Where Sea Meets Sky (Rosewood Beach #6)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Faith Talbot set down her to-go coffee cup and brushed a strand of her soft, copper-colored hair behind her ear. On the large mahogany desk in front of her were several papers that belonged to the client she was preparing to represent in court. Her mind was a tangle of legal considerations and facts, and she sighed without realizing it as she stared into space, wondering how best to present her case.

Her phone buzzed at her elbow, and she jumped a little when she heard it. She turned to look at the screen. It was a text from her friend Angela, and she made a feminine grunt as she dismissed the notification. She would reply to Angela when she had the time, and at the moment, she didn’t.

Out of nowhere, she found herself thinking about how seldom she received text messages these days. She didn’t have much time to maintain her friendships, and most of her social life consisted of going out with her lawyer friends after court dates or an occasional brunch with friends from college. Her heart ached as she thought about how often her parents had texted her before they’d both passed away in a tragic car accident.

She bit her lip. She didn’t admit it, even to herself, but she kept herself busy to try to escape the loneliness that she felt because of their absence. She was an only child, and when her parents had died, she’d been left without any family. Holidays had become something that she tried hard not to think about, and when she was home in her apartment by herself, she usually studied case notes to occupy her mind.

She gazed out the window, hardly processing what she was seeing. She’d seen the view every day for the past several years, and she had ceased to be awestruck by it. Her office was high up in a skyscraper in Boston, and the view of the city that it offered was breathtaking even on cloudy days. On a sunny, blue-sky day like this, it was a view that would be envied by anyone in the city.

A bird swooped suddenly across her view, startling her. She placed a hand on her heart, realizing that it was pounding.

Snap out of it, Talbot, she thought, shaking her head and turning back to the papers she had been studying. You’ve got to make a decision about how to present this case.

She downed the rest of her coffee, and then decided she wanted another cup. She walked over to the Keurig that was resting on a tidy side table on the far wall of her office. Her workspace was clean and orderly, decorated in charming pastels and dark woods. Her outfit, a mint green blazer with matching pencil skirt, hugged her curves and showed off her rounder figure. Her hair, which she usually allowed to tumble in loose waves around her shoulders, was pulled back into a loose braid. She’d taken off her heels while she was studying the documents, and she padded across the soft carpet of her office on bare feet.

She knew she was lucky—or at least, that’s what she kept telling herself. Her office was gorgeous, her job was prestigious and well-paying, and she had beautiful clothes and a nice apartment. No matter how ideal her life appeared, however, she could never seem to enjoy it.

She went back to her desk while the coffee brewed. She took a shaky inhale, looking down at the documents spread across her desk. For a moment, they seemed to swim in her vision, and then they went back into focus.

The case she was working on was a particularly stressful one. There was a great deal of sensitive information that she needed to sort through, and while her brain was usually quick to land on a plan of attack, she felt driftless and uncertain. It was as if she was being tossed on a sea of facts, and she didn’t know what to grab hold of.

Her phone began to ring, and she exclaimed in frustration. It was her client, so it was imperative that she answer the call.

“Hello, this is Faith Talbot,” she said in a smooth tone that perfectly concealed the way her heart was racing as if she was on a rollercoaster.

She had a short conversation with her client, who seemed to simply be expressing anxiety about the upcoming court date, and didn’t really have any new information to give to Faith.

Right? Faith thought with a flutter of panic as she hung up. I already knew that about the secondary bank account, didn’t I?

She began to search through her notes, feeling almost frantic. Details of the case seemed to be blurring in her mind with details of other cases, and she felt as though she couldn’t properly remember the facts of it anymore.

She noticed that her coffee had finished brewing, and she stood up to get it. As she walked over to the Keurig, she tried to decide how she was going to present her case. As she was picking up her coffee mug, she felt that she should present it one way, but by the time she’d returned to her desk, she felt it would be better to present it another way.

“I’m not usually like this,” she muttered, running her fingers through her hair. “What’s the matter with me?”

Normally, she was self-assured and decisive, especially when it came to her work as a lawyer. Her mind tended to work at the speed of light, and her decisions usually had no trouble keeping up. Today, however, her mind felt sluggish and uncertain.

She shook herself, telling herself firmly that she needed to get back to her work. She’d just taken a sip of coffee when her phone began to ring again. This time it was one of the partners in the firm, who was calling her because he wanted to talk logistics about an upcoming trial.

By the time she hung up the phone, she was feeling shaky. She glanced down at her coffee, wondering if she’d had too much. She tried to think about how many cups she’d had that day already. There had been one in the morning, at home, two in the afternoon, no, three in the afternoon?—

She inhaled, trying to steady herself. She turned back to the papers on her desk, feeling a sudden tightness in her chest. She needed to make a decision. She had a deadline. She had to prepare her case, to ensure that she won in court. This was an extremely important client, and she had a great deal riding on the success of her case. She took out a notebook and started to write, trying to force herself to decide how to present her arguments. She immediately scratched out what she’d written, and the pain in her chest intensified. She realized that her hand was shaking, and she gasped for air.

