a walk. I just want to be selfish a little longer.”
“Is that why you’ve been up for the last hour?” He kissed the bridge of her nose. “I’m going to miss those freckles.”
I’m going to miss the sweet things you do and say, like seeing all the hidden pieces of me when so few people ever try to look past the person I show them.
“You were awake?” she asked.
“Of course. If you’re up, I’m up. I could feel you worrying. Are you still anxious about the hows and whens of our plans?”
“A little.”
His brow furrowed, and she knew he didn’t believe her.
“Okay, more than a little,” she confessed. “I thought I was okay without having solid plans, but it’s kind of driving me batty.”
“That’s okay, babe. The new Carly plans much more specifically than the old Carly did. I respect all the changes you’ve gone through. Look how far they’ve gotten you. I’m not sure I can give you all the answers you want, but don’t stress in silence. Let’s talk about it and see how far we get.”
“I’m just wondering what you’re thinking about when we’ll see each other again. Two weeks? A month? Longer? Sooner?”
“Considering that it’s going to suck being apart, my hope is that we’ll be able to find whatever the magnetometer detected and get it on dry land quickly. Once I know what we’re dealing with and have everything in order, when I see a chance to take a break, I’ll steal a few days and come back. Hopefully within the next two weeks. But I don’t have any idea how things will pan out. You know how this kind of thing goes. It could take weeks just to dig up and locate whatever’s beneath the ocean floor, or we could find out that it isn’t even part of the wreckage, in which case we’ll have to start over. But I’ll be in touch every day, and I’ll head back as soon as I can, for as long as I can. I’m working with a small window of time here, and once the colder weather comes, that window closes.”
“I know. I’m not asking for exact dates. I just wanted to get a better idea of your plans.”
“Our plans,” he corrected her. “What about your shop? Do you have any slow periods coming up?”
“Not really. Summer and fall are pretty busy with the town festivals, and then we’re into the holidays. But it might be easier for me to plan time off than it will be for you.”
“This isn’t all going to fall on your shoulders. I won’t let that happen.” He trailed his fingers down her back and said, “We’ll figure it out together. We’re pretty creative. I’m sure we’ll find ways to make it work. I didn’t have a chance to tell you last night, but when I called Noah to make arrangements to ship the concretions back to the island, he brought up the idea again of holding a special shipwreck exhibition at the discovery park for a few weeks over the winter, and changing it up each year. I thought it might be worth discussing, since I can’t dive at the Pride site in the colder months, and you’ll want to be here taking care of your shop.”
“You would consider spending a few weeks at a time here?” Her hopes soared. “I thought you’d lose your mind if you weren’t always on the move.”
“I honestly have no idea how I’ll adjust to staying in one place, or on dry land, for long stretches of time without a project to keep me busy. But I want to be with you, and having an exhibition to run would give me something to focus on. Noah’s talking about offering hands-on areas for kids and having me give talks about diving, shipwrecks, and treasure hunting. It could be fun.”
“But you travel in the winters, and it sounded like sometimes you travel with Randi and Ford.”
“True, but now that we’re together, I want to travel with you, with or without the team. Trips won’t mean anything without you by my side, which brings up another thing I think we should talk about. The Pride is ours, babe. I hope at some point you’ll have time to dive with me again.”
“You’ve really been thinking about all of this, too? I thought you were giving me off-the-cuff answers about coloring outside the lines.”
“They weren’t off-the-cuff answers. I just meant that we’ll have to be creative.”