Louisa went back to staring out the window. She’d always made a habit of scanning the ocean, looking for any sign of life in the watery depths. Sometimes she’d catch the tail of a dolphin or the blowhole of a whale coming up for air. It was in those moments she felt like a little girl again.

She clung to that feeling—life before she learned how cruel life could be.

“Here you go.”

Cody’s voice shook her from her thoughts. She turned and found a cup of coffee offered in his outstretched hand.

She took it. “Thanks.”

He sat back down, and the two women came into view again. One of them smiled and shook her head, as if to say, That man is fine. For a brief moment, Louisa imagined that he was hers, that they were headed off island for a fun weekend in the city, that there wasn’t a mountain of hurt between them, that all the broken things had been repaired.

The thought of it brought tears to her eyes.

“You okay?”

She nodded quickly and took a sip of coffee, purposefully forcing all of this emotion out of her head where it belonged.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CODY MIGHT HAVE LOST HIS FATHER, but at least Daniel hadn’t died a slow, languishing death in a hospital bed.

He’d gone quickly, without warning, snapped off the earth like a precious jewel in the hands of a crafty thief.

Now, walking the halls of the hospital where Jackson Wirth had been since his accident, Cody was almost grateful for that. Yet he hadn’t gotten to say good-bye. That, he would never be grateful for.

“Room 403,” Louisa said. “This is it.”

“Maybe we should’ve met them somewhere else,” Cody said quietly.

“They won’t leave his side,” Louisa told him. “One or both of them is always here.”

The weight of their burden felt heavy on his shoulders.

“Ready?” Her expression softened toward him for the first time since they boarded the ferry.

He nodded as Louisa knocked on the door.

“Come in,” a woman’s voice said from inside the room.

Louisa drew in a breath, then pushed the door open. Cody followed her into the room, where a boy lay in the hospital bed, covered in a lightweight white blanket. Tubes extended from his arms and mouth, hooked to a machine that hummed in a steady rhythm. Artificial breath keeping him alive.

Next to the bed sat a tired-looking woman with a sullen face, and a middle-aged man stood behind her chair. Both of them took one look at Cody, dressed in uniform, and frowned.

“What’s he doing here?” the woman asked.

“Mrs. Wirth, my name is Louisa Chambers, and this is Cody Boggs of the United States Coast Guard,” Louisa said.

“I don’t care what his name is,” the woman said. “I don’t want him here.”