Kyara Rice

Eleven years is long enough to forget someone. At least, that is what Josie tells herself. Since Hurricane Isla destroyed her parents’ business and her dreams of traveling the world as a wildlife photographer, she has rebuilt her life in Charleston, South Carolina, one wedding at a time. She is steady now. She is settled. She does not need the past walking back through the door.

Samuel Greene has spent the last decade leading dangerous maritime drug interventions across the globe as an Operation Specialist in the U.S. Coast Guard. Between secret entanglements in Alaska and a life defined by impermanence, he has perfected the art of never staying.

What begins as a careful pact to remain friends unravels under the weight of everything they never said. Old chemistry ignites against new wounds. The life she built and the life he chose pull in opposite directions, and Charleston, with all its beauty and ghosts, offers no easy answers.