“sorry about leaving the bedroom last night.”

“Hey, it’s okay. . . . I understand.”

“You mean that?”

“Of course I do.” She turned and faced him with a smile. “I had a wonderful night.”

“So did I,” he said. Fishing a coffee cup out of the cupboard for Theresa, he asked over his shoulder, “Do you want to do something today? I called the shop and told them I wasn’t coming in.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“How about showing you around Wilmington?”

“We could do that.” She didn’t sound convinced.

“Did you have anything else you wanted to do instead?”

“How about we just sort of hang around here today?”

“And do what?”

“Oh, I can think of a couple of things,” she said, putting her arms around him. “That is, if you don’t have a problem with that.”

“No,” he said with a grin. “No problem at all.”

*  *  *

For the next four days, Theresa and Garrett were inseparable. Garrett ceded control of the shop to Ian, even allowing him to teach the dive classes on Saturday, something he’d never done before. Twice, Garrett and Theresa went sailing; on the second night they stayed out all night on the ocean, lying together in the cabin, rocked by the gentle swells of the Atlantic. Later that evening she asked him to tell her more adventure stories about early sailors, and she stroked his hair as the sound of his voice reverberated against the interior of the hull.

What she didn’t know was that after she’d fallen asleep, garrett left her side as he had their first night together and paced the deck alone. He thought about Theresa sleeping inside and the fact that she would be leaving soon, and with that thought came another memory from years before.

“I really don’t think you should go,” Garrett said, looking at Catherine with concern in his eyes.

She stood beside the front door, her suitcase beside her, frustrated with his comment. “C’mon, Garrett, we’ve already talked about this. I’m only going to be gone for a few days.”

“But you haven’t been yourself lately.”

Catherine felt like throwing up her hands. “How many times do I have to tell you that I’m fine? My sister really needs me—you know how she is. She’s worried about the wedding, and Mom isn’t much help at all.”

“But I need you, too.”

“Garrett—just because you have to be at the shop all day long doesn’t mean I have to stay here, too. We’re not joined at the hip.”

Garrett took an involuntary step backward, as if she’d struck him. “I didn’t say we were. I’m just not sure whether you should go when you’re feeling this way.”

“You never want me to go anywhere.”

“Can I help it if I miss you when you’re gone?”

Her face softened just a little. “I may leave, Garrett, but you know I’ll always come back.”

when the memory faded, Garrett walked back inside the cabin and saw Theresa lying under the sheet. Quietly he slipped in beside her and held her tightly against him.

*  *  *

the following day was spent at the beach, sitting near the pier where they’d first had lunch. When Theresa got sunburned by the early morning rays, Garrett walked to one of the many shops right off the beach and brought back some lotion. He applied it to her back, rubbing it into her skin, as gently as if she were a child, and even though she didn’t want to believe it, deep down she could feel that there were moments when his mind was drifting somewhere else. But then, just as suddenly, the moments would pass and she would wonder whether she’d been mistaken.

They had lunch at Hank’s again, holding hands and staring at each other from across the table. They talked quietly, oblivious to the throngs around them, neither one of them noticing when the check was brought to the table and the lunch crowd emptied out.

Theresa watched him carefully, wondering if Garrett had been as intuitive with Catherine as he seemed to be with her. It was as if he could almost read her mind whenever they were together—if she wanted him to hold her hand, he reached for it before she said anything. If she just wanted to talk for a while without interruption, he listened quietly. If she wanted to know how he was feeling about her at any particular moment, the way he looked at her made it all clear. No one—not even David—had ever understood her as well as Garrett seemed to, yet how long had she known him? A few days? How, she wondered, could that be? Late at night, she thought about the answer as he lay sleeping by her side, and the answer always came back to the bottles she had originally found. The more she had come to know Garrett, the more she believed that she was destined to find his messages to Catherine, as if there were some great force that had directed them to her, with the intention of bringing them together.

On Saturday evening Garrett cooked another dinner for her, which they ate on the back deck under the stars. After making love, they lay in his bed, holding each other. Both of them knew that she had to return to Boston the following day. It was a subject they had both avoided talking about until now.

“Will I ever see you again?” she asked.

He was quiet, almost too quiet. “I hope so,” he said finally.

“Do you want to?”

“Of course I do.” As he said it, he sat up in the bed, pulling slightly away from her. After a moment she sat up and turned on the bedside lamp.

“What is it, Garrett?”

“I just don’t want it to end,” he said, looking down. “I don’t want us to end, I don’t want this week to end. I mean, you come into my life and turn it upside-down, and now you’re leaving.”

She reached for his hand and spoke quietly.

“Oh, Garrett—I don’t want it to end, either. This has been one of the best weeks I’ve ever had. It seems like I’ve known you forever. We can make it work, if we try. I could come down here or you could come up to Boston. Either way, we can try, can’t we?”

“How often would I see you? Once a month? Less than that?”

“I don’t know. I think that depends on us and what we’re willing to do. I think if we’re both willing to give a little, we can make it work.”

He paused for a long moment. “Do you really think it’s possible if we don’t see each other very much? When would I get to hold you? When would I be able to see your face? If we only see each other once in a while, we won’t be able to do the things that we need to . . . to continue feeling the way we do. Every time we saw each other, we’d know it’s only for a couple of days. There wouldn’t be time for anything to grow.”

His words stung, partly from the truth and partly because he seemed to want to simply end it here and now. When he finally turned to her, a regretful smile on his face, she didn’t know what to say. She released his hand, confused.

“You don’t want to try, then? Is that what you’re saying? You just want to forget everything that’s happened—”

He shook his head. “No—I don’t want to forget it. I can’t forget it. I don’t know. . . . I just want to see you more than it sounds like we’ll be able to.”

“So do I. But we can’t, so let’s just make the best of what we can. Okay?”

He shook his head almost dismissively. “I don’t know. . . . ”

She watched him closely as he spoke, sensing the presence of something else.

“Garrett, what’s wrong?”

He didn’t answer, and she went on. “Is there a reason you don’t want to try?”

Still he remained quiet. In the silence, he turned toward Catherine’s picture on the nightstand.

“How was the trip?” Garrett grabbed Catherine’s bag from the backseat as she stepped out of the car. Catherine smiled, though he could tell she was tired.