Chapter 7 #3
“Even when we weren’t at the cabin, he used to take me fishing,” Dakota said finally.
“Every Saturday morning, spring through fall. We’d get up before dawn—before my mom was awake, which he thought was hilarious—and take the horses out to this little pond on the edge of his property in South Dakota. ”
She could picture it. Flat prairie. A boy and his grandfather in the gray light of early morning.
“The pond wasn’t anything special. Muddy water, a few bass if you were lucky, mostly bluegill the size of your hand.
” He smiled, and this time it reached his eyes.
“But there was this mist that rose off the water right at sunrise. Like the whole world was waking up and stretching. And my grandfather would sit there in his lawn chair with his thermos of coffee and his tackle box, and he’d just . . . wait. Patient as anything.”
“Did you catch anything?”
“Sometimes. Mostly not.” He picked up his fork, twirled it absently. “But that wasn’t the point. The point was being there. Together. He used to say that fishing wasn’t about the fish—it was about learning to be still long enough to listen.”
“Listen to what?”
“Whatever needed to be heard.” Dakota met her eyes.
“Sometimes it was the birds. Sometimes it was the wind across the prairie. Sometimes it was him, telling me stories about his Army days, or asking me about school, or just sitting there while I rambled about whatever eight-year-old boys ramble about.”
Something ached in Jayden’s chest. “He sounds wonderful.”
“He was.” Dakota’s voice softened. “He never made me feel like I had to be anything other than exactly who I was. Never pushed me to be smarter or stronger or better. He just . . . liked having me there. Even when I couldn’t catch a fish to save my life.”
The words stirred up a memory. “My grandma was the same way.”
Dakota’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah?”
The words came without permission, spilling out before she could catch them and shove them back down where they belonged.
“I was on a swim team in high school. Competitive. I was pretty good, actually—made it to state twice, had scouts looking at me for college.” She picked at the edge of her napkin. “But my parents didn’t care. They only cared about grades. My little sister was the academic one.”
“So what happened?”
“I quit. Junior year. Dropped out of the swim team so I could focus on AP classes.” She smiled, but it tasted bitter. “Graduated salutatorian from Miss Porter’s.”
“Miss Porter’s?” Dakota tilted his head. “The boarding school in Connecticut?”
“The one and only.” She shrugged. “My father was transferred Stateside and decided we’d spent too much time traveling.
He wanted me to be . . . Well, I had rich grandparents, and they wanted a better life for us.
Boarding school was the easiest solution.
My sister and I were both shipped off to learn which fork to use and how to make small talk with senators. ”
“That sounds . . .”
“Lonely?” She met his eyes. “It was. But I got very good at pretending it wasn’t.”
The admission hung between them. More honest than she’d meant to be, but that was the problem with Dakota, wasn’t it?
“But your grandma,” Dakota prompted gently.
“Right.” She took a breath. Let herself go back. “She came to every swim meet. Every. Single. One. She lived in Vermont, and some of those meets were three hours away, but she never missed one.”
Dakota waited. Patient. The way his grandfather must have been, sitting by that misty South Dakota lake.
“After every meet, she’d take me for ice cream.
Win or lose. Didn’t matter if I came in first or last—she’d drive us to this little shop near the pool, and we’d sit in the truck and eat mint chocolate chip and talk about nothing.
” Her throat tightened. “She used to say I was a natural in the water. That watching me swim was like watching a seal—all grace, no effort.”
“She sounds like she really knew you.”
The words pried something loose. “She did. She was the only one who—” She stopped. Swallowed. “She died my sophomore year of college. Heart attack. I didn’t even get to say goodbye.”
Dakota reached across the table and covered her hand with his. Warm. Solid. Real.
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Me too.” She didn’t pull away. “For yours, I mean. It sounds like he was special.”
“They both were.” Dakota squeezed her fingers.
A shadow fell across their table. Jayden looked up to find Mags Winston standing there, sharp eyes twinkling behind her glasses. “Well, don’t you two look cozy.” She glanced at Jayden and winked.
Oh boy.
The afternoon dive site was deeper, the coral formations more dramatic. Walls of reef dropped away into blue darkness.
Jayden checked her gear the way she always did—regulator, BCD, weight belt, mask. Everything looked right. The tank felt full; the air tasted clean when she tested the regulator.
She stepped off the platform and let the ocean swallow her.
