12. Chapter 12
Kara
By the time Cole turns onto the road leading back to The Sandpiper, the morning has stretched into something that almost feels like a normal day.
Normal is an elusive word now. I know that.
Normal is a pretty plate hiding a crack underneath.
Normal is coffee, pancakes, ocean air, and a man beside me who can spot a phone camera from half a boardwalk away.
Still, for a few bright minutes, I had it. I had a lighthouse tour. Breakfast. A teenager with trembling hands asking for a photo. The smell of syrup and coffee. Cole almost smiling at my terrible fish jokes.
Maybe Dr. Vale is right. Maybe hiding makes fear bigger. Or maybe stepping outside only proves how many places fear can follow.
Cole parks beneath the cottage, but he doesn’t immediately shut off the engine. His gaze moves over the driveway, the neighboring rentals, the storage door under the house, the private dune path beyond the pilings.
I recognize the slight uptick in his demeanor. He is not looking at scenery. He is reading the world for danger.
“Anything?” I ask.
“No.”
“That answer means no, right? Not no but maybe yes in bodyguard?”
This time he does shut off the engine. “It means no.”
“Good.”
He gets out first, coming around to open my door. This really does make me feel pampered in a way. My phone buzzes in my bag before my feet hit the ground. Then again. And again. Cole’s eyes move toward the sound.
“Popular,” he says.
“Unfortunately.”
Inside the cottage, the cool air feels welcoming. I set my bag on the island and pull out my phone. Two messages from Talia. One from Vanessa. I read Vanessa’s first.
Excuse me. You failed to mention that “local security” looks like he was assembled in a very patriotic laboratory.
A surprised laugh slips out of me.
Cole looks over from where he stands near the front window. “What?”
“Vanessa saw a picture of us.”
His attention sharpens immediately. “What picture?”
The laugh gets stuck somewhere in my throat.
“I don’t know yet.”
Vanessa has sent a screenshot beneath the text, and when I open it, my own face smiles back at me from The Salty Spoon. The teenage girl from breakfast stands beside me, glowing with excitement. I am angled toward the camera, one arm around her shoulders. Cole is in the background.
He is not posing. Not smiling. Not doing anything that suggests he knows he is in the picture at all. But one shoulder is turned toward me, his body positioned in a way I recognize now. Between me and the room. Between me and whatever might come next.
The caption reads:
Met Kara Stone at breakfast today and she was SO NICE. Also pretty sure her security guy could fight a hurricane. No location tag until later because he asked nicely and also scared my mom a little.
Despite everything, I laugh again.
“That is actually adorable.”
Cole does not laugh. “It’s not location-tagged?”
“Not directly.”
“Caption names the town.”
My smile fades. “Oh.”
He holds out his hand, and I give him the phone.
The move is automatic, which should bother me more than it does.
Yesterday, I would have called it controlling.
Today, after watching him handle the teenage fan without shaming her, after seeing the way his body went still at the marina when the word patterns came up, I understand the difference.
Control wants to own. Protection wants to know. Cole studies the screenshot, then taps once to enlarge the image.
“This is what I meant earlier,” he says. “No one has to mean harm for information to move.”
“I know.”
I do know. The girl was sweet. Her mother was careful. They did what Cole asked and waited to post without an exact location tag. But the town name is there. My face is there. Cole is there.
Vanessa’s next message pops up before he can hand the phone back.
Seriously, honey. He’s gorgeous. If this is your bodyguard, I suddenly feel much better about you being there. Maybe too much better. Don’t fall in love with the hot one while you’re emotionally vulnerable. That’s my job to warn you as your unlicensed therapist.
Heat climbs my neck so quickly it feels like betrayal. Cole reads the message because it appears right there between us. For one suspended second, neither of us says anything. Then I reach for the phone. “She’s joking.”
“I know.”
His voice is low and gruff as he agrees.
“She jokes like that,” I add, because apparently I need him to understand Vanessa. “She’s always dramatic.”
“I believe you.”
But he is still looking at the phone. I look down at Vanessa’s words again, and despite the embarrassment warming my face, I smile because she sounds like herself.
Teasing. Protective. A little outrageous.
She has always been the one who can make me laugh in the middle of a mess.
Still, there is something strange about seeing Cole through her eyes.
He is gorgeous, some would say 'hot'. And a little dangerous to joke about.
I type back quickly.
He is standing right here and unfortunately saw that.
