seen a storm like this.
All night long as he stood in the watch room, the sky and the sea had raged. Only the revolving light was powerful enough to pierce the darkness and guide home sailors who had been caught unawares by the storm.
As the clock ticked slowly on, Rory held on to his faith. Faith that everyone on the ocean would escape the storm unscathed.
And faith that Zara would find a way to break through her own storm too.
Three in the morning rolled around. Then four. Five. Six. Seven. And still there was no sunrise, not so much as a hint of light on the horizon.
Until, suddenly, a ray of sunlight miraculously broke through.
But what caught Rory’s attention even more was the sound of footsteps on the metal, circular stairs that led up to the watch room.
He would know those footsteps anywhere—the purpose, the determination in every step. The hat was the first thing he saw rising out of the stairwell.
A magician’s hat.
He wanted to throw back his head and laugh. He wanted to dance one of the Irish jigs his mother had taught them all when they were kids. He wanted to sing every cheesy pop song ever written.
Because Zara wearing a magician’s hat could mean only one thing.
Thank God.
“I knew you’d be here.” With her glasses all wet and steaming up, in mismatched sweatpants and sweatshirt, wearing Kevin’s hat and holding his wand, Zara was the most beautiful sight in the world. “Guiding lost sailors home.”
He wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her. The only thing that could possibly stop him was the knowledge of how much they needed to say to each other first.
Still, he couldn’t resist telling her, “That’s because you know me so well.”
She smiled, although it fell away too quickly. “I wish I had known myself better. Then I might have realized that once my mother died, and I blamed myself for it, I no longer liked myself. That’s why I chose to go out with guys who didn’t like me very much either. Guys like Cameron. It’s also why I let Brittany get away with so much over the years—I thought being her doormat was no better than I deserved. It wasn’t until you came along, and were such a force of nature, that you yanked me out of my happiness exile, whether I was willing to leave it or not.”
“You yanked me out too, Zara. Just reached right into the heart I was planning to keep locked away forever and made me love you. Although I have a confession about last Saturday night: I never wanted to break up. I planned to wow you so much with my moves that you’d change your mind about ending things today.”
“I don’t know why I’m surprised to find out how sneaky you are,” she said with an upward quirk of her lips. “Although now that we’re coming completely clean, I should confess that the real reason sweetheart bothered me was because I didn’t think I deserved a future full of love and promise when my mom couldn’t have either of those things.” At last, he put his arms around her as she said, “It took me until now to realize that there’s no point in covering myself with heavy amour to protect myself from feeling pain that severe ever again. Not when you’re so stubborn that you will just keep yanking down my walls until there are none left.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, glad that he could make her smile with his faux-cocky response. “Seriously, though, I don’t want to keep making the same mistake—not having the guts to get you to talk to me. Really talk to me about everything you’re feeling, no matter how difficult. I shouldn’t have secretly hoped that I could heal you with my love and that you’d find solace with my family—only for the opposite to happen when being around my parents, and especially my mother, triggered a fresh onslaught of grief.”
“Your family is amazing, Rory. It’s not your fault that when I met them, it all spun back around on me. Being loved by an amazing guy like you, who also happens to have a fantastic family…I felt like I had won the love lottery. But I didn’t believe that I deserved it.”
“What do you believe now?”
“I believe that when I’m with you, I feel safe. I believe that knowing you love me—and loving you right back—makes me able to get down off the thirty-stories-high