Chapter 16
Calista
“In the storm’s eye, we often find the strength we never knew we had.”
—Eloisa Hobby
Calista gripped the edge of the fiberglass catamaran. The tranquil waters of Mermaid Cove turned treacherous, and waves crashed, dark clouds roiled overhead, ominous thunder rumbled, and lightning flashed.
“Hold on tight!” The howling wind snatched Reid’s voice away. His hands steadied on the tiller. His hair was plastered to his forehead, rivulets running down his face.
A rough wave crashed over the boat and drenched her to the bone as panic bloomed. Her pulse galloped, and her breath shot out shallow and quick.
The terrifying storm dredged up dark memories she spent years trying to release. A violent gust rocked the catamaran. Suddenly, Calista was no longer on a boat in Mermaid Cove.
She was twelve years old again, cowering on the balcony outside her childhood home as her father’s voice boomed louder than the thunder through the locked French doors of her upstairs bedroom.
“You think you can come home with a second-place trophy and expect praise?” His words, slurred from too many whiskeys, cut more profoundly than the icy rain pelting her skin.
That’s when he was most dangerous. When he’d been drinking.
“Winners don’t make excuses. Winners don’t fail. You’re a loser. You disgust me.”
“Please.” She hated begging, but her clothes were soaked through. “It’s storming. Let me inside . . . Daddy.”
Unmoved by her pleas, her father’s silhouette visible through the sheer curtains, the door stayed shut.
She huddled in the dark for hours, shivering and alone, until Athena got home from a party and let her in.
“Calista!” Reid’s voice cut through the memory, yanking her back to the present. “I need your help with the mainsail. Can you do that?”
“Y-yes. Tell me what to do.” She blinked hard to clear the water from her eyes and focused on Reid’s face and saw dread.
Fresh fear squeezed her stomach.
Reid gave her instructions, and Calista pushed away the echoes of her father’s voice and followed Reid’s commands. She wasn’t that helpless girl anymore, and yet, as she fumbled with the ropes, the memory persisted.
Snap out of it. Gritting her teeth, Calista forced her frozen fingers to cooperate. She worked in tandem with Reid to adjust the sail.
“You’ve got this, Cal, you’re doing great.”
Their efforts paid off. The catamaran steadied a bit, pitching less, settling and lulling them into false security. They spared a brief grin for each other.
Then another monstrous wave loomed over them like a liquid green mountain. Calista let out a shriek.
The wave smacked the sailboat hard.
She was thrown backward and lost her balance. For one heart-stopping moment, she was airborne. The world blurred into just gray sky and turbulent waves. She hit the water with a painful smack as the cold shocked her lungs.
Frantic, she struggled to orient herself. The waves tossed her like a Raggedy Ann doll. Which way was up? Where was the boat? Where was Reid?
She flailed. Her lungs burned. Salt stung her chapped lips. A stark reminder of how close she was to drowning. Spots danced at the edges of her vision. Bad news.
A brawny arm wrapped around her waist and hauled her upward. Calista broke the surface, coughing and sputtering.
“You’re safe. I got you.” Reid was in the water with her. The sailboat bobbed a few feet ahead of them. He nodded at her, and they swam against the current. Reid never let go of her.
After what felt like hours but was, in actuality, mere minutes of Herculean effort, they reached the bucking catamaran. With a grunt, Reid heaved her onto the deck and then pulled himself up beside her. They lay on their backs for a moment, chests heaving, staring up at the furious sky.
No time to rest.
The storm raged on, and they were still in grave danger. Reid scrambled to his feet, braced himself against the mast, and extended a hand to Calista.
Over the noise, he raised his voice. “We have to get control of the boat. Can you stand?”
Calista nodded, took his hand, and let him haul her to her feet. Her legs wobbled like jelly, and her sodden clothes clung to her body, but she was alive.
For now.
Together, they fought to regain control of the catamaran. Another memory tripped from Calista’s mind. This time, it wasn’t her father’s angry face she saw, but a much younger Reid, catching her eye at the tee box as they caddied for her father and Gavin.
Don’t let him get you down, Reid mouthed behind Benjamin’s back after her father gave her a harsh dressing-down for handing him the wrong wood.
The years fell away, and she saw the boy who had been her best friend, her fiercest competitor, and her first love. The boy who had believed in her when no one else did. The guy who recognized her strength long before she did.
Another wave hit. Huge. The boat rocked, and Calista stumbled. Something tugged at her neck. Her hand flew to her throat. Nothing there but bare skin. Gone. Where was her locket? Mom’s locket. Her greatest comfort for so many years?
Doom settled over her. Lost. Everything slipped away. She couldn’t think over the howling. A battering ram of rain stung her face. The boat creaked and groaned. Would it fly apart?
Locket gone. Mom gone. Everything gone.
The storm didn’t care. The ocean didn’t care. Did anyone care? Calista cared. Too much. Always too much.
“Calista, listen to me.” Reid’s arm went around her waist. “You’re okay. We’re going to be all right. Hang in there.”
They battled on, fighting against the storm. The waves sloshed their boat up and down. Endless.
Then, almost as abruptly as it had whipped up, the wind started dying down.
Calista clung to the mast, her arms trembling from exertion. One moment, the gale shrieked in her ears, drowning out everything but the thunder of her heartbeat in her ears. The next, it was just . . . gone.
Just like her locket.
The sudden quiet was as disorienting as the storm.
“Reid?” Her voice sounded small in the newfound calm. She met his gaze across the boat. “You okay?”
“Right here, right beside you, doing fine. We made it.” Reid grinned at her. “You?”
“I lost my locket.”
“The one your mother gave you?”
She bobbed her head, too grieved to speak.
Sadness and sympathy tinged his gaze. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” She didn’t want to talk about it. She’d cry.
