Chapter 47
One month later.
Wyatt was twenty minutes early.
Benji’s diner smelled like cinnamon and the faint sweetness of pie cooling behind the counter. He sat in the corner booth with his back to the wall and a clear sightline to the door. Old habits. He’d clocked the exits when he walked in, and then caught himself doing it and almost laughed.
No one was coming for them.
Akilov was in a federal facility awaiting trial with enough charges to keep him locked away for the rest of his natural life and then some. What was left of his team was in custody. Sarah had texted him yesterday: The FBI wrapped up the interviews. It’s done.
Done.
And here he was, sitting in a coffee shop, folding a paper napkin, waiting for Jen.
And he was nervous.
Not the clean focus of a breach. This was different. A low hum in his chest, a dryness in his mouth. The persistent, irrational fear he was about to screw this up.
He’d never been on a date.
Not once.
Not a real one—not the kind where you sat across from someone you wanted to keep and tried to act like a normal human being in a public place.
He’d had women. Nights. Passing things. He’d never had this. The deliberate, unhurried act of choosing someone. Coffee. Ordinary moments he’d always assumed were meant for other people.
He hadn’t seen her in three weeks.
Three weeks since she’d flown back to San Diego to deal with her apartment, the company, and the federal interviews. Three weeks of texts and phone calls that always ended too soon.
Today she was back in Aurora Cove. And the butterflies in his stomach had been in full flight since dawn.
Maybe he was losing his edge.
If that meant he got to keep her, he’d lose it without hesitation.
He’d spent yesterday recalibrating the palm scanner at the house to her biometrics. He hadn’t asked. He’d just done it. Preparation was the only way he knew how to love someone.
“Well.” Louisa appeared beside him with a pot of coffee and an expression he’d never seen directed at him before. It looked suspiciously like delight. “Wyatt Meyer. What can I get you, honey?”
“Not yet, I’m waiting on someone.”
Her head tilted. “Wyatt Meyer on a date. I didn’t think I’d live to see the day.”
“It’s just coffee.”
“Honey.” She bumped one hip against the booth. “I’ve known you since you were a scrap of a boy. You sit at the counter. Drink your coffee black. You barely talk. Then you leave.”
She gestured at him. “Today you’re in a booth, you’re wearing a shirt that isn’t flannel, and you keep looking at the door.” Her smile grew wider. “That’s not just coffee.”
He shot her a smile. Louisa had the kind of cheerful omniscience that made resistance futile.
She folded her arms. “The chief engineer from the NORPAC rig?”
He gave her a sideways glance.
Louisa chuckled. “Honey, if I don’t know something in this town, it’s not worth knowing about.”
“Jen.” He folded the napkin some more, securing the creases with a stroke of his thumb. The way his dad had taught him. “Her name’s Jen.”
“She’s something, isn’t she?” Louisa said.
Wyatt looked at her.
She shrugged. “I read the news. Saw what happened on that rig. What you both did.”
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “She is.”
Louisa patted his shoulder. “You’ll be just fine.”
Then she left him alone with his thoughts.
And his nerves.
Jen walked in eleven minutes later.
She wore a moss-green sweater, her dark hair loose over her shoulders. The bruising around her eye had faded to a faint yellow shadow. The cut on her cheek was a thin pink line now, almost gone.
But he saw it.
He would always see it.
She spotted him, waved and smiled.
His heart rate jumped so fast it hurt.
She slid into the booth across from him, bringing the scent of fresh air with her as she unwound her scarf. “Have you been here long?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Just got here.”
“Liar.” She pointed to the tiny origami whale, still smiling.
She reached across the table and took his hands. “It’s so good to see you.”
His fingers closed around hers. “You too.”
“I missed you.”
“Me too.”
Her cheeks pinked, and she glanced around the diner. “Shall we get coffee?”
She picked up the menu, then put it down, her eyes smiling. “Is the coffee here as good as the pie?”
And that was the moment that almost undid him.
Not the way she’d launched herself at Akilov in the snow, although that memory was burned into him forever.
But this.
The ordinary softness of it.
This was what made him want more.
More mornings.
More nights.
More of her across a table from him, in his bed tousled and warm from sleep.
More of this.
He swallowed against the knot in his throat. “Yeah, it is.”
Louisa returned and took their order. She clucked her tongue at Wyatt and winked as she walked away. When she came back with the coffee, she’d added two slices of apple pie.
She placed them on the table, beaming. “On the house.”
Jen wrapped her hands around the mug and blew gently across the surface before taking a careful sip. Then she picked up her fork and took a bite of pie. She closed her eyes. “Oh my God...”
A small smear of apple caught at the corner of her mouth.
Wyatt reached across the table without thinking. He touched the corner of her lips with his thumb, wiping it away. He didn’t pull back. His hand lingered, his thumb sliding lightly along the curve of her jaw.
Jen stilled.
Her breath caught, and the way she looked at him made his chest ache.
“What?” she whispered.
He cleared his throat. “Pie.”
Her smile softened, tender and a little unsteady.
Then she leaned forward, resting her cheek against his palm for just a second. Before he could react, she turned her head and pressed a small kiss into the center of his hand. “Wyatt Meyer. You’re very intense for a coffee date.”
“I’m not used to them.”
“I know.” She covered his hand with hers. Her fingers were still healing, the new nails smooth and short. “But we’ve got time,” she said softly. Her eyes held his. “I’m not going anywhere.”
They talked.
Not about Akilov or the rig, or the snow.
About ordinary things.
Her meeting at the bank that morning. The short-term lease she’d arranged for her San Diego apartment while she spent more time in Aurora Cove. Max, apparently, had grown a beard—which Jen found endlessly funny. Caro’s latest email about her new research post tagging whales.
She pulled out her phone and showed him a picture.
Caro stood in a bright pink t-shirt on the deck of a small boat, wind in her hair, grinning as she leaned into a tall, sun-weathered man beside her who looked at her like she’d hung the moon. Sunlight flashed on the water behind them.
She looked healthy.
Whole.
Something in Wyatt’s chest loosened a little more.
“She looks good.”
“She does.” Jen slipped the phone back into her pocket. “FBI wrapped up their interviews, by the way. Sarah told me this morning.”
He nodded. “She told me too.”
Jen studied him across the table. “So. It’s actually over.”
Wyatt looked at her.
The faint shadow of the bruise beneath her eye and the faint line on her cheek. The steadiness in her gaze that he’d first seen on the rig and had never once wavered since.
“Yes. It’s over.” And for the first time in his life, Wyatt believed it.
She reached across the table and laced her fingers through his. His splint was gone now, but the hand was still stiff. The bones ached when the weather shifted, and his grip wasn’t what it used to be yet.
Her thumb traced the ridge of healing bone gently.
She lifted her gaze to his. “Then take me home.”
Thank you for sharing Wyatt and Jen's story with me—