“Yeah. Sometimes. It was my passion for so long, from the time I was fourteen and started working at a skateboard shop and then a surf shop on weekends to get money for lessons, right up until my accident. I built my life around kiteboarding. And it never occurred to me that it could be taken away from me in a split second.”

“If your knee gets rehabbed, would you go back to that life?”

“Right now? I’m not sure. I still have nightmares, sometimes, where I’m falling, and I can’t release my harness, and the kite is dragging me through the water and I’m drowning.”

“Really? I can’t imagine a badass like you being afraid of anything. Especially not after the way you got the jump on Ben two nights ago.”

“I’m afraid of lots of things,” Drue admitted. “I just hide it better than most people.”

“Like what?”

“Spiders. Fire. Anchovies.” Her tone turned unexpectedly serious and she reached for his hand. “Dying alone, like my mom.”

“You weren’t with her when she died?”

Drue shrugged. “Physically, yeah I was right there in the room with her. But my mom wasn’t your typical mother. I always knew she loved me, but she was very closed-off, emotionally. She had boyfriends, over the years, after she and my dad split, but nothing was permanent. I think that was by design.”

A breeze kicked up then, ruffling her hair, and she felt goose bumps raise on her arms.

“Let’s walk,” she said.

He took her hand and they strolled past the lights of Sharky’s and the Gulf Vista, without comment.

They were almost back to the cottage, and Jonah stopped, taking in the view of it from the beach. They’d left the lights on inside.

“It looks so peaceful from here, it’s weird to think about everything that happened here two nights ago,” Jonah said.

He kissed the top of her head. “I’m guessing you must have had that talk with your dad? About Colleen?”

“Yeah. I met him and Zee for drinks at Mastry’s, after work.”

“How’d it go? Pretty awkward?”

“Very awkward. And painful.” She swallowed the unexpected lump that rose in her throat.

“If you ever want to talk about it, I’m willing to listen,” he told her.

“I know you are,” Drue said gratefully. “I don’t want to be like my mom,” Drue said, looking directly at him. “Or my dad, when it comes to that. Okay?”

“Okay,” he said. “Understood.”

Jonah insisted on entering the cottage ahead of her, to, as he put it, “run reconnaissance.”

“No bad guys,” he reported, after searching all the rooms, including both closets.

He gathered up his laptop and headed for the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Drue asked, hands on hips.

“Home?”

“What about that do-over you promised me?” she asked.