CHAPTER 2
Marina
Marina pulled out of the Beacon’s parking lot. It was just after eight, and the beach town had already settled into its evening quiet. The kind of quiet that felt deliberate, like the town was taking a deep breath after the day’s visitors had gone.
She rolled down the window and let the night air slide across her skin, cool and salt-laced. The parking lot lights faded in her rearview mirror, and then it was just her headlights carving a path along the coast road.
Her mind wandered back to the tech guy. Ryan. She’d said his name maybe once or twice during their conversation, testing how it felt in her mouth. Now it echoed in her head without her permission.
She’d spent the rest of the evening turning their brief exchange over in her mind, the way she might examine a shell found on the beach, smooth and curious and somehow incomplete. A voice in her head had warned her not to be silly.
He was just another customer, another face among dozens that passed through the Beacon each night. Yet he intrigued her.
Maybe it was the contradiction. He looked like he belonged outdoors, riding horses or fixing fences under the Texas sun. Instead, he spent his days writing code in Silicon Valley. The two versions of him didn't seem to fit together.
Ryan reminded her of Ethan. The thought arrived fully formed, and she let it sit there, uncomfortable but undeniable. Three years ago, Ethan had shown up at the Beacon in much the same way.
She hadn’t fallen for Ethan at first sight. Not even close. In fact, she’d been wary of him for weeks. He was fifteen years older than her, and the age gap had been the first thing Katrina noticed when Marina finally showed her a photo.
Her sister had frowned, the kind of frown that started at her eyebrows and worked its way down to her mouth.
“He looks older than Daddy,” Katrina had said.
Marina hadn’t argued. What was there to argue? It was true.
“I like older men,” Marina had told her. “Dependable.”
Katrina had snorted. “Older doesn’t mean wiser. Neither does it mean dependable.”
How true her sister had turned out to be. Ethan was the most unreliable boyfriend she could have imagined, which was saying something given the limited pool of men she’d dated since moving to Cliff Harbor.
Their long-distance relationship had lasted about six months, during which they’d been physically together for at most ten days.
There were always plans made, elaborate weekends sketched out with the precision of a business itinerary, only to be canceled at the last minute because he was busy. A deal. A board meeting. A call he couldn’t reschedule.
She could hardly blame him. The man couldn’t even spend enough time with his own kids, who lived with their mother in Palo Alto and whom he saw on alternating weekends, when those weekends weren’t preempted by work emergencies.
What could she have expected? She’d wanted stability and found its opposite.
She might have been looking for a daddy figure. The thought didn’t embarrass her anymore; she’d turned it over enough times that it had lost its sting. God, she had missed her dad. She missed her mom too, of course, but the loss of her father had carved a different shape inside her.
Her dad had called her “buddy” as if she were a boy.
Even now, she could hear the affection in his voice whenever he said it.
He’d taught her to swim before she could properly walk, held her steady on her first board when the waves were no bigger than kitchen countertops, taken her sailing on weekends when the harbor was empty and the world felt like it belonged just to them.
He’d practiced with her through competitions, driving her to dawn sessions when the water was glass and the air bit at their skin, and he’d been there every time at the finish line, his clapping louder than anyone else’s.
And after he was gone, something in Marina had simply shut down. Why surf if Dad wasn’t there to see it? Why win a competition if there was no one at the finish line whose opinion actually mattered?
The water, which had been her second home, became a place of absence. She could still feel it, the hollow sensation of standing on the beach with her board under her arm and nowhere to go.
If it hadn't been for Katrina, she might have given up living entirely. The dark days. Jesus. She didn't like to think about them.
There had been a period when getting through each day felt almost impossible. She woke up because bills needed paying, because groceries needed buying, and because Katrina still had school.
If she had been alone, Marina wasn't sure she would have found a reason to keep going.
Even after Katrina left for college in San Francisco, she called every day. Sometimes more than once. They were best friends, not just sisters.
After graduation, Katrina found a job in the city and stayed another year. Marina had assumed she would build a life there.
