“There are literally no waves at this beach. How am I supposed to surf?” I looked out at the gentle ripples that attempted to call themselves waves as Kristian and I carried our boards down the wooden steps.

He chuckled and shook his head. “You wanna learn to surf, or you wanna drown your first time out?”

“Learn to surf,” I said, the answer fairly obvious.

“Then this is how we learn.”

When we got to the soft sand, we stopped about fifteen metres away from the water where and he dropped his board on the ground, explaining what a rail was and how I was supposed to attach the leg rope.

“What we’re gonna do is get you learning your positioning and practise your paddling.”

“Then will we learn how to catch a wave?”

“No. Then I’ll teach you duck diving and turtle rolls.”

“Do any of these involve real ducks or real turtles?”

“No.”

“Then none of this sounds very fun so far,” I said, teasing him a little as I folded my arms across my chest.

He laughed. “Quit being a brat. You’ve got to put in a bit of work before you can have fun. Now get in the bloody water.”

With a smile on my face, I picked up the board he’d loaned me and tucked it under my arm, walking beside him until we were knee-deep in the salty water.

“First, we’re working on positioning.” He showed me how to place my body on the board, centred so it wouldn’t roll too far back or forward. Once he’d made me do that about thirty thousand times, we moved on to paddling, which made my arms burn like a mother.

“No wonder you lot all have such big arms,” I commented as I heaved myself and my board on another lap between the two trees I was using as my guide. At the end of each lap, he had me get off the board, position myself correctly and then paddle off again. The lesson had been going for an hour, and I was exhausted.

“Had enough for today?” he asked when I slid off the board and leaned against it, a little too puffed to haul myself back on.

I nodded. “I tip my hat to you. I thought I was fit, but I’m not this fit.”

“It’ll come with practise.” He kindly helped me carry my board back up to the beach, where we took a seat on the sand while we disconnected our leg ropes.

“Thanks for this,” I said after a few moments. Looking out over the water was calming. It made me feel peaceful and focused.

“No worries. I could see you getting a bit of cabin fever. But you think this is something you wanna keep doing?”

“If you can handle my complaining.” I glanced at him and grinned, making him chuckle.

“You’re OK,” he said, knocking shoulders with me. “But we should get back. Jasmine will have a fit if we’re not back soon, and Sam will start to think I’ve stolen you for myself.”

“Jasmine I understand, but I doubt Sam would be that worried.”

Kristian looked at me for a long moment. “What makes you so sure?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s not like he chose me.”

“You don’t think he’s into you?”

“Time will tell. The novelty hasn’t worn off yet.”

“The novelty of what? Being married, or being with a new girl?”

New girl. The comment only served to remind me that there had been women before me. It wasn’t something I liked thinking about. Would my inexperience mean he’d grow bored sooner?

“Both.”

“Maybe it won’t wear off at all.”

“When a kid gets a puppy for Christmas, he loves it, feeds it, walks it every day. Then the puppy stops being new, life gets more important and the walking stops. He feeds the dog because he has to, but he does it with a sigh because it’s become a job. Eventually he gives that dog to a shelter when it starts tearing the furniture apart because it’s bored. He says there’s something wrong with it, and he doesn’t have the time to fix it. And when that dog gets destroyed instead of rehomed, he isn’t sad. He’s just glad it’s not his responsibility anymore.”

When I finished, he just stared at me. “That surprises you?” I asked, trying to figure out exactly what was behind the knit in his brow. Was it shock? Confusion? Was he checking to see if I had a second head?

“Your family must be really fucked up for you to think like that.”

I looked away. “Maybe.”

Standing up, he brushed the sand from his board shorts, then held his hand out to me. “Maybe you should watch the way Toby is with Rogue. That dog is ten years old, and Toby loves him as much as he did the day he got him. We’re all like that. Once you become a part of the family, you’re a part of it for life. We always take care of our own.”

His eyes were sincere, and I wished his words could make me feel better. But when I wasn’t enough for my own mother, and my father so readily turned his back on me, how could I be expected to believe Sam and his family wouldn’t quit me too? The only person who hadn’t given up on me was Holland. But now… I missed her friendship. Her contact. Her strength. Was she even OK?

“Come on.” He continued to hold out his hand, stubbornly.

With a sigh, I took it and collected my towel and board, rolling his words around in my mind and holding onto them for a while. It would be nice if they were true. It would be great to truly belong somewhere.

“What the fuck?” Kristian raked his fingers through the sand.

“What’s wrong?”

“My stuff. It’s gone.”

“What’s gone? Where?”

“I don’t fucking know.” He dug more furiously, widening his search. “My keys. They’re gone. I had them under the towels. Fuck.” He stood up and looked around the beach, then squinted up to the staircase that led up the cliff. I followed his gaze and saw a flash of light hair. Someone was running. “Shit,” he hissed, taking off at a sprint towards the stairs.

I gathered our towels and the boards and followed him as fast as I could, my mind in a panic. What if they took the ute? How would we get back? Jasmine was expecting us. Sam would think I ran.

Wait.

