It rained the next day.
Not the soft kind of rain that tapped gently on rooftops. This was the Evermare kind—relentless, gray, sweeping in from the ocean with a fury that made trees bend and the sea roar like a wounded beast.
Elena stayed indoors, organizing the gallery pieces she'd brought with her. Abstracts. Landscapes. A portrait of her mother that she couldn't bear to hang.
She lit a fire in the stone hearth and curled up on the couch with an old sketchpad she hadn't touched in months. But the pencil felt foreign in her fingers, her hand frozen just above the page.
A knock at the door broke the silence.
She startled. Then frowned. No one knocked here.
Elena opened the door to find Rowan, soaked to the bone, hair slicked back, salt clinging to his clothes.
"Storm's shifting the tide," he said without greeting. "You're close to the bluff. Just making sure you're anchored."
She blinked at him. "I'm… what?"
"Your cottage. Foundation's old. The sea's rough tonight. Thought you should know."
"Thanks," she said, stepping aside. "You want to come in?"
He hesitated—like she'd offered him a place inside not just her home, but her quiet little world.
Then he stepped in.
The air between them shifted with the rain.
They sat across from each other, steam rising from the mugs she placed between them. Rowan's presence filled the small space like driftwood—worn, beautiful, and carried by unseen tides.
"I don't get many visitors," she said, watching him sip.
"I don't visit many people."
"Why's that?"
He glanced at the fire, then back at her. "Because when you lose too much, you learn not to keep."
The words landed heavy in her chest. She knew that feeling too well.
"I didn't come here to keep anything either," she said quietly.
He looked at her then—really looked.
"And yet," he said, "you stayed."
When the wind died down and the rain softened, Rowan stood to leave.
"Thank you for the tea," he said, lingering by the door. "And the warmth."
Elena smiled faintly. "The fire's still going."
He didn't move for a second. Just watched her, like he was memorizing the way she looked in the golden light. Then he stepped out into the night.
Elena closed the door slowly behind him.
She had come to Evermare to run from the past. But somehow, she was walking into something deeper—tide by tide, heartbeat by heartbeat.
And Rowan West, with his sky-colored eyes and quiet pain, was pulling her in like the moon pulls the sea.