Then Ethan happened—Or rather, Ethan ended.
A few months later, Katrina announced she was moving home. She claimed she missed Cliff Harbor. The ocean. The trees. The slower pace of life.
Maybe she did. But Marina had always suspected her sister had seen through the brave face she put on for everyone else.
Katrina never said so, neither did Marina. Some things didn't need to be spoken aloud. In fact, most things didn’t need to, at least not between them.
The thought warmed her.
Marina turned onto Cedar Springs Road. A light fog hung on the cedar treetops, gauzy and pale, turning the upper branches into something distant and dreamlike. The place had an unreal quality at night, especially in fog.
She still recalled being here for the first time as a child. Seven years old, Katrina five. Their parents had brought them to see the property before buying it, and the two girls had bolted from the car the moment it stopped, running up the hillside through patches of sunlight and shadow.
“A house in the woods, a house in the woods,” Katrina had chanted, spinning in circles with her arms outstretched until she fell over dizzy.
They’d turned it into a nursery rhyme, singing it on car trips and at bedtime for years afterward.
Marina found herself humming it now, under her breath, the melody worn smooth by repetition.
She parked in the driveway and cut the engine. Through the front windows, she could see the amber glow of the living room lights, warm and steady. The sight of it always did something to her chest, a loosening she hadn’t realized she needed until it happened. Home. The word still carried weight.
She detected traces of burned sauce the moment she stepped out of the car. She rolled her eyes. Katrina had done it again. Her sister, fond of multitasking to the point of self-sabotage, managed to burn something at least once a week.
It was a miracle their house had remained intact given Katrina’s tendency to wander away from simmering pots, distracted by a text message or a TV show or the simple fact that the living room couch looked more inviting than the kitchen stove.
If she would only pay attention. The thought was automatic, decades old.
But the truth was, when Katrina’s pasta sauce didn’t burn, it was pretty good.
Better than pretty good, sometimes. There was something almost charming about the inconsistency, the way her sister’s carelessness coexisted with sudden bursts of competence.
Marina locked the car and headed for the front door, the burned scent growing stronger with each step. Another pot to scrub. Another dinner salvaged from the edges of disaster. She smiled despite herself.
A blur of black and tan launched itself at Marina the moment she opened the front door. Seventy pounds of enthusiastic dog hit her legs with the precision of a missile that had missed its target but was happy about the attempt anyway.
“Hey, Sky.” Marina crouched, one knee on the entryway tile, and scratched behind the German Shepherd’s ears.
Skylla’s entire back end wagged, her claws clicking against the floor as she danced in tight circles.
Seven years later, and the dog still greeted her as if she’d been gone for months instead of a few hours.
Some things didn’t change. Marina was grateful for that.
Nobody knew exactly how old Skylla was. Marina had found her shortly after their parents died, wandering near a logging road several miles outside town.
The dog had been skinny enough that her ribs showed through her short coat, muddy from snout to tail, and suspicious of everything, including the granola bar Marina had offered as peace offering.
The vet had examined her, shrugged, and guessed she was somewhere between one and three years old. That had been good enough. Marina had taken her home, and Skylla, after a week of tentative circling, had decided to stay. She never left.
“I’m home, Kat,” Marina shouted after closing the front door. Skylla pressed against her legs, whining softly, as if the greeting required an encore.
“Okay, dinner will be ready soon,” Katrina called from the kitchen. Her voice carried the particular lilt it always had when she was mid-task, slightly distracted, words tossed over her shoulder.
“Yeah, I can smell it outside,” Marina said with a chuckle.
She didn’t bother warning her sister to make sure it wouldn’t happen again. Not anymore. She’d done that for the first year Katrina had returned home, maybe the second, a habit born of the older-sister instinct to manage and correct.
But Katrina was Katrina. Some people repeated their mistakes not out of stubbornness but because repetition was part of who they were, the same way the tide came in and went out regardless of anyone’s opinion on the matter. Not necessarily a bad thing. Inconsistency had its own kind of charm.