Between Hello and Goodbye(93)

“I miss Morgan. I miss my brother.”

“I know you do,” I said softly, my heart aching at the simple declaration.

“It was always Asher takes care of Morgan. For our entire lives. That’s what I thought—it was my life’s mission to keep him safe. He’d say it too, that I watched over him and protected him. He thanked me for it, which is bullshit because the truth is just the opposite.” Asher’s voice thickened and tears gathered in his eyes. “He watched over me. He protected me from my own worst instincts. From the rage that was eating me up inside. I channeled it into doing right by him because he was the best of us. He saved me just by existing. And then he up and left me, and I was lost.”

I said nothing but sat with Asher while he wiped his eyes with his shoulder and composed himself.

He turned to me. “I was so lost, I brought Chloe into the house after pushing you away and saying horrible shit to you, and I just… I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing.”

“Neither did I. It was like there was a tsunami going on in here,” I said, tapping my chest. “I ran away, back to Seattle. But that’s exactly what I needed to do. I needed to go back and attempt a life there that didn’t have you in it.”

He shook his head. “I can’t ask you to—”

“Don’t. I’m here.” I smiled. “Ask me something else.”

He inhaled a ragged breath and nodded, then reached into his pocket to pull out the black velvet box.

“That looks familiar,” I managed lightly, though my heart was racing. “Have you been rummaging in my carry-on?”

He smirked. “You left your bag open, and it was sitting right on top.”

“Can you blame a girl? I’ve been dying of curiosity for weeks.”

“I lost track of it,” Asher said, turning the box over in his hands. “I lost track of a lot of things but not how I feel about you.” Then he frowned. “Wait, you haven’t looked at it?”

“Nope, and I think we need to take a moment to appreciate the Herculean amount of willpower I have exhibited on that front.”

He laughed and shook his head. “God, Faith. How can I laugh right now? How can I be so crazy in love with you when my heart feels like it’s been trampled a thousand times?”

“Because we have an infinite supply.” I reached out and touched his cheek. “Your heart is safe with me. I’ll take good care of it. I promise.”

Asher made a gruff sound, his eyes shining, and the next thing I knew he was on one knee next to me in the sand. He held the box out and reached to open it, then stopped and fixed me with a grouchy look.

“You have to stand up or else all this kneeling doesn’t mean anything.”

I laughed with tears in my eyes and got to my feet. “So bossy.”

“Faith,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I don’t know what’s coming next. I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow or even in the next hour, but I know that I love you. That is something that will never change, not so long as I live and breathe. Whatever happens, I will always love you.”

He opened the box and there it was—a beautiful shimmery gray pearl surrounded by diamonds in a wide gold band.

My hand flew to my mouth. “Oh my God, I never imagined… So beautiful. It’s like Hawaii with little city lights all around it.”

“It’s us,” Asher said gruffly. “Faith…will you marry me?”

I nodded slowly at first and then vigorously, the joy bursting out of me.

“What was the point of standing up if I’m just going to fall on top of you?” I cried and then did just that, flinging my arms around him, both of us on our knees, kissing while I said yes, over and over again.

He slipped the ring on my finger where the pearl seemed to absorb and reflect the gray of the ocean after a storm while the diamonds captured the glint of the sun peeking through the clouds. Storm clouds rimmed with sunlight. Like sadness and joy, grief and love—I wanted all of it—but only with this man.

I kissed Asher, and our future felt like the horizon—sun and storms both, stretching out into forever and taking us wherever we wanted to go .





Chapter Twenty-Eight



The mid-morning water was calm as I took my speedboat out to the coordinates that Captain Gary had given me.

I headed toward open water, checking the dial now and then, and keeping an eye on the salt urn strapped securely to the seat beside me. It was pale peach streaked with white and would sink to the bottom, to the same place where Nalani’s had gone down. Over time, it would dissolve into the water, its salt blending with the salt of the ocean. The ashes would flow out and the current would catch them and carry them all over the world, then come back here. To this place. Home.

When I arrived at the coordinates, I killed the engine and let it drift. I took the salt urn and sat with it at the stern of the boat, on the gunwale. It was heavy, heavier than I had expected it to be when I first received it, and yet so light. How could one small vessel contain a whole life? But it couldn’t, I knew, because Morgan was not ashes in an urn. He was all around me. The water, the whales, the light, and the sand. All of this life and everything in it…that’s how big he was.

Tears streamed down my cheeks. I stopped trying to hold them back and let them fall, then inhaled a deep breath.