The Path to Sunshine Cove (Cape Sanctuary #2) - RaeAnne Thayne Page 0,26
a busy one, with multiple meetings on the various projects Whitaker Construction had a hand in right now.
Jess seemed to share his feeling as she walked beside him, looking out to sea more than she was perusing the sand for treasure.
“This is a truly lovely way to end a busy day. If this were my cove, I would be here every night. In fact, I think I would pitch a tent right there between those trees.”
He had done that when he was a kid, plenty of nights when he was tired of butting heads with his father.
In retrospect, Nate felt stupid and childish at his own obstinance, especially now that his father was gone. Jack Whitaker had not been overly controlling. He only had high expectations for Nate, as most parents did for their children.
Whether it was grades, sports, his after-school job working for their neighbor’s construction company, Nate had never felt as if his efforts were enough for his father.
They had fought most about college. His father, a tenured professor, researcher, scholar, had insisted Nate’s future would be grim if he didn’t graduate.
Nate probably would have done fine at university. There were times he regretted he didn’t have a business degree, which would still come in handy these days.
His grades had only been average, from what he now knew was a combination of attention deficit disorder and undiagnosed slight dyslexia.
At the time, he had simply felt stupid and so very ready to be done with his educational journey. While he had weighed professional surfing, the military had seemed a more sensible choice.
Nate wanted to think he and his father had managed to attain some level of peace after he and Sophie moved back. Jack had never been anything but supportive as Nate faced the challenges of single parenthood.
His construction company, begun with only his meager savings and plenty of hard work, had taken off exponentially. His father must have seen what a better fit that had been for Nate than an academic track would have been.
By the time the damn cancer came for Jack, the two of them had healed those old wounds from his angry adolescence.
“I found something!” Sophie suddenly exclaimed from ahead of them. She scooped something up and brushed sand away while the dogs raced around them, sensing the excitement.
“Oh, what is it, darling?” Eleanor called. She rose from the bench for a closer look. “Did you find a stopper?”
“Better! It’s a whole bottle. And there’s a note in it! We found a message in a bottle!”
That was an even more thrilling discovery than a mere bottle stopper. The bottle Sophie held out was clear, sealed, about the size of a small ketchup bottle. He could clearly see a rolled note inside.
“I can’t believe I found a message in a bottle. I’ve always wanted to! What do you think it says?”
“I think you’ll have to open it to find out,” Eleanor said. “Can you get it out?”
“I think so.”
Sophie twisted off the stopper of the bottle. Her fingers were too large to fit inside but she shook the bottle and the rolled message came out just enough for her to grasp with her thumb and forefinger.
Sophie’s eyes were wide, her color flushed. If he had known she would get this excited about a message in a bottle, he might have planted one on the beach ages ago for her to find.
Yeah, he knew that wouldn’t have been the same as this discovery but it might have been worth it.
“What does it say?”
“I don’t know. I can’t read it very well.”
“Is it old?” Jess asked. She also seemed to be caught up in the excitement.
“I don’t know.” Sophie frowned. “I don’t think so. It’s typed. It doesn’t look like the old-fashioned type from a typewriter so I don’t think it’s that old.”
She straightened it out. “It looks like Chinese or Japanese!”
“Oh dear.” Eleanor looked disappointed. “Well, maybe we can find someone to translate.”
“There’s English, too,” Sophie exclaimed. “It was sent in 2015! It says, ‘We are students at Taku School in Japan, studying the ocean currents. We are dropping one hundred bottles into the ocean in April 2015. We would like to know where they travel. Please respond to this email address with the date and the GPS location where you found this bottle so that we may add you to our study. In return, we will send you postcards and a small gift from Japan. Sincerely, Taku School students.’”