A soft knock sounded on the door to her office, and the law firm’s secretary stepped inside. “Ms. Talbot, there’s a call waiting for you—” The secretary froze when she saw Faith bent over with her hand on her chest.

I think I might be having a heart attack , Faith thought wildly.

“Call 911,” she gasped, and the secretary nodded and ran out of the room.

Faith plopped down onto her couch and lifted a mug of peppermint tea to her lips. Outside, light flurries of snow were falling.

The last of winter , she thought. Spring will be here any time now.

She couldn’t remember if getting snow during the middle of March was normal or not. She realized that she’d gotten into the habit of pushing herself so hard that she hardly ever paused in her work long enough to think about the weather.

She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath. She felt grateful to be alive, and kind of warm and sleepy physically. She’d felt that way ever since coming home from the hospital late the night before.

She hadn’t had a heart attack, simply an intense panic attack. The doctors had told her that she was right to come in and make sure, and that her stress levels were concerning. She remembered the concerned look on the female doctor’s face as she’d said, “If you’re not careful, it might be a real heart attack next time. You need to take some time off.”

Faith sighed. Everyone at the law firm had been very understanding, and one of the other lawyers had taken over her case. She felt relieved, but also disappointed in herself. She’d been striving to be the best she could be for years, and this slip-up made her feel like a failure.

She thought to herself that she should watch a movie, but she didn’t pick up her remote yet. She sat on the couch, watching the lights of Boston flicker and dance through her windows. Cars honked in the distance. Outside on the sidewalk, someone shouted and a dog barked.

She realized that she’d never thought about how much noise there was in the city. There was always sound and movement, a sense of urgency. She’d never paused long enough to notice it, but she felt it then, like an invisible current urging her to hurry up, to get caught up in the hustle and bustle.

She took another sip of her tea, wondering what she should eat for dinner. She always ordered takeout on Saturday night, if she wasn’t out to eat with her colleagues or a client. She felt a sudden desire to cook, but she knew that all she had in her cupboards was a potentially-expired can of diced tomatoes and boxes of tea. Even her freezer was empty of microwave dinners. She realized that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone to a grocery store. When she did buy groceries, she paid to have them delivered to her door because it saved time.

All at once, her perception of her life shattered. The glossy, idealized facade that she’d imagined over her existence burst into a million pieces. She wasn’t happy. Money and success hadn’t done anything to enrich her life. She was lonely, and she’d been living in a state of stress for months—no, years.

She had to admit to herself that even though she’d never had a panic attack like that before, she’d been feeling tension building inside her for a long time. She’d kept telling herself that she loved her job and she’d always wanted to be a lawyer, but the reality was that she wasn’t cut out for a high-stress environment like that. She knew lawyers should be compassionate, but she was too empathetic. She felt emotions regarding her cases that contributed to a sense of being constantly overwhelmed.

And I can’t keep living like this, she thought, leaning her head back onto the couch cushions. That doctor said I have to reduce my stress levels. I don’t think I could ever be a lawyer and not get stressed by it—at least not for these high-pressure cases we deal with in the city.

She could hardly believe she was entertaining the idea, but she began to wonder if she needed to change her career.

As soon as the thought was fully formed in her mind, a strange sense of peace washed over her. She sat up fully, surprised by how happy the idea of quitting her job made her.

She found herself wishing that she could go to her parents and ask for advice. She had friends and colleagues that she could chat with about the mundane details of her life, but she didn’t have anyone who she was particularly close to. She felt the need to go to someone for advice, someone who would be both kind and honest with her.

That’s the other thing, she thought, shifting in her position so that she was sitting cross-legged on the couch. When I was in the hospital, not one person, friend or family, visited me while those tests were being run .

She sighed. She knew her lawyer friends had been busy, and some of them had texted her to check in. But she wished that she had someone in her life who would have rushed over to be with her. Someone who could have held her hand, literally and metaphorically, while she lay anxiously in the hospital bed. The doctors and nurses had all been kind and reassuring, but it wasn’t the same as having someone there who was just there for her.

She sat quietly for a while, staring into space and finishing her mug of tea. Her mind pondered her situation, and she became more and more convinced that she needed to turn her life around somehow. She wanted to be able to rest, to do all the little things, like cook and go grocery shopping, that she never had the time for. She’d loved doing those things with her mother and father when she was younger. She’d felt as though her life was something that she could create for herself day by day. Now she felt as though her life was a bullet train that she had no control over.

She set her empty mug of tea down on the coffee table and stood up. She felt a sudden urge to start cleaning her apartment. She had a cleaning service come in every other week, but it had been ages since she’d actually done any kind of tidying or reorganizing herself.

She made her way into her bedroom and opened the closet. In the back of it were several boxes that had sat unopened since she’d moved to Boston. She picked one of them up and lugged it back to the couch.

