Three days passed before Elena saw him again.
By then, the storm had passed, the skies cleared, and the sea had calmed into something almost gentle. She'd finally finished unpacking the last box—one she'd avoided.
It was sealed tighter than the rest, labeled only with her mother's neat handwriting: "Evermare – Hartley Family."
Inside was dust, time, and one framed painting wrapped in yellowed cloth.
Elena unwrapped it slowly, breath catching in her throat.
A seascape. Moonlight skimming the dark ocean. But it was the dock—her dock—that gripped her. And standing on it, half-obscured by shadows, was a figure. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Alone.
It was him.
Not exactly Rowan—but close enough. The shape of him. The loneliness of him.
The painting was signed only with a flourish: "M.H."
Her grandmother's initials. But it looked… newer. Unfinished.
She couldn't explain it, but something inside her said it mattered.
---
That evening, she found herself walking down the path toward the bluff, painting tucked under her arm.
Rowan was there, of course. Watching the ocean like he always did. As if he was waiting for something to return.
Or someone.
"I found something," she said, holding the painting out like a question.
He didn't take it. He stared at it, frozen.
Then his voice came, distant. "Where did you get that?"
"It was my grandmother's. It was packed away. I think she painted it."
"No," he said, his eyes darkening. "She didn't."
Elena's heart fluttered in her chest. "Then who?"
Rowan looked at her—really looked. And for the first time, the mask cracked.
"My brother."
A silence fell between them like fog. Heavy. Cold. Unfinished.
"I didn't know you had a brother," she whispered.
"You wouldn't," Rowan said, voice hollow. "Because he drowned. Right off this dock. Fifteen years ago."
The painting shook in Elena's hands.
And something deeper began to rise between them—not just attraction, but a tether. A shared ache. A story neither of them had known they were still writing.
And beneath it all, a question neither dared ask:
Why was his brother painting her grandmother's dock… before he died?