When I hit the bottom of the stairs, I stopped. What if I don’t follow? What if I drop everything right here and run? He was on foot. He wouldn’t catch me if I was fast. There were multiple beach exits; I could take any of them and flag a car down on the main road. If I left now, I could quit before Sam realised what a mistake it was to marry me, leave before they changed their minds about keeping me around. I could only contain the crazy inside me for so long. It was only a matter of time before I said or did something so far outside the box that I horrified them. That whole dog story was just the tip of the iceberg. Kristian had looked at me like I was mildly insane. So far, only Holland had managed to overlook my… quirks.

Holland.

She was coming for dinner. If I ran now, I’d never see her again. And what if Jasmine really did follow through with her threat and hurt everyone you care about? The voice inside my head made a good point.

And what about Sam?

I really, really liked Sam, because he was the first man to accept me in any way at all. He told me I was perfect. Beautiful. Was that enough for me in the long run, or could it be more? I wanted it to be more. I wanted to fall in love, wanted him to fall in love with me, painfully, desperately. But I didn’t think that could be possible.

You love him already, my inner voice said.

No I don’t. I don’t. I doubted him—that was how I felt towards Sam.

Bullshit. You l—

“Fucking bitch!” The sound of Kristian yelling in a rage snapped me out of the argument with my inner self. I shook my head, shaking the jumble in there straight before I picked up the boards and started up the stairs.

Forget Sam. Forget Holland. You should run, my inner self insisted.

And go where? Nobody wants me.

You have your house. You can sell it, start somewhere new.

I can’t, I responded, rushing up the steps two at a time.

Why?

“Because I’m a Cartwright now,” I said out loud.

That’s three times. You’ve chosen the Cartwrights three times now.

Inner me was right, I had chosen them three times. I chose them when I agreed to the marriage. I chose them when I lied to my family. And I chose them when I climbed the stairs instead of choosing to run. They kept telling me I was one of them, I guess now, I had to believe it. I obviously didn’t want to leave or I would have found a way.

“Did you see her?” Kristian asked as I reached the carpark.

“No. I was getting the boards.” And contemplating living a life on the run. It amazed me that he didn’t seem to have given a thought to the possibility that I could have taken off.

“Some fucking bitch just stole my car. Now she has my wallet, my phone, my favourite fucking shirt.” He picked up a rock and hurled it into the street. It bounced twice, then skidded. “Fuck!”

As I watched him rage, the irony of the situation set in and I couldn’t help myself, I started to giggle.

“You think this is funny?”

“You got robbed.” Even when I pressed my lips together, I couldn’t stop.

“No shit.” He ran his hands across either side of his cropped hair.

“You. A Cartwright. You were robbed.” My giggle turned into full-blown laughter. It was so ridiculous. “The thief gets a taste of his own medicine, and it’s so sour.” I’d moved on to cackling by that point. It was probably a bad idea—Kristian was pissed, and I didn’t know him well enough to know if he was dangerous in that state—but I couldn’t help it. I’d lost pretty much everything, my mind might as well go too.

“Shit.” A slight grin pulled at the corner of his mouth, producing a dimple. “Fuck.” He started laughing. “Being robbed fucking sucks.”

Tears streamed from my eyes as I leaned forward, struggling to stand. “I hope you’re insured.” Every word came out more high-pitched than the last. This was the most poetic justice.

“Yeah, I’m insured.” He chuckled a little more before he calmed. “Now we have to figure out how the hell to get home. Sam’s gonna kill me if I don’t get you back.”

Wiping my eyes, I looked around and spotted someone pulling a paddleboard from their roof. “Excuse me!” I put the boards on the ground and jogged towards the man.

“Me?” He pointed at his chest.

“Yes. Do you think we could borrow your phone? Someone just stole our car.”

“Aw shit, that sucks. Sure, I’ll grab it.” He turned around and went back to his beat-up Mazda, then returned with his phone.

“Do you know anyone’s number by heart?” I asked Kristian. I only knew my father’s and the funeral home’s from before we all had mobiles. It was one of the curses of modern technology.

“I can call the house. Someone will be there.”

While he made the call, I thanked the stranger and made a little small talk about the situation, the surf conditions and the weather. I didn’t want to say any of it but thought I at least owed him a conversation since he was rescuing us and all.

I was thankful when Kristian returned and handed the guy back his phone.

“Spoke to Toby. He’s on his way.”

“Thank God.”

After thanking our good citizen, we took a seat on the wooden railing while we waited.

“Was that guy weird to you or something?” Kristian asked after a while.

“No. Why?”

“Because you looked like you were about to shit yourself while you were talking to him.”

Charming.

I shifted a little in my discomfort. “I’m just not good at talking to people. Especially men.”

“You’re fine with all of us.”

“Yeah, but you’re different.”

“We’re not men?” He laughed.

“No. I mean, yes, you’re men.”

“Then how are we different?”

I shrugged, and then the words just tumbled out. “Because you’re family, and you treat me like I’m family too.” The second part of that sentence was said on barely a breath. I didn’t want to be too bold and jinx their acceptance of me.

A genuine smile spread across his handsome features. “You know, I always wanted a sister.”

“Yeah?” A giddy happiness bounced about in my chest.

“Yeah.” He nudged his shoulder against mine. “And you can call me Kris. Jasmine is the only one who uses our full names.”

“OK, Kris it is. I’d say you could call me Leesh, but you already do.”

He grinned. “Guess I already thought of you as family.”