Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
The days after the concert passed in a strange twilight state, suspended between fear and normalcy.
Tessa tried to maintain her routines. Morning tea on the deck.
Reading in the afternoon. Meals with Brian at the small table by the window.
But everything felt muted, as if she were experiencing her life through a layer of gauze.
She found herself jumping at sounds, checking the locks multiple times a day, and scanning every crowd for a gray cap and sunglasses.
Marcus Webb had been seen. Marcus Webb was here. And Marcus Webb was waiting.
Sergeant Diaz called every evening with updates, but there wasn't much to report. No sightings since the concert. No activity on Webb's credit cards or phone. He'd gone to ground, which meant he was being careful, which meant he was planning something.
The not knowing was the worst part.
"You're going to wear a hole in the floor," Brian said on the fourth morning, watching her pace the living room.
"I can't sit still." She turned at the window and started back toward the kitchen. "If I sit still, I think. And if I think..."
"You spiral." He rose from the couch and caught her mid-stride, his hands gentle on her shoulders. "I know. I've been watching you do it for days."
She stopped, letting herself feel the weight of his hands, the warmth of him standing close. "I hate this. I hate feeling like a prisoner in my own life. I came here to feel free, and instead I feel more trapped than ever."
"Then let's go somewhere."
She looked up at him. "What?"
"You heard me. Let's go somewhere. Not into town, not anywhere obvious. Somewhere he won't think to look." His eyes were steady, determined. "I know a place. It's about a twenty-minute drive. Private beach, nobody around. We can take the day. Just breathe."
"Brian..."
"You said you didn't want to let him take everything from you. This is part of that. Taking back your life, one day at a time." He cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs tracing her cheekbones. "Trust me?"
She did. That was the terrifying, wonderful truth of it. She trusted him more than she'd trusted anyone in years.
"Okay," she said. "Let's go."
The beach was everything Brian had promised.
They reached it by a winding dirt road that cut through marshland thick with cordgrass and egrets. The path ended at a small parking area with room for maybe two cars, and from there, a wooden boardwalk led through the dunes to a stretch of sand that seemed to go on forever.
There was no one else there. Just the two of them and the sea and the endless blue sky.
Tessa kicked off her sandals the moment her feet hit the sand, letting the warmth seep into her soles.
The beach was wild and untamed, nothing like the manicured stretches near the tourist areas.
Shells and driftwood littered the high tide line.
Pelicans dove into the surf, coming up with fish flashing silver in their pouches.
"How did you find this place?" she asked, walking toward the water.
"Bill told me about it. Ruth's husband. He used to come here as a kid, before the development started eating up the coastline.
Said it was the last real beach left." Brian fell into step beside her, his own shoes dangling from one hand.
"I come here sometimes when I need to think. Or when I need to stop thinking."
The water was warm when it reached her feet, the waves gentle and rhythmic. She waded in up to her ankles and stopped, closing her eyes, letting the sound of the surf fill her head until there was no room for anything else.
"Better?" Brian asked from beside her.
"Better." She opened her eyes and found him watching her with an expression that made her heart stutter. "Thank you. For knowing what I needed."
"You needed space. Room to breathe. It's not complicated."
"It is, though." She turned to face him fully, the water swirling around their ankles. "Most people don't pay attention. They assume they know what you need, or they don't think about it at all. But you... you watch. You notice. You remember."
"It's an old habit. From the ambulance." He looked out at the water, and she saw something shift in his expression. "When you're trying to save someone's life, you learn to read the small things. The way they're breathing, the color of their skin, the look in their eyes. It becomes automatic."
"You miss it," she said softly. "The ambulance."
He was quiet for a long moment. "I miss parts of it. The purpose. The feeling of making a difference." He kicked at a wave, sending up a spray of droplets that caught the light like scattered diamonds. "But I don't miss the weight. The constant pressure. The nightmares."
"Do you still have them? The nightmares?"
"Sometimes. Less than before." He looked at her. "What about you?"
She thought about the dreams that had plagued her in Chicago. The faces of patients she couldn't save, twisted and accusing. The endless corridors of the hospital, stretching on forever, always more doors to open, more emergencies to face.
