Jack checked his watch for about the twentieth time, since he’d returned to his office, after teaching his Intro to Underwater Archaeology class. He got up and stared out the window at the parking lot, but it was almost empty. Laney’s car was nowhere to be seen. He paced back and forth along the length of his office.

Where was she? He and Laney had made plans for her to meet him at his office at two o’clock and it was now three-thirty. Lisa had told him that Laney had stopped by, but that she’d gone back to her car to get something. As far as he knew, she hadn’t returned.

He walked down the hallway to Lisa’s desk. “Have you seen Laney since she left here?”

Lisa shook her head sadly. “Sorry. I haven’t.”

“Did she seem upset when she left?”

Lisa shrugged. “She jetted out of here quite suddenly, but said she forgot something in her car, so I figured it was something important. I didn’t have any reason to suspect otherwise.” She peered at him with a concerned expression on her face. “Do you think she’s okay?”

“I’m sure she’s fine. She probably had something come up and she’ll get in touch with me later. Thanks.” He returned to his office, dejected and a little worried.

She should have been back by now. He picked up his phone, to make sure that he had no missed calls, and dialed her number again. As it had every other time, it went straight to voicemail. Face it, Jack. She stood you up. He’d been so convinced that they could make this long-distance thing work, but now it was looking like it wouldn’t.

But what if she was hurt or something? He texted her to make sure she was okay and waited a few minutes, tapping his pen on the desk the whole time. Not knowing what had happened was killing him.

She finally replied, I’m not coming.

He stared at his phone and then fired off a text asking her why not. After several minutes without a response, he concluded that she wasn’t going to get back to him. He pushed the phone to the far corner of his desk. Well, that was that. As he’d told Dane, he was more of a lone wolf. Maybe some people could have it all, but it looked like the only thing in his future was a good career. As he’d thought before, love was not in the cards for him. He’d thought Laney cared for him, but she must have gotten cold feet. Still, her behavior was strange. He’d never thought she was the flighty type.

He tried to focus on his work, but found it too difficult. Images of Laney kept popping into his head—the way she’d scolded him after he’d mistakenly thought she’d let Marshmallow loose on purpose and how they’d talked for hours in the Irish pub about anything and everything, laughing the whole time. He’d really thought they’d had a future together. Who else would be as excited about finding a shipwreck as he was? The idea of marriage had even entered his head and that had never happened before—an idea for which he blamed Dane and his nonsensical talk about love. Laney’s sweet smile popped into his head and he swallowed a lump in his throat. What he’d had with Laney hadn’t been nonsense, it had been real. He reached for his phone, checking for messages again, then flipped to the last photos he’d taken, a series of photographs of Laney and their date at the amusement park in Fortune’s Bay.

She looked so beautiful and carefree hugging that giant panda he’d won for her. His stomach twisted into a thousand knots. He’d been so excited to tell her that he’d managed to convince the conference manager to allow both him and Laney to speak at the upcoming conference, as they had discovered the shipwreck together.

What should he do now? Should he tell her about the invitation to speak at the conference? She didn’t seem to want to have anything to do with him, and he didn’t know why. Could she still be upset about him taking over the process of getting the shipwreck explored? He’d thought they’d moved past that, but maybe he was wrong.

He turned off his computer and got up from his chair. There was no way he could live like this—not knowing why she’d changed her mind about him. She’d driven all the way to the college to see him and then left suddenly. Something wasn’t right. He needed to go back to Fortune’s Bay to find out why she had stood him up and see if there was any hope of a future for them together.

He wanted to leave right away, but he had a staff meeting that evening, so he planned to leave as soon as his last class was over the next day. With any luck, the extra time would give Laney a chance to cool down and rethink her refusal to talk to him. If nothing else, he hoped to get closure from her.

* * *

“Laney, there’s someone here to see you.” Andrea ducked her head around the doorframe and smiled at her.

Laney hid the Kleenex she’d been using to wipe away the tears that appeared every time she thought about Jack. At this rate, she should buy stock in the company. She glanced up from her office at the library. “Who is it?” she asked, but her coworker had already scurried back to man the information desk.

She stood, smoothing her linen skirt and brushing back her hair with her fingertips, before walking out to the public area. As soon as she rounded the corner and came within sight of the information desk, she stopped in her tracks. Jack was standing there, wearing a casual navy-blue polo shirt that matched his eyes, and khaki shorts. Her heart fluttered at the sight of him and she started to turn around, but he’d already seen her.

“Laney,” he called out. She stopped, then took a deep breath and walked toward him. He smiled at her, but she didn’t return it.

“Jack. What are you doing here?” Her words were clipped and she worked hard to keep any emotion out of her face.

