His construction company, begun with only his meager savings and plenty of hard work, had taken off exponentially. His father must have seen what a better fit that had been for Nate than an academic track would have been.
By the time the damn cancer came for Jack, the two of them had healed those old wounds from his angry adolescence.
“I found something!” Sophie suddenly exclaimed from ahead of them. She scooped something up and brushed sand away while the dogs raced around them, sensing the excitement.
“Oh, what is it, darling?” Eleanor called. She rose from the bench for a closer look. “Did you find a stopper?”
“Better! It’s a whole bottle. And there’s a note in it! We found a message in a bottle!”
That was an even more thrilling discovery than a mere bottle stopper. The bottle Sophie held out was clear, sealed, about the size of a small ketchup bottle. He could clearly see a rolled note inside.
“I can’t believe I found a message in a bottle. I’ve always wanted to! What do you think it says?”
“I think you’ll have to open it to find out,” Eleanor said. “Can you get it out?”
“I think so.”
Sophie twisted off the stopper of the bottle. Her fingers were too large to fit inside but she shook the bottle and the rolled message came out just enough for her to grasp with her thumb and forefinger.
Sophie’s eyes were wide, her color flushed. If he had known she would get this excited about a message in a bottle, he might have planted one on the beach ages ago for her to find.
Yeah, he knew that wouldn’t have been the same as this discovery but it might have been worth it.
“What does it say?”
“I don’t know. I can’t read it very well.”
“Is it old?” Jess asked. She also seemed to be caught up in the excitement.
“I don’t know.” Sophie frowned. “I don’t think so. It’s typed. It doesn’t look like the old-fashioned type from a typewriter so I don’t think it’s that old.”
She straightened it out. “It looks like Chinese or Japanese!”
“Oh dear.” Eleanor looked disappointed. “Well, maybe we can find someone to translate.”
“There’s English, too,” Sophie exclaimed. “It was sent in 2015! It says, ‘We are students at Taku School in Japan, studying the ocean currents. We are dropping one hundred bottles into the ocean in April 2015. We would like to know where they travel. Please respond to this email address with the date and the GPS location where you found this bottle so that we may add you to our study. In return, we will send you postcards and a small gift from Japan. Sincerely, Taku School students.’”
“How cool is that?” Jess said. “You can be part of a research study into ocean currents.”
Sophie beamed. “Supercool. I mean, I kind of wish it was somebody on a deserted island who needed help or maybe a guy who wrote a letter to his dead girlfriend or something. But this is supercool, too.”
“Are you going to answer?” Nate asked.
“Well, yeah.”
“Wouldn’t it be wonderful to receive some postcards from Japan? Maybe you can make a new pen pal.”
“I’m going to send the email right now.”
“Let’s take some pictures of you finding it, then you can send those along with the location and your information,” Nate suggested.
“Use my phone,” she demanded.
He picked up her sparkly pink device and snapped a bunch of pictures of her with his mom and Jess.
“You should be in the picture,” Jess said. “Let me take a few.”
He handed her the phone and tried to ignore the little pulse of heat exchanged between the two of them.
He posed with his mother and Sophie, then Jess took one of just him and Sophie. He really wanted that pic. He would have to ask Sophie to text it to him or take it off her phone when it was charging every night in the kitchen.
“Okay, that’s enough pictures. I want to send it now.”
She took her phone, then her face fell. “Darn it. I always forget we can’t get a good cell signal down here. Not enough bars to send photos, anyway.”
“You can always send it later tonight.”
“I don’t want to wait. I’m going back up to the house.”
“I’ll come with you,” Eleanor said. “This is so exciting. How many times have we hoped to find a message in a bottle? I gave up looking years ago!”
When he and Jess started to follow them, Eleanor waved them back. “Stay. Sunset will be in another twenty minutes or so and it looks like it will be spectacular from all the clouds we had earlier. Jess should have the chance to enjoy our gorgeous sunset displays here.”
“I can walk back on my own,” Jess protested.
“It’s always better to have someone with you, especially when you’re walking back after dusk. If I don’t see you again tonight, good night. Thank you for all your help today.”
“Come on, Gram,” Sophie urged.
Eleanor laughed then followed her up the path, leaving the two of them alone.
8
Jess
Jess watched Eleanor and Sophie climb the path up the hill toward Whitaker House, Sophie taking her grandmother’s arm as the two chattered in excitement to each other.
“I think we’ve been ditched.”
“Apparently.” Nate looked bemused at how quickly the situation had shifted.
“You really don’t have to stay with me,” Jess assured him. “I don’t mind walking up by myself. I spent two tours overseas and put about two hundred thousand miles on my truck for Transitions since I’ve been home. I think I can manage to walk a few hundred yards without any major catastrophes.”
He smiled, teeth gleaming in the dying sunlight, and she felt that ridiculous shiver again. “I never thought otherwise. I’ll go if you would prefer to be alone. Otherwise, I don’t mind staying so I can let the dogs run off more energy.”
She had forgotten all about the dogs. She shifted her gaze from Eleanor and Sophie, almost to the top of the hill, toward the dogs, who were tussling over a piece of driftwood they had found.
The air had cooled a few degrees, making her grateful for her hoodie.
“I would hate to deprive the dogs of their fun.”
By tacit agreement, they both headed for the bench his mother had just vacated. The dogs hurried over, Charlie the victor of the tug-of-war. The dog presented the stick to Nate, who picked it up and threw it in a long arc down the beach for both dogs to chase gleefully.