The water was warmer here, the visibility even better than the morning dive. She could see the reef stretching out below her, a landscape of alien beauty that made her feel small in the best way. Dakota splashed in beside her, and they exchanged okay signs before descending together.
They swam away from the boat, following the dive guide’s instructions to explore the outer edge of the reef. The sounds of the ocean wrapped around her—the crunch of parrotfish on coral, the distant whine of a boat engine, her own breath echoing in her ears.
The fish were bolder here—larger groupers, a spotted eagle ray that glided past with the lazy elegance of royalty The Napoleon wrasse turned out to be a massive, curious creature with thick lips and a face that somehow managed to look wise and goofy at the same time.
It followed them for ten minutes, seeming genuinely interested in these strange bubble-blowing visitors to its reef.
They found a garden of sea anemones, all swaying in the current, clownfish families defending their territories with fierce little charges at anyone who came too close.
A reef shark cruised past in the distance—blacktip, maybe four feet, completely uninterested in the divers.
A manta ray, impossibly graceful, glided by, with a wingspan wider than Dakota could reach.
And through all of it, he stayed there, within reach. Pointing things out. Sharing the wonder. Moving through the water like they belonged together.
Above them, the surface shimmered and danced, sunlight fractured into a thousand shifting patterns.
This was the underwater equivalent of walking through a cathedral, and she’d forgotten how sacred it could feel.
She glanced at her air gauge. Wait—what? The needle had fallen to the red.
Her air was nearly gone.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. She kicked hard and grabbed Dakota’s arm.
His head whipped toward her, eyes widening behind his mask when she showed him her O2 level.
He didn’t waste time on questions. Just pulled her close, shoved his backup regulator into her hand, and pointed up.
Surface. Now.
She nodded. Switched to his air. The first breath tasted sweet, precious, and she fought the urge to gulp it down.
Steady. Don’t panic.
They ascended together, Dakota’s hand gripping her arm, his eyes locked on hers. Calm. Easy. The kind of easy that said I’ve got you without speaking a word.
Thirty feet. Twenty. Fifteen.
They stopped there for a safety stop. Her air gauge read zero, just his to keep her alive. But there they stayed, waiting for five minutes, his eyes on hers, holding her gaze.
And in that space between breaths, somewhere in the blue twilight of the ascent, a voice surfaced from the depths of her memory. Not her own. Her sister’s.
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.”
The words arrived unbidden, unwanted—a fragment from one of Skylars’s endless Sunday school lessons, recited across the breakfast table while their parents pretended to listen. Jayden had rolled her eyes then. Had called it a fairy tale for people who couldn’t handle reality.
But here, suspended in the ocean with borrowed air in her lungs, the words felt different. Less like a fairy tale. More like a lifeline she didn’t know how to grab.
She shoved the thought away. Focused on Dakota’s face. On the surface just a few meters above. On survival.
But the words stayed. Lodged somewhere beneath her ribs like a splinter she couldn’t quite reach.
The surface shimmered above them, tantalizingly close, and Jayden forced herself to exhale continuously, to rise slowly, to not panic even though every instinct screamed at her to kick hard and fast toward the air.
They broke through together.
Jayden ripped the regulator from her mouth and gasped, sucking in warm tropical air that had never tasted so good. Beside her, Dakota surfaced with a splash, already reaching for her.
“You okay?” His voice was rough. “Jayden. Are you okay?”
“Fine.” She was shaking. When had she started shaking? “I’m fine. I checked my tank—I had full air when we went down. I don’t understand—”
“Let me see.” He swam behind her, and she felt his hands on her tank, checking the connection. A pause. Then, “This didn’t come loose on its own.”
“What?”
“The O-ring is damaged. Cut, almost.” His voice had gone hard. Cold. “Someone tampered with your gear.”
The words landed like stones in her stomach. Someone had tried to kill her?
Dakota swam around to face her, his jaw set, his eyes hard. “We’re getting you back to the boat. Now.”
He didn’t wait for agreement. Just wrapped an arm around her waist and started towing her toward the dive platform, his strokes powerful and furious.
“I can swim,” she protested.
“I know. Humor me.”
She did. Let herself be held, be helped, be protected. It felt foreign and strange and terrifyingly good.
They reached the boat’s ladder, and Dakota practically lifted her onto the platform. The dive master rushed over, alarm on his face, but Dakota cut him off.