Vanessa replies almost instantly.
Good. Then he knows I’m watching out for you.
The words should comfort me. They do … mostly.
Cole’s gaze lifts to mine. “Does she monitor your social media often?”
“No. I mean … yes? Sometimes. She follows me. My publicist does too. Readers tag me. Restaurants tag me. People tag me in photos of recipes they make. It’s normal.”
“Normal before yesterday.”
I hate how gently he says it.
“Yes,” I admit. “Normal before yesterday.”
My phone buzzes again.
Also, I’m proud of you for getting out. Dr. Vale would approve. Fresh air, breakfast, handsome security. Very therapeutic.
The heat in my cheeks refuses to leave.
“She’s really leaning into the handsome security part,” I mutter.
Cole hands me the phone. “I noticed.”
I glance up. Big mistake. His eyes are on me, not the screen now, and for a second the cottage does something impossible. It gets smaller and warmer and entirely too quiet.
“Sorry,” I say.
“For what?”
“My best friend objectifying you.”
“I’ll recover.”
“Very brave.”
“I’ve had training.”
The laugh that comes out of me is soft, but real.
Then his phone rings and the moment breaks.
He checks the screen. “Sloane.”
“Go ahead,” I say.
Cole steps onto the screened porch, not far enough that I can’t see him, but far enough to give me the illusion of privacy.
I watch him through the glass as he talks, one hand on his hip, head slightly angled, body still except for the slow movement of his gaze over the dunes.
He does that constantly … watches and measures.
I look back at my phone. Vanessa’s screenshot still fills the screen. Me smiling at The Salty Spoon. The girl beside me. Cole behind us, unaware and completely aware at the same time.
I should be worried about the caption. I am.
But I am also caught on the shape of him in the background. The quiet fact of his presence. The way he appears in the photo exactly as he has appeared in my life since yesterday morning. Not demanding attention. Still impossible to miss.
Another message from Vanessa appears.
Okay, I’ll stop teasing. Promise.
Vanessa has always worried about me. Through culinary school, through the rise of my show, through the first time someone followed me to my car after an event and I pretended it did not rattle me. She has always been there, fierce and loving.
I type back.
I’m okay. I promise. Cole is careful.
Vanessa’s reply comes seconds later.
Good. Careful men are useful. Attractive careful men are unfair, but I’ll allow it.
I smile despite myself. Cole comes back inside before I respond.
“Sloane wants the link to the post,” he says. “And any screenshots Vanessa sent.”
“Because of the town name?”
“Because information moved from a stranger’s phone to social media, then to Vanessa’s phone in under an hour.”
“But Vanessa follows my tags.”
“That may be all it is.”
“You don’t think that’s all it is.”
“I think we document everything.”
He says it evenly, but I hear the caution beneath the words. It brushes against something defensive in me.
“She’s my best friend, Cole.”
“I know.”
“She’s worried.”
“I believe that.”
“Do you?”
His expression doesn’t change. “Yes.”
That should be enough, but it isn’t. The way he watches the world makes me want to watch it too.
I am not ready to turn that attention toward Vanessa.
Not the woman who sat with me after culinary school fell apart.
Not the woman who found me this cottage.
Not the woman who says she loves me loudly because she means it loudly.
I send Cole the screenshot and link, then place the phone face down on the island.
“I hate this,” I say.
His face softens. “Which part?”
“All of it.”
“That’s fair.”
“I hate needing help. I hate worrying about posts. I hate wondering if a sweet teenager taking a picture is somehow dangerous. I hate that everyone who loves me becomes part of an investigation.”
Cole moves closer, stopping on the other side of the island. Close enough that the air changes. Far enough that I still have room.
“People who love you should want you safe more than they want you easy to reach.”
I turn the words over like something I found on the beach and am not sure whether to keep it. I don't know what to do with those words.
Outside, the ocean keeps moving beyond the dunes. The porch screens glow with white afternoon light. For a little while, The Sandpiper feels peaceful again, but now I know better.
Peace is not the absence of danger. Sometimes it is only the pause before someone decides to step closer.
I look toward the porch, where Cole had stood minutes ago with his eyes on the dunes. Then I look back at my phone, still face down on the island, still warm from Vanessa’s messages.
For the first time all day, the cottage feels less like a hiding place and more like a glass box. And I can’t shake the feeling that somewhere, someone has just realized exactly where to look.