CHAPTER 26
Marina
The beach lay beneath a blanket of low gray clouds, the morning mist blurring the horizon until sea and sky became almost one.
The tide rolled steadily onto the shore, each wave dissolving into white foam before slipping back into the Pacific.
Only a handful of surfers waited beyond the break, bobbing quietly on their boards.
Marina preferred mornings like this. The crowds were smaller, the waves gentler, and the beach felt almost peaceful.
Katrina had already finished teaching her regular lesson. She'd changed out of her wetsuit into cutoffs and a thin hoodie and was sorting boards and life jackets beside the blue Volkswagen van.
Marina stood ankle-deep in the water with Karina’s extra student for the morning, an eight-year-old boy from Sacramento spending the week in Cliff Harbor with his mother.
The woman watched from a folding chair farther up the beach, wrapped in a thick sweatshirt despite the mild weather, a paper cup warming her hands.
"All right," Marina said, steadying the boy's board. "Remember what we practiced. Don't try to stand too soon. Let the board glide first."
The boy nodded so seriously that she smiled.
"Good. Now paddle."
He paddled with determined little strokes, caught the small wave she'd chosen for him, then pushed himself upright. He managed to stand for nearly three seconds before toppling sideways into the shallow water with a delighted splash.
Marina laughed and helped him back onto his feet.
"That was great! Did you feel it?"
He grinned from ear to ear. "I almost stayed up!"
"You did. Next time you'll stay up even longer."
Katrina had been right. Teaching was fun.
Watching someone catch their first wave reminded Marina why she'd fallen in love with surfing in the first place. For a little while, there were no bills to pay, no late-night performances, no debt hanging over her shoulders.
No cowboys. No tech bros.
Just the ocean and the simple joy of helping someone discover something new.
A shadow moved at the edge of the beach, and she looked up. So much for simple joy. Ryan had just stepped onto the sand.
He stood near the path with his surfboard tucked beneath one arm, scanning the shoreline until he found her.
Her heartbeat stumbled. She hadn't expected it to hurt this much just seeing him.
Last night had settled everything. She'd spent hours lying awake convincing herself it was for the best. Whatever had happened between them had always been temporary. Ryan belonged in San Jose. She belonged in Cliff Harbor.
Sooner or later, he would leave. Better to let him go now than spend weeks or months pretending distance didn't matter.
Their eyes met. For one brief moment she almost smiled. Instead, she looked away and forced herself to focus on the boy.
"Ready to try another one?" she asked.
He nodded eagerly.
She guided him farther into the shallows, explaining where to wait and when to paddle. She spoke calmly, demonstrating each movement exactly as she'd done hundreds of times before.
Outwardly, nothing had changed. But inside, she was painfully aware of Ryan standing somewhere behind her.
A moment later she heard Katrina's voice greeting him, and she resisted the urge to look.
Please don't try to fix this, Kat.
Her sister had always believed every problem had a solution if people would just talk long enough.
Marina wasn't so sure. She especially hoped Katrina wouldn't tell Ryan she'd cried after coming home the night before.
That would have been humiliating. But more than anything, she hoped Ryan and Katrina would stay friends.
More than anything, she hoped Ryan and Katrina wouldn't let what had happened between her and Ryan change what they had found together.
Katrina liked him and Ryan liked Katrina. Marina had seen it all week. The teasing, the laughter, the easy affection between them.
They deserved a chance to see where it led. If stepping out of the way made that easier, then maybe last night had happened for a reason.
The thought made her chest ache.
She swallowed hard and turned back to her student just as another small wave rolled toward them.
"Okay," she said, smiling as if nothing were wrong. "This one's yours."
The boy paddled hard, caught the wave, and sprang to his feet.
"That's it!" Marina called. "You've got it!"
He rode the wave nearly all the way to shore before tumbling into the foam, laughing so hard that his mother clapped from the beach.
Marina laughed with him. For a few precious seconds, she almost forgot Ryan was there.
The lesson ended a few minutes later. The boy hurried back to his mother, talking so fast his words ran together as he described every wave he'd caught. His mother thanked Marina again before leading him toward the parking lot.
Marina watched them go, grateful for the brief distraction. When she turned back toward the ocean, she sensed Ryan before she saw him.
He was walking across the wet sand toward her slowly as if giving her every chance to leave if she wanted to.
