The tide rolled in slow and lazy that morning, soft foam curling over the wet sand like it had all the time in the world. The sun wasn’t fierce yet — just a pale, gold coin climbing the horizon — and the town was still rubbing sleep from its eyes. The boardwalk smelled like salt, sunscreen, and pancakes from the café that opened at dawn.
Liam Carter sat on the tall white lifeguard chair, sunglasses sliding down the bridge of his nose, one tanned arm slung casually over the red rescue buoy. From up there, the world felt almost still — except for the cries of gulls and the slap of waves against the shore.
He loved this hour, the hush before the beach turned loud with kids and radios and chatter. It was the closest thing to peace he knew.
Beneath him, his coworkers joked while setting up umbrellas, their laughter carried by the wind. Someone tossed him a bottle of water, and he caught it with one hand, smirking — a practiced motion from summers spent here since he was fifteen. It was a small-town rhythm: same beach, same crew, same half-warm summer romances that never lasted past August.
This was supposed to be another easy summer. Lifeguard duty, bonfire parties, helping his dad with the Carter family marina on weekends, maybe some lazy flings to fill the spaces in between. That was the plan — until he saw her.
She didn’t belong to the picture-perfect postcard scene. While most girls came dressed in sun-bright bikinis and easy smiles, she looked like she hadn’t decided whether to stay or run.
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He didn’t know her name yet, but he’d remember the way the morning light caught in her hair — messy from the wind, streaked with gold — and the faint shadow between her brows, like she was thinking too hard for someone standing on a beach. She wore cutoff shorts, an oversized white shirt that looked borrowed, and held her sandals loosely in one hand as if the sand wasn’t something she’d planned on walking through.
She looked out at the water like it owed her an answer.
Liam leaned forward, elbows on his knees, curiosity pulling at him before he could stop it.
She didn’t see him watching. She was too busy glaring at the ocean, or maybe the sky, or maybe the whole idea of being here. The kind of glare that said: I didn’t choose this.
He’d seen her type before — city girl, dragged here for a “fresh start.” They came every summer, with their complicated eyes and bitten nails and unspoken stories. But something about her… was quieter. More real.
He didn’t know she was staying for the whole summer. He didn’t know she was freshly eighteen, freshly graduated, freshly torn between who she wanted to be and what her family wanted. He didn’t know about Juilliard, or her brother, or that she hated the smell of sunscreen. He just knew he couldn’t look away.
Then the incident happened.
A kid — probably ten, reckless and wild — ran into the water with a surfboard twice his size. The board slipped, caught a wave wrong, and spun out. Straight toward her.
“Hey!” Liam was already up, bare feet hitting the sand, the whistle still between his fingers. He sprinted, the world narrowing to the flash of fiberglass and the startled look on her face. She didn’t even see it coming.
He reached her in seconds — strong hands catching her shoulders, pulling her back just as the board sliced through the space where she’d been standing. The wave broke against his legs, cold and sharp.
“You okay?” he asked, voice low, steady.
She blinked up at him, wide-eyed. Up close, he saw the flecks of sunlight in her eyes, the faint sunburn on her nose, the defensiveness tightening her mouth.
“Yeah,” she said shortly, stepping back. “I’m fine.”
“You sure? That board—”
“I said I’m fine.”
It wasn’t the words that caught him — it was the way she said them, like every syllable had edges. She brushed sand from her shorts and turned to go without another glance, leaving him standing there with the waves around his ankles and his pulse still running fast.
Most people thanked him when he saved them from something stupid. She just walked away???