He’d never regretted giving those important years to the woman who had raised him on her own, but he couldn’t help but wonder what might’ve been different for him—and for Sydney—if he’d been able to accept the scholarship he’d been offered that would’ve made him a marine biologist. Would that profession have been good enough for Sydney? The Sydney she’d been back then?

Probably not. She’d married a banker. A guy who studied algae and pond scum probably wouldn’t have made the cut. Either way, it didn’t do any good to speculate now. What difference did it make? She’d made her decision a long time ago, and he’d had no choice but to accept it.

Except, as he rowed slowly across the vast pond, guided by the light of the moon and stars, he was filled with an emotion he hadn’t experienced in so long he’d almost forgotten what it felt like: hope. She’d never forgotten him. She’d thought of him, missed him, regretted their parting. God, what did that mean?

She was no longer married. Her husband and children had been gone for more than a year. He could see just by looking at her that she was doing much better accepting the awful hand life had dealt her than last summer when the pain of her loss was still so fresh and new.

“Ugh,” he said out loud as he rowed. “Don’t go there, man. It was over and done with years ago. Leave the past where it belongs.”

But even as he told himself there was no point, that pesky burst of hope refused to be ignored.

Chapter 2

Every morning since the accident, Sydney had woken to the ever-present physical reminders of her own injuries: aching hips and pelvis, throbbing in her left femur and the excruciating pain in her heart as she was forced to remember what she’d lost all over again. The first few minutes of each new day were often the worst, so she always took a moment to absorb the pain and find the fortitude to keep going.

For a brief instant this morning, she couldn’t remember where she was. That’d happened often since she’d woken in a pain-filled haze in the hospital, asking for her children, asking for her husband. As she’d done so many times since then, she forced the horrific memories from her mind and took a visual tour of the pleasant bedroom from her childhood summers on Gansett Island.

Filled with relief to be back on the island, she reached over to pet Buddy’s soft fur, grateful as she was every day for his company and steadfast devotion to her. Before everything happened, she never would’ve allowed him in the bed she’d shared with Seth. Now he slept tucked against her every night, taking and giving comfort.