walked away. But the problem was, holding back required having something left to protect. And I couldn’t stop myself from giving her every part of me.
Chapter Fourteen
TESSA
The morning sunhit the water at just the right angle, turning the marina into a sheet of hammered copper. I stood on the dock next toSeahorse, mentally reviewing the dive plan, but my focus kept fracturing. A week ago, this had been the best part of my day—the quiet moments before heading out, the easy rhythm of prepping gear alongside Braden, sharing the anticipation of what we’d find beneath the waves. Now, the air was thick with a different kind of anticipation.