I’ll sort through this, she thought. I bet most of it I can throw away. I don’t even remember what’s in here, really.

The first couple of things she came across were junk. There was a little plastic trophy she’d won at some Christmas party in law school, and she couldn’t even remember what she’d done to win it. Beneath the trophy was a knit hat that the mother of her last boyfriend had made—it was a hideous, lumpy green thing with a fuchsia pom-pom that clashed horribly. She thought to herself with a chuckle that the relationship might have lasted more than a few months if she hadn’t felt as though she would eventually have to wear that hat in public.

She shook her head as she set the junk items aside. That had been years ago. Since then, she hadn’t had the time or energy to even entertain the thought of romance.

She picked up the next item in the box, which was a small manila envelope. Curiously, she opened it, having no memory of what was inside.

She sucked in her breath when she saw that it was a thick stack of photographs. She must have gotten them from her mother years ago and had never gone through them. She thought with a bittersweet ache in her heart of how her mother had always been encouraging her to make photo albums and scrapbooks. She’d never had the time, but she made a mental note to go out and buy an album for the pictures in the envelope the first chance she got.

She snuggled back on the couch and began to flip through the photographs. She was soon laughing and crying over memories of going fishing with her father, baking cookies with her mother, and going on family road trips. There were pictures of birthdays and Christmases and the Fourth of July.

About halfway through the stack, she came across a picture that made her lean forward. It was a picture of her dad with his arm around a woman who she vaguely remembered. She flipped the picture over and saw that her mother had written “Lyle with Cousin Vivian” on the back.

Vivian Owens! The name popped into Faith’s head in a flash. She suddenly remembered being little and going on a trip with her parents to visit her dad’s cousin Vivian Owens and her family. She looked at the next photograph in the stack and saw that it was of her and her little cousins building a sandcastle on the beach.

She smiled fondly at the picture. Although she barely remembered the people in the photograph, she remembered the feeling of being surrounded by love and a sense of belonging. They’d had a lot of fun together. They’d been kind.

They were family.

Tears sprang into her eyes, and she wished that her connection with the Owens had been fostered more during her childhood, or that she’d thought to look them up in her adulthood.

In the next picture, she and her parents were standing with Vivian and her family along the side of the road, everyone staring at a giant bullfrog that was crouched at the edge of the concrete. In the distance, there was a sign that read, “Welcome to Rosewood Beach.”

“Rosewood Beach,” she murmured, the words spilling off her tongue like some kind of magic spell.

In the next moment, she grabbed her laptop off the coffee table and opened it. It felt good to be using it for something other than work. She typed in “Rosewood Beach” and leaned forward to look at the search results.

The pictures of the town were darling. She clicked through picture after picture of charming residential streets, a quaint and bustling Main Street lined with old buildings, and beaches where people were talking and laughing. There was a restaurant that she saw come up a few times, The Lighthouse Grill, which looked friendly and inviting.

She was quickly enchanted with the obvious charm of Rosewood Beach. It was clearly a place of community and intentional living—so different from her rushed, isolated life in the city.

It’s totally different from here , she thought, staring at a picture of the sunset seen from a bakery called Seaside Sweets. And yet, something totally different seems to be exactly what I need.

She looked around her apartment. It was clean, elegant, and functional, but it had never felt like a home to her. She asked herself if she had any real reason to stay in Boston.

She knew in another moment that the answer was no. She took a deep breath and made the crazy decision to take a leap of faith and start a new life.

She stood up, suddenly feeling jittery with excitement. She began to pace around her apartment, thinking through the logistics of her new plan.

She had plenty of savings. Enough to last her almost a full year if she lived frugally. And she felt sure that she would figure out some other form of employment long before that. Besides, figuring out another form of employment was clearly something she needed to do. Her mental and physical health were not being taken care of as long as she was working her current job. She needed a change.

She smiled, thinking of how difficult it had been for her to make a decision about how to present her case yesterday. She wasn’t having any difficulty in deciding to start her life afresh.

She put in an order for Chinese food, and then went over to her desk, which was placed by a window overlooking the city. She took out her planner and turned to the next day. “Buy groceries,” she wrote. Then she turned to that day and took a deep breath. On the empty lines she wrote, “Send in resignation.”

For a moment, she felt a surge of apprehension and she wondered if she was making the right decision. Then she shook her head. She was going to do it now, before she lost her nerve. She went back to her computer and hurriedly typed out a thoughtful, well-structured letter of resignation. She wanted to finish it before her dinner arrived, so that she could sit and watch a movie and eat it in peace.

Half an hour later, her letter was finished. She read it over one more time, feeling a strange sense of peace and calm. She took a deep breath and sent it.

“There,” she murmured. “Now I have to change my life.”

At that moment, her apartment buzzer went off, signaling her that her food had arrived. Grinning, she stood up and went to open the door.