“You didn’t show up at my office, and you sounded odd in your text response yesterday. My receptionist said you came by but left to get something from your car. When I returned from my last class, you weren’t there.” He peered into her eyes. “Laney, what’s going on?”

She opened her mouth to speak but thought better of it. The public library was not the place for this conversation.

“I’m going on break,” she said to Andrea. Her coworker nodded. Laney grabbed Jack’s arm and led him outside the library to a bench underneath a tree, away from prying eyes and ears.

They both hovered near the bench, but neither of them sat. Laney stood a few paces away from Jack. How did he have the nerve to come here after what he’d done to her?

Overhead, birds chirped cheerfully as they flittered about in the foliage. The sound of children’s laughter floated through that air and the scent of the rose garden behind the library filled the area. The only thing wrong with the perfect picture were the frowns on both of their faces and the stiffness in their bodies.

“What’s going on with you? It’s not like you to just not show up.” His eyes were glued to her face. “I was worried about you.”

“I don’t think this is going to work out between us. You and I are just too different. You have your life back in Ambright and I have my life here. We were fooling ourselves to think it could work long-term.”

What she really wanted to say was that she wasn’t devious like him. She would never have left him out or not given him any credit in finding the shipwreck. They had worked together to locate the Livingston. How could he have changed his mind about her speaking at the conference? He knew how much it meant to her but the promise of tenure must have been too much to resist.

“Too different?” he echoed. “I thought we had something special.” He glanced down at his shoes, then looked back up at her, gazing straight into her eyes. “I don’t know about you, but this wasn’t some Spring Break fling for me. I’m sure we could have made it work long-distance.”

“It wasn’t some fling for me either,” she said. “But I don’t think it meant to you as much as it did to me.”

“What do you mean?” He reached out to her and put a hand on her arm. His complexion had paled underneath his light suntan and his voice wobbled slightly.

She shook off his touch, taking a few steps back. Her skin burned where his fingers had touched her. Conflicting emotions whirled around in her brain with the force of a hurricane. She couldn’t make sense of how she was feeling. Was she mad at him? Or was she mad at herself? She knew she shouldn’t have trusted someone from out of town, but she’d given in to the heady feelings of romance.

“The shipwreck was my discovery,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “And now you’ve taken all the credit for it.”

He stared at her, a bewildered expression on his face. “Laney, no. What are you talking about? I wouldn’t do that. Let’s talk about this.” He sat down on the bench and motioned for her to sit next to him.

She shook her head. “I’d prefer to stand.”

He sighed. “Alright, but please let me explain.”

“Fine.” She stared at him. “Why was my name not on the speakers list for the conference? Did you decide against my participation?”

“Oh that.” He smiled. “I’d already arranged to speak about the Livingston at the conference, so that’s why my name was on the flyer. People are excited to hear about my find and what it will contribute to our knowledge of the history of this area.” His grin stretched from ear to ear.

“Your find?” she echoed.

He looked confused again. “Yes, well, our find.”

“So that’s why you omitted me from the speakers list. You wanted the discovery for yourself.” She should have known.

“No, of course not. That’s not what I meant. All I meant was that this is important to me and my future. I want you to be a part of it too.”

“It was important enough for you to take all the credit apparently. Well, that should serve you well for getting the job in California.”

“No, I want you to get credit for it. Wait…” His eyes widened and he stiffened. “How did you know about the job in California?”

“Lisa,” she said flatly. “At least she told me about it. It didn’t seem like you were going to.”

“I was going to tell you.” His face clouded over. “But it never seemed like the right moment to tell you. Besides, I don’t even know if I’ll accept the job offer.”

“Well, when was it the right moment? On moving day?” She glanced over her shoulder. A group of school children were walking up the steps to the library. “I’ve got to get back to work. Don’t bother contacting me again.” She pivoted and strode back into the library before she could change her mind. She didn’t want to end things with Jack, but between him not telling her about the job in California and him not publicly giving her credit for helping to find the Livingston, she didn’t have much of a choice.

She returned to the information desk, her mind and body operating on autopilot.

“Are you okay?” Andrea asked.

“I’m fine.” Laney turned to the side for privacy, pulled out a well-used Kleenex from her pockets, and dabbed at the tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. This wasn’t like her to have crying fits at work, but she’d really thought there was something between her and Jack.

But, even after she’d confronted him about him taking full credit for discovering the Livingston, he’d denied having done so. His receptionist had shown her the flyer for the conference. Laney’s name had been nowhere on it. There was no denying that he’d betrayed her, and not taking responsibility for his actions was the final nail in his coffin. When she saw him in the library, she’d hoped that there had been some mistake, but she should have known better.