"I haven't had one since I came here," she realized aloud. "Not once. I told Julia I slept through the night, but I didn't really think about what that meant until just now."
"Maybe that means something."
"Maybe it does." She reached out and took his hand, lacing their fingers together. The water pushed and pulled at their ankles, a gentle tug toward the sea. "Brian, can I ask you something?"
"Anything."
"When this is over. When they catch Marcus, when I don't have to look over my shoulder anymore." She hesitated, suddenly nervous in a way that had nothing to do with fear. "What happens to us?"
He turned to face her, taking both her hands in his. The sun was behind him, turning his hair to gold and casting his face in shadow, but she could see his eyes. Those pale blue eyes that saw everything.
"What do you want to happen?" he asked.
"I don't know." The honest answer. "A month ago, I didn't know I wanted anything. I was just trying to survive. And then I walked into your cottage, and everything changed."
"For me too." His voice was rough. "I'd convinced myself I was fine alone. That solitude was what I needed, what I deserved. And then you showed up with your sad eyes and your stubborn streak, and I couldn't look away."
She laughed, a surprised sound that the wind caught and carried away. "Stubborn streak?"
"You argued with me about the coffee canister. On your second day." His dimples appeared, and her heart did that thing again. "I knew you were trouble right then."
"The good kind of trouble?"
"The best kind." He pulled her closer, and she went willingly, stepping into the circle of his arms. "I don't know what happens after, Tessa. I don't have a plan. But I know I don't want this to end when the danger does."
"Neither do I," she whispered.
He kissed her then, soft and slow, with the waves lapping at their feet and the sun warming their shoulders. She tasted salt on his lips, felt the strength of his arms around her, and let herself believe, just for a moment, that everything was going to be okay.
When they broke apart, she rested her forehead against his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart.
"I should tell you something," she said.
"Okay."
"I've been thinking about what comes next. After my leave is up." She pulled back enough to see his face. "I don't know if I can go back to the ER. To trauma surgery. The thought of it makes me feel sick."
He nodded, his expression open and listening.
"But I don't know what else I would do. Medicine is all I know. It's all I've been for fifteen years." She took a breath. "And then I think about staying here. In Copper Moon. Starting over, like you did. And it terrifies me, but it also feels... right. Like maybe this is where I'm supposed to be."
"Tessa." His voice was careful, measured. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"
"I'm saying I don't want to go back to Chicago. Not to live." The words felt huge in her mouth, dangerous and exhilarating. "I'm saying that whatever this is between us, I want to see where it goes. And I can't do that from a thousand miles away."
He stared at her for a long moment, and she watched emotions flicker across his face. Surprise. Hope. Fear. Joy.
"You're sure?" he asked. "This isn't just the situation talking? The danger, the adrenaline?"
"I'm sure." And she was. More sure than she'd been of anything in years. "I've spent my whole life running toward emergencies. Maybe it's time to run toward something else. Someone else."
He kissed her again, harder this time, his hands tangling in her hair. She kissed him back with everything she had, pouring all her fear and hope and longing into the press of her lips against his.
When they finally came up for air, they were both grinning like idiots.
"The cottage has a guest room," Brian said. "Or it will, once I finish the addition."
"I thought the guest room was for visiting family and friends."
"It was." He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, his touch gentle. "But plans change. People change. Maybe the guest room becomes something else."
"Maybe it does," she agreed.
They spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach, walking and talking and swimming in the warm shallows. They built a lopsided sandcastle that made them both laugh. They found shells and driftwood and a perfect piece of sea glass, green as her eyes.
For a few precious hours, there was no Marcus Webb. No restraining order, no motion lights, no fear. There were only the two of them and the sea and the promise of something more.
As they drove back toward Copper Moon, the sun sinking toward the horizon, Tessa felt something she hadn't felt in a very long time.
Hope.
Real, solid hope. Not the desperate kind that clung to unlikely outcomes, but the quiet kind that grew from certainty. She was going to stay in Copper Moon. She was going to build a life here with Brian, and his chosen family who had somehow become hers, too.
She just had to survive Marcus Webb first.
But as Brian's hand found hers across the center console, steady and warm, she let herself believe that she would. That they would.