- Prologue -

Seven months ago

- LOGAN -

Maeve traces her manicured hand up the length of my tandem kayak and the movement is enough to make any man drool.

She turns sharply toward me, her face incredulous. “Ohio? What the hell are you moving to Ohio for?”

I crack a smile, her harsh tone pulling my gaze away from her French-tipped fingernails and over to her eyes—the eyes of a very happily married woman and a good friend these past months. And even though I might have easily fallen in love with her had I been given the chance, I’m not unlike any other man who has met her. She’s just one of those women who would be easy to love.

Her husband is one lucky Lieutenant.

“That’s where I’m from, Maeve.” I’m not surprised I never told her, and doubt she or Jack ever asked. In the Navy, the question is usually Where have you been stationed? rather than Where are you from?

I’m guessing people look at a Navy uniform and assume the guy in it must have been raised someplace near the water to appreciate this way of life. But my childhood memories center around farmhouses and grassland, not ocean waves and sailboats.

She tsk-tsks quietly. “Is that why you’re parting with this? There’s no water where you’re headed?”

Her eyes drift back to the kayak I’ve got leaning against a stately oak on the northeast side of the campus of the U.S. Naval Academy. The tree’s leaves are golden yellow now, as bright as a dandelion, and it pains me to think I won’t be here to see them fall to the ground.

I knew this would be my last tour. I was supposed to have left this summer, but separating from the Navy comes with a mountain of paperwork and bureaucratic red tape, and I haven’t fought it because Annapolis is a great place to be stuck for a while.

I shrug, moving the kayak to lay flat on the ground as an autumn wind threatens to topple it. “Not where I’ll be, anyway. There’s a creek, but not deep enough to kayak in for more than a quarter mile without crashing into rocks.” I frown at the sight of the kayak, unmarred and unused. “Besides, it’s a tandem kayak.”

“So your girlfriend isn’t following you.” She says it like a statement rather than a question, and I suddenly can imagine her snuggled up in bed with Jack as they shake their heads, lamenting what poor taste I have in girlfriends.

And I’d be the first to agree with them.

“No,” I answer, making sure to keep my tone level and unemotional.

She shakes her head, as I predicted she would. “Jack and I didn’t like her anyway.”

They’d like her even less if they knew why she left me.

Her back straightens and lightly tanned arms fold across her chest, looking again at the kayak. “You sure you want to part with her? She’s a beauty.”

I’m assuming she’s talking about the kayak. Not my ex-girlfriend.

“Yep. You’ll be doing me a favor, taking it off my hands. And I figured with the way Jack likes to kayak, maybe a tandem would be in your future sometime soon.”

Jack doesn’t wear the SEAL Trident on his uniform like I do. But he’s stationed right now as an augmentee for one of the Teams down in Little Creek, Virginia, even though he and Maeve spend any moment they can up here in Annapolis.

Her brow furrows in thought. “How much are you asking for it?”

“For you? Nothing.”

Cocking her head, her knuckles move to rest on her trim waistline, a classic Maeve pose. “No way. This is practically new, Logan.”

Brand new, I want to say, but I won’t. “Seriously, just take it. I owe you big time for the decorating you did on my house when I got here.”

Her eyes roll lavishly. “Oh, please. You would have been happy to live in a bachelor pad with a picture of dogs playing poker on the wall. You only let me decorate as a favor to Jack and me.”

She’s actually right. She was starting her own interior design company and needed to build up her portfolio. And how could any man say no to a woman like Maeve? “Maybe. Just take the kayak, Maeve. Consider it a wedding gift.”

“You already gave us a wedding gift.”

“A second wedding gift then. You can send me photos of all the places you go in it and make me cry while I’m landlocked in the Midwest.”

Wincing from the image she likely had of me in the middle of a cornfield, she touches my arm sympathetically—a friendly gesture that would have stirred me up a while back. But now I only see her as the big sister I always wished I had.

“You’re sure you belong in Ohio? I thought you’d head back to San Diego when you were done here.”

Uncomfortable suddenly, I stoop to lay the paddle on the inside of the vessel as my heart rate climbs. “My family needs me now. You know the deal.”

It has nothing to do with the way my hands are suddenly clammy, and I feel like I’m suffocating.

“Well, don’t dig those roots too deep, okay? We’re still hoping you’ll come back to us,” she says, her innocent words unintentionally having a double meaning because I really do feel far away sometimes, 7,000 miles from everyone else.

My eyes drift to the water as she climbs into the kayak to get a feel for it. The brackish water here flows into the Chesapeake Bay and then intermingles with the waters from every ocean on the planet.

And the thought calms me. This time, just like always.