She didn't. Instead, she walked to the water's edge and looked out at the gray horizon. The wind carried a cool spray across her face. Small waves curled around her ankles before sliding back into the sea.
She heard his footsteps stop beside her. Neither of them spoke.
"Hi," Ryan said at last.
"Hi." She kept her eyes on the ocean.
She wasn't angry anymore, but she was tired.
The silence stretched between them, filled by the steady rhythm of the waves and the distant cries of gulls.
"I'm sorry," Ryan said finally. "For how I acted last night. For what I said in the car. I was an ass."
Marina looked at him.
He looked every bit as exhausted as she felt.
"You were scared," she said quietly. "I get it."
His shoulders sagged slightly. "It's not an excuse."
"No," she agreed. "It's not."
Another wave washed over their feet before retreating.
Ryan dug his toes into the wet sand. "Seeing you with Ethan freaked me out. It felt like looking at a future version of myself."
She frowned. "A future version?"
"I didn't want to be him." Ryan shook his head. "I don't want to end up with the job and the house and all the things I'm supposed to want, only to lose all of this."
Marina searched his face. "And what is 'all of this' to you?" she asked, unable to keep the tightness from her voice. "What exactly do you think you're getting?"
Ryan looked out across the water.
"You. Katrina. This place." He let out a slow breath. "I haven't felt this alive in years, Marina."
Her heart tightened. She wanted to believe him. God, she wanted to. But she'd believed words before.
"You are not him," she said softly. "That's what I've been trying to tell you."
She paused, searching for the right words.
"But even so..." She sighed. "You still don't live here. You'll have to leave in a few days. A vacation is a vacation. It'll end. You can't just keep extending it."
She hated hearing herself say it. Every sentence felt like another brick she was laying between them.
"It doesn't have to end at all."
She turned toward him. What did he mean?
Ryan had stepped closer. "I don't want to leave, Marina. I want this to be my life."
For a moment she simply stared at him. She wasn't sure she'd heard correctly. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm quitting my job. I told Ethan last night."
The words landed like a wave breaking over her. She blinked.
"You're..." She stared at him in disbelief. "You're quitting? Your job? The one you've had for five years? The one that pays you more in a month than most people make in three?"
Ryan nodded. "I don't care about the money. I care about being happy. About being here."
He gestured toward the beach, the cottages tucked among the trees, the surf rolling endlessly toward shore. "About being with you and Katrina."
Her mind struggled to catch up. This wasn't how the conversation was supposed to go. She'd expected an apology. That was it. Maybe a goodbye. Not this.
"We've known each other for less than two weeks," she said, though her voice had lost much of its certainty. "You can't just... change your whole life like that."
"I'm not asking you to figure everything out right now," Ryan said. "I'm not even asking you to believe me, though I hope you will eventually."
He took one more step toward her. "I'm just asking you to let me try. To give me a chance to prove this isn't just some vacation fling."
She searched his face. She looked for hesitation, for uncertainty, for any sign that he'd made this decision in the heat of the moment. But she found none.
"You really mean it,” she whispered.
"I really mean it." The walls she'd spent all night building around her heart began to crumble. "I don't know what to say."
"You don't have to say anything," Ryan said softly. "Just... don't give up on me yet. Please."
She had promised herself she wouldn't fall any deeper. She had spent the entire night convincing herself to let him go.
Then he had gone and changed everything.
Tears threatened again, but she blinked them back. She wasn't going to ruin this moment. It wasn't easy. She took a slow breath and forced a smile.
And then, before she could talk herself out of it, she closed the distance between them. Her hands rose to his face almost of their own accord.
She kissed him. And the tightness in her chest eased. When she finally drew back, she found her cheeks wet with tears.
"You are an idiot," she said, shaking her head. "A complete idiot."
Ryan grinned. "I know." Then his smile softened. "But I'm your idiot."
She laughed. He really was.
He was walking away from a career and moving three hundred miles for two women he'd known less than two weeks.
It was reckless, completely irrational, and by any reasonable measure impossible. And it was exactly the kind of impossible she'd stopped believing in years ago.
"We have a lot to figure out," she said.
"We do." Ryan brushed the tears from her cheeks with the back of his hand. "But we'll figure it out together."
She looked out across the ocean. The clouds still drifted overhead, and the waves rolled steadily toward shore, as though nothing had changed. Cliff Harbor was exactly the same. Only her future was different.