He pulled her close and held her against his chest. She listened to the comforting beat of his heart. “How’s your ankle?”
“To tell the truth, I forgot all about it, but Belinda’s giraffe cane washed overboard.”
“Don’t worry, you can lean on me.” He paused. “We make a pretty good team, Cal.”
Despite everything—the lingering fear, the bone-deep exhaustion, the salt crusting her eyelashes, losing her locket—Calista returned his smile. “Don’t get cocky, Thornton. We’re not out of this yet.”
But even as she said it, she realized it wasn’t entirely true. The waves, while still choppy, no longer threatened to swallow them whole. The sky, which had been an apocalyptic slate gray, gave way to streaks of gold and pink peeking through the parting clouds.
They made it. They survived. Battered, tattered, but still here.
Calista let out a sigh. Her legs, deciding they’d done their job, gave out. She slid down the mast and landed on the deck on her butt. Thump.
“Whoa, hey.” Reid was at her side in an instant, his hand warm on her shoulder. “You sure you’re okay?”
She studied him up close. His hair was a mess, molded to his forehead in some places and sticking up in others. He looked ridiculous. He looked spectacular.
“Just processing, I guess.”
Reid nodded and sank beside her, their shoulders almost touching. For a long moment, they sat in silence, watching the sea settle.
“So, that was . . .”
“Intense.”
“Yeah. It really was.”
She waited for him to say more, to fill the silence with jokes or questions or plans for getting back to Crafters’ Corner.
But he didn’t. He was just there, a solid, steady presence at her side. Like when they were kids. Those years when only golf mattered.
The thought of golf brought a montage of fresh memories.
Her father’s rage. The numerous trophies that were never enough.
The constant, crushing pressure to be perfect.
But this time, the memories didn’t paralyze her.
They didn’t send her spiraling into panic or self-doubt. Instead, she felt safe. Strong.
“I thought we were gonna die,” Calista said.
Reid tensed beside her. “Cal—”
“No, let me finish. I thought we were gonna die, and you know what scared me the most? It wasn’t the dying part.
It was the thought I’d die scared and small and still living in his shadow.
” She didn’t have to specify who she meant.
Reid knew. “When that enormous wave smacked us and I flew overboard, for a second, I was back there. Reliving my father’s abuse.
Except this time, I didn’t beg. I fought back. I was saving myself.”
Reid’s eyes were soft, filled with an emotion she couldn’t identify. His hand found hers. He intertwined their fingers as if it were the most natural thing. Like no time had passed.
“You did save yourself, Cal. I just wish you could see yourself the way I see you.” There was something in his voice, something raw and honest, that touched her heart.
“And how’s that?”
Reid’s free hand came up to cup her cheek, his thumb brushing away a stray droplet—of seawater or tears, she wasn’t sure which. “You’re the strongest person I’ve ever known. Your resilience is astounding.”
Calista stared at him, this guy she’d known since she was stupid young but felt as if she were seeing him for the first time. Her heart fluttered. It had zero to do with their near-death experience. It was how he studied her.
“Reid,” she said, her voice husky. “I think I want you to kiss me now.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You think?”
“Well, I’m about 90 percent sure,” Calista said. Apparently, a near-drowning turned her into a rambling idiot. “Maybe 95. There’s still a slight chance I might chicken out. Or fall overboard again or—”
Reid cut her off, pressing his lips to hers.
Oh.
OH.
She shut her eyes. It wasn’t fireworks or sparks or any of those cliché romance descriptions.
Reid’s kiss was far better. Like finally breathing again after being underwater.
Or the first sip of morning coffee after a restless night.
Or collapsing into a soft thick mattress following a strenuous workday.
It was coming home.
When they finally broke apart, Calista kept her eyes closed for a moment, savoring the feeling, tracing her lips with a finger. She opened them to find Reid watching her with a mix of wonder and amusement.
“So, was it everything you’d hoped for?”
Calista pretended to consider. “Hmm. I don’t know. I need another sample to be sure.”
She smothered Reid’s laugh with more kisses. It wasn’t graceful. Their noses bumped, their teeth clacked together, and he tasted of salt, anxiety, and adrenaline, but oh, was it perfect.
Reid’s hand slid from her cheek to the back of her neck, drawing her closer. Calista’s fingers tangled in his damp hair, holding on like he was a lifeline. Which, she supposed, he kind of was.
The kiss deepened, years of unspoken feelings pouring out all at once. It was an apology and a promise, a question and an answer. Both the eye of the storm and the calm rolled into one.
Afterward, Calista kept her eyes closed again. Part of her was afraid that if she opened them, she’d find out this was a dream and that she still would be in the water, still drowning, still lost.
“Cal.” Reid pressed his forehead against hers. “Look at me. Please.”
Taking her time, she opened her eyes. There Reid sat. Just inches away, looking at her as if she were the sun breaking through storm clouds. Her eyes crossed, staring at him, and she giggled.
“I never stopped thinking about you,” he said.
For years, she’d believed Reid’s pursuit after Chevron had been about sensationalism, about turning her heartbreak into headlines.
But now she saw the truth. He hadn’t been trying to hurt her.
He’d been trying to save her. In his own clumsy, misguided way, he’d thought pushing her back to golf was the answer.
And maybe it would’ve been, if she’d still loved the game the way she once had.
He lowered his voice and his eyes. “Or wanting you.”
Huh?
Gobsmacked, she stared at him as his words hit her like another wave, but this time, Calista didn’t feel as if she was drowning. Instead, she was free-falling.
“Reid, I—”
He shook his head. “You don’t have to say anything. I know we have a lot to talk about, a lot to figure out. I just . . . I needed you to know. After today, after almost losing you, I couldn’t go another minute without telling you how I feel. It’s always been you, Calista. Always.”