3. Chapter 3
Cole
The ocean is honest before most people are.
That’s one reason I enjoy being out here before sunrise, standing barefoot in the wash with my fly rod in hand while the rest of Sunbreak Harbor is still deciding whether to wake up.
Nature tells the truth with its wind direction and the current of the water.
You can sense the pressure shift before a storm.
If you pay, the ocean gives plenty of warning. People usually don’t.
I strip line from the reel with practiced fingers and cast toward a trough where the darker water cuts parallel to the shore. The fly lands light, just beyond the foam line, and I let it drift for a moment before giving it a short retrieve. Nothing.
The sun is barely up, just enough gold spilling over the horizon to turn the water copper in places.
Behind me, dunes rise in soft shadows, sea oats bending with the breeze.
Beyond them sit the oceanfront rentals, pretty from the beachside and practical from the road, all pilings, stairs, outdoor showers, and places to rinse off sand before people climb back into their expensive little vacation lives.
I know these houses better than most of the guests who rent them. Which owners install decent cameras and security systems. Sunbreak Harbor looks like a postcard when you’re drinking coffee on a screened porch, but I’ve lived long enough to know postcards leave plenty out.
A wave rolls in around my ankles, cool against skin. I shift my stance without looking down. Balance is a habit now. So is scanning. Even on a quiet beach with no assignment and no immediate threat, part of me counts movement.
There’s a jogger heading north. An older man far down the beach with a metal detector near the public access point. Two gulls fighting over something they probably shouldn’t eat. Fishing boat moving beyond the first sandbar.
No problem. I cast again. The fly cuts through the brightening air smoothly. And for a few minutes, I let the rhythm settle me. Cast. Retrieve. Watch the water. Breathe with the surf.
I’m between assignments for once, which should feel like a gift.
Three weeks ago, I was sleeping in pieces during a private security job in Bogotá, eating protein bars in the back of armored vehicles and listening to a billionaire tech founder complain about slow Wi-Fi while men with actual weapons watched his hotel.
This is better. Saltwater at dawn. No one talking. A man ought to know how to enjoy peace when he gets it. I’m not always good at that.
The line tightens sharply, and instinct moves through me faster than thought. I set the hook, lift the rod, and feel the quick, bright fight on the other end. Not huge, but alive and stubborn. I smile despite myself as the fish runs parallel to the shore, silver flashing once in the low sun.
“Come on,” I mutter. “Don’t embarrass both of us.”
The fish gives me another few seconds of fight before I bring it close, wet sand pulling at my feet. I crouch, ease the hook free, and hold the small snook in the shallows until it kicks hard from my palm and disappears back into the green water.
“Not today,” I tell it. Too small to keep.
Fine by me. I’m not in a hurry. If I catch dinner, I’ll grill it later with lime, pepper, and whatever vegetables I picked up yesterday from the market. If I don’t, I’ll eat eggs and pretend that counts as a meal because, despite what half the island seems to believe, grilling is not cooking.
Cooking involves recipes, timing, fussing, and people telling you there are seven ways to ruin a sauce. Grilling is fire and protein. That’s honest, simple, and hard to complicate.
I straighten and shake water from my hand, already reaching for the line again, when movement along the beach catches my attention. A woman steps out from the private dune path near The Sandpiper.
At first, I notice only color. Red hair catching the sunrise. Red swimsuit and white-framed sunglasses.
Then details sharpen because that’s how my brain works whether or not I want it to.
She’s alone. Early thirties, maybe. Curvy in a way that makes the red suit look like a deliberate act of confidence, though her shoulders carry something that doesn’t match the outfit.
She walks slowly near the tide line in flip-flops, head angled down, searching the wet sand for shells. Vacation posture and not local.
She stops every few yards, bends to pick something up, studies it, then either keeps it or tosses it gently back toward the water. The red polish on her fingernails matches the suit, a minor detail I have no business noticing and immediately notice anyway.
She wanders closer, still pretending to care about shells more than anything else around her. When she’s within ten yards, she glances up and sees me watching her instead of the water.
“Are you catching breakfast or just making the ocean nervous?”
I glance at the water. “The ocean can handle me.”
“Bold thing to say while standing ankle-deep in it.”
“Fair point.”
She smiles then, and I feel like I’ve seen her before, but I’m sure I don’t actually know her. There’s something about her voice and her smile that is super familiar. Combined with the red hair and her smile, I know I have.
