Secrets Whispered from the Sea - Emma St. Clair Page 0,22

odd for me to have spent four days on Sandover and not felt the sand on my toes or dipped a foot in the ocean. Between Nana’s house, getting the AC fixed, the funeral, and the lawyer, I’d simply not made the time. There were many visits where I went to the beach before even seeing Nana. I’d drive straight to a public access, park, and make my way out on the sand.

I loved everything about the beach—the grit of the sand, the smell of it, the breeze, the sound of the shore birds and the ocean’s roar. So far this week, I had only glimpsed it in passing. Now, standing with my feet in the surf and the sun on my face felt like taking deep lungfuls of air after holding my breath.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I slid it out to see Chuck’s name on the screen. I had only thought about him in passing since our call at the hotel. I hadn’t thought at first that I missed him, but maybe that was only because missing Nana took up most of my emotional space. The sight of his picture flashing on my phone, one where he was laughing, eyes closed and chin tipped back, made my heart do a little flutter.

And, because I needed something far removed from today, I answered. “Hey, Chuck.”

“Clem. How are you?”

His voice warmed me. His question? Not so much. “I’m … um. I don’t know.”

“That was a stupid question. I’m sorry.” He paused, and I watched as a distant ship moved slowly across the horizon. “I read online that your grandmother’s service was today. Just wanted to check on you.”

“You read about it online?”

“Yeah. I looked up the local Sandover paper and found the obituaries.”

When I swallowed, it was around a golf ball-sized lump in my throat. I shouldn’t have been surprised by his concern, or how he went out of the way to do something like this. Chuck had always been thoughtful and kind. Maybe I just stopped noticing when I got used to his presence in my life. It was suddenly glaringly obvious to me how much I’d taken him for granted. And how much I’d kept myself at a distance.

“Clem?” I could hear his voice, small and almost lost under the wind and waves.

I put the phone back to my ear. “I’m here. Sorry.”

“Where are you? What am I hearing in the background?”

“Probably the waves. I’m standing in the ocean right now.”

“Oh, wow. In the ocean?” His voice took on an excited tone, reminding me of a boy hearing about a theme park or monster truck rally. “I’ve never seen the Atlantic. Is it beautiful? Is it cold?”

I laughed. “I can’t feel my feet. They’re numb. It’s kind of refreshing, actually.”

I wish you were here. That’s what I wanted to say next, but my tongue stopped moving, smarter than whatever part of my brain came up with that sentence. Maybe I missed Chuck a little. Maybe I had taken him for granted. But I wasn’t going back to Houston. I wasn’t going back to him. Standing there, thousands of miles away, I felt even more sure about my decision.

If Chuck thought we could work things out, if that’s what this was about, I needed to stop him right now. The best way I knew how to do that was with a dose of hard truth. I sucked in a breath before speaking.

“Chuck—why are you calling? You know we broke up, right?”

Of course, at the moment I said those words, I realized that a man stood fishing near enough to overhear everything. I hoped he didn’t. Out of context, I sounded petty and rude, like a really insensitive jerk. As I looked over, the man turned, his eyes sweeping over my face with a look of disdain.

Yep. He was listening.

And it was too bad, because his tan face had a rough handsomeness that made something yawn and stretch awake in my chest. If my heart had fluttered seeing Chuck’s picture on my phone, it leaped when my eyes locked with this stranger’s. Even though he continued to glare.

He looked like he was in his late thirties or early forties, with the kind of faint lines around his eyes and forehead that really worked for guys, and that women like Nadia used injections to smooth away. I couldn’t determine his eye color from here, but the hair curling under the sides of his backwards baseball cap was so dark