Chapter 1

The first time someone called my husband another woman’s soulmate, I was sitting beside him with his wedding ring pressed against my hand.

A photograph filled the screen at the annual coast guard charity dinner.

Caleb was seventeen in it, standing beneath the old high school scoreboard with Ava Collins tucked against his side. She was smiling at the camera.

He wasn’t.

He was looking at her.

“The couple everyone thought would last forever,” someone called from the next table.

Daniel Price had already emptied most of a bottle of wine. A few of Caleb’s former classmates laughed.

“If Ava hadn’t left, they’d probably have two kids by now.”

“Three,” another woman said. “Caleb always wanted a big family.”

Someone behind me sighed.

“They were soulmates. Just terrible timing.”

The laughter weakened as people remembered Caleb’s actual wife was sitting beside him.

Several faces turned away from me.

Caleb’s hand rested on the table, close enough for our wedding bands to touch. I slipped my fingers around his.

He didn’t pull away.

He didn’t hold on either.

“That was a long time ago,” he said.

I waited for something more.

He could have said that Ava was his past. That I was his wife. That our five years of marriage mattered more than a photograph taken when he was seventeen.

Instead, he reached for his water.

On the screen, the boy Caleb had once been was still looking at Ava as if the photographer had accidentally captured the only person in the room.

I used to believe my husband disliked public affection.

He never wrapped an arm around me at parties. He never kissed me unless we were alone. Even in our wedding photographs, his hand rested politely at my waist.

I had called it privacy.

The photograph on the screen suggested another explanation.

A sudden burst of applause came from the back of the room.

I turned.

Ava Collins stood inside the ballroom doors.

Time had sharpened her, but it had not made her unfamiliar. She still had the same short blond hair and effortless smile from the photograph.

People rose to welcome her.

She moved through them easily, accepting hugs and questions as though she had left the room yesterday instead of eight years ago.

Then she reached our table.

Her eyes settled on Caleb first.

“Aren’t you going to welcome me home?”

Caleb stood.

For half a second, he only stared at her.

Then he pulled her into his arms.

There was nothing improper about the embrace. His hands stayed high on her back. Her cheek touched his shoulder for only a moment.

But there was no uncertainty in it.

Ava knew exactly where to stand, and Caleb’s arms remembered how to hold her.

When they separated, she finally looked at me.

Her gaze moved over my white dress before returning to Caleb.

“You still notice every time a woman wears white?”

“Some things are hard to forget.”

The answer left him too quickly.

His expression changed.

He looked at me, but the words were already between us.

I stood and offered Ava my hand.

“I’m Nora,” I said. “Caleb’s wife.”

A brief silence followed.

Then Ava smiled and shook my hand.

“Of course. I’ve heard about you.”

I wondered from whom.

Dinner resumed, but Ava remained beside our table, answering questions about New York and her father’s estate.

“I’m staying this time,” she announced. “The house on Shore Road needs more work than I expected.”

Everyone knew the house. It faced the ocean and had belonged to her family for generations.

Ava turned toward my husband.

“I’ll need your help.”

Caleb didn’t look confused.

He didn’t ask what she meant.

“I know.”

Two words.

Enough to tell me that my husband had known she was coming home long before I did.