She’s someone well known … or looks like that person.
The thought comes without a name attached.
Somewhere I’ve seen her … on a screen, maybe.
Magazine? Airport? One of those cooking shows my sister used to leave running on mute while she talked over the whole thing?
I don’t know. She doesn’t have the polished look of someone ready for cameras right now.
Her hair is loose, her face mostly hidden, and she moves like a woman trying to convince herself the morning is beautiful enough to make her feel safe.
That word surfaces in my mind before I can stop it.
She’s not flirting exactly. She’s testing the air. Deciding whether a man with a fly rod at sunrise is a threat, a local oddity, or something harmless enough to speak to.
I reel in the slack and step back from the wash, giving her more space than most men would think to give. She notices that too. I see it in the way one shoulder loosens.
“You staying at The Sandpiper?” I ask, nodding toward the dune path she came from.
Her smile fades by a fraction.
“Yes,” she says after a couple of seconds. “Is that obvious?”
“Only house down this stretch with a guest right now.”
She looks past me toward the row of rentals, then back again. “You keep inventory?”
“I notice things.”
“That sounds like either a useful skill or a concerning hobby.”
“Depends on who you ask.”
The breeze lifts a strand of red hair across her cheek.
She brushes it away with the back of her hand, still holding two shells in her palm.
Up close, I can see she’s tired. Not hungover-tourist tired.
Not stayed-up-too-late-by-a-bonfire tired.
Bone tired. The kind people carry after adrenaline drains and leaves nothing good behind.
“You’re local?” she asks.
“Close enough.”
“That is the answer locals give when they don’t want tourists asking them where to eat.”
I almost smile. “You looking for restaurant recommendations?”
“I’m always looking for restaurant recommendations.”
Something about the way she says it pushes at my memory again. Food. That’s where I know her from. Has to be.
“You cook?” I ask.
Her mouth twitches. “A little.”
The understatement is too smooth.
“Professionally?”
“Sometimes.”
Now I do smile because that is absolutely a dodge. “That usually means yes.”
She lifts one shoulder. “Do you cook professionally?”
I look down at myself, then back at her. “Oh, hell no. I only grill or eat out most of the time.”
“Grill?”
“Yes.”
“Are you a grill master?”
“No.”
Her brows lift behind those white sunglasses. “Interesting.”
“I don’t need to master it — just fire, fish, lime, and salt.”
“That is the saddest recipe I’ve ever heard.”
“It works.”
“Survival isn’t the same as flavor.”
This time the smile escapes before I can stop it. I like her. That is inconvenient, considering I don’t know her name, where I’ve seen her, or why every instinct I own is telling me there’s more to this woman than a pretty vacation guest hunting shells at sunrise.
She steps closer to the water as a small wave slides in, then quickly retreats when foam rushes over her flip-flops. The move is quick, startled, and more vulnerable than anything else she’s done so far. She laughs at herself, but her gaze looks back toward the dunes.
“You expecting someone?” I ask.
Her chin comes up slightly. “No.”
I feel like she’s not being completely honest, but I don’t question her. Pushing makes people defensive. Waiting makes them decide whether they want to reveal details or truths. She looks back down at her shells.
“I’m not used to the sounds here yet,” she says finally. “That’s all.”
“The island talks a lot.”
“Does it?”
“Wind under the houses. Sand against lattice. Palm fronds on roofs. Dock lines hitting masts. Raccoons in places they have no business being.”
“Raccoons?”
“Bold ones.”
That gets another small smile from her.
“Good to know. I’ll add criminal raccoons to my list of beach concerns.”
“You have a list?”
“I’m organized.”
“Sounds serious.”
“It can be.”
The conversation should stay light. I know that. She’s a stranger on a beach, and I am a man with enough awareness to know when not to crowd a woman who is collecting shells. But something about her pulls at me.
“You picked a good stretch,” I say, keeping my voice even. “Quieter than the public beach. Most mornings, it’s just fishermen, runners, and shell hunters.”
“That sounds perfect.”
“It usually is.”
“Usually?”
I nod toward the water. “Summer triples the population. People forget the island is still a real place underneath the vacation version. They wander where they shouldn’t, drink more than they should, lose things, find trouble.”
“That sounds like experience talking.”
“Some.”
“Are you a fisherman or a philosopher?”
“Depends who’s asking.”