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PROLOGUE

My mom always said, there are two kinds of love in this world: the steady breeze, and the hurricane

The steady breeze is slow and patient It fills the sails of the boats in the harbor, and lifts laundry on the line It cools you on a hot sus the leaves of fall, like clockwork every year You can count on a breeze, steady and sure and true

But there’s nothing steady about a hurricane It rips through town, reckless, sending the ocean foa trees and power lines and anyone duh to stand in its path Sure, it’s a thrill like nothing you’ve ever known: your pulse kicks, your body calls to it, like a spirit possessed It’s wild and breathless and all-consu, you run" My hteen "You shut the doors, and you bar the s Because coe left behind"

E back, I wonder if , the dry crackle of electricity in the air But it was already too late No warning sirens were going to save er, not until you’re the one left, huddled on the ground, surrounded by the pieces of your broken heart

It’s been four years now since that su I had to pull e ofnew in its place This ti I barred shutters over my heart, and foundwould ever destroyabout hurricanes Once the storm touches down, all you can do is pray

CHAPTER ONE

I’hith all the n, otcountry classics as loud asto drown out the whispers of memory that started, the minute I took the freeway exit onto the familiar coastal road

45 miles to Cedar Cove

45here for years before I met him, I remind myself sternly Every su in the surf and reading out on our shady back porch I should have other, better memories of this place without him

But you haven’t been back here since

I block out the treacherous voice inwith the radio instead