By the time they reached the cove, Sophie seemed to have forgotten all about the boy who had stood her up.
“Did I tell you I got an email back from the school in Japan? Finally. They were on a school break.”
“That’s terrific!”
“Yeah. No package yet with postcards or a gift, like they said in the letter, though.”
“I’m sure it takes time to get mail from Japan, especially if they’ve been on a school break.”
“What school in Japan?” Grace asked.
Sophie told both girls about finding the message in the bottle and the budding scientists in Japan who were studying ocean currents. By the time they reached the sand, both girls looked excited.
“Can we look for a bottle with a message?”
“Sure. But I’ve been looking like forever and only found one in all that time. You can look for other things, though. If you want.”
Sophie seemed to have forgotten all about surfing as she walked up and down the beach with the girls, pointing out agates and driftwood and the occasional sea-polished rock.
They didn’t find much this time and quickly turned their attention to building a sandcastle.
“We should build the best sandcastle ever,” Grace said. “Then we can take a picture and my mom can put it on her Instagram.”
“Let’s just do our best and see what we come up with,” Jess said.
She left it to Grace and Sophie to strategize where to build the castle and how big they should go.
Soon they were all happily using the bucket to scoop seawater to mix with the sand for packing and creating.
Jess couldn’t remember the last time she had done something like this. Maybe when she was Grace’s age.
The castle came together quickly. In short order, it had a structure and form, with turrets and even a moat.
“So,” Jess said to Sophie casually while her nieces had hurried to the shore to get more water in one of the containers, “tell me about this boy who didn’t end up coming over to surf. Tyler. Is that what you said his name was?”
Sophie flashed her a quick look then returned her attention to the sand she was packing. “It’s no big deal. He said he might come. I guess he was busy or something.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s no big deal. It’s not like he was my boyfriend or anything.”
The girl’s jaw tightened, which made Jess suspect she would have liked to have the kid for a boyfriend.
“Well, I’m glad things turned out this way. You’re really good at this.”
“I’ve built a lot of sand sculptures. My grandpa and I used to come down to Sunshine Cove all the time. We didn’t make just sandcastles. We’ve done mermaids and ships and once a troll that was awesome. Gram even made a scrapbook with all the pictures of us in front of our sand sculptures. I can show you sometime.”
She hadn’t heard Sophie talk about Jack Whitaker before. The grief in her voice made Jess’s heart ache. “I would love to see that.”
The girls returned with water to add to their sand, Freckles trotting behind them.
“This is the best sandcastle ever,” Grace declared as they carefully set the final turret in place.
“I wish we could live here,” Grace said wistfully.
“I wish we could take it home so I could play with it in the backyard,” Ava said. “Aunt Jess, can we build another one in our sandbox when we get home? I want to play with my princess toy in it.”
“Our sandbox is too tiny for a castle like this,” Grace informed her. “Plus Silas will only smash it the minute we build it. He smashes everything.”
Jess didn’t know how to answer that, sad all over again at the challenges her sister’s family had to face.
“It really is a great sandcastle,” Sophie said. “I haven’t built a sand sculpture in a long time. Since my grandpa got sick, anyway. This was fun.”
Better than surfing with a cute boy might have been? Jess highly doubted it.
“Thanks for helping us,” she said.
“We should add some water to our moat,” Grace said.
“Right. What good is a moat for keeping out invaders if it doesn’t have any water in it?” Jess said with a smile.
The girls hurried to the ocean’s edge again to scoop up more water.
Just as they finished, Jess spotted someone coming down the path. For a minute, she thought it might be Sophie’s absentee friend, finally here, but this figure was too tall and didn’t have a surfboard.
Nate.
He looked big, tough, gorgeous...and upset. His expression was tight, his eyes stormy.
“Sophie. Here you are! You scared us. I came home early and you weren’t there. Your grandmother didn’t have any idea where you might be and you didn’t answer your phone, even though we both called and texted.”
“I never got any calls or texts. I would have answered if I had. I probably didn’t have cell service down here,” she muttered, unrepentant.
“It’s a good thing I thought to look in the garage and saw your board missing, though I can’t believe you would come down here by yourself. You know the rules.”
She looked annoyed at being called out. “I didn’t even go into the water. We made a sandcastle instead.”
“So why are you wearing a wet suit and why is your surfboard down here? Were you planning to go out on your own?”
She lifted her chin. “I’m thirteen. I’ll be fourteen in five months. I’ve been surfing since I was younger than Grace. I’m old enough to go by myself. You do,” she pointed out.
Nate frowned. “That’s not the same thing at all. I have been surfing the cove for much longer than you have. Regardless of what a great surfer you are, the more important point is that we have a rule and you were going to break it.”
“I wasn’t going to be by myself. A kid from school was going to come check out the break at Sunshine Cove. I guess he couldn’t come.”
“Then you should have put your gear away when he didn’t show up. If you’re not responsible enough to follow that simple rule, maybe we need to go back to you staying with Grandma Eleanor after school instead of being on your own.”
“I’m not a baby! When are you going to stop treating me like one?”
“I hate to state the obvious but maybe when you stop acting like one.”
Sophie made a sound of deep frustration. “I didn’t break any rules. Maybe I thought about it but I changed my mind when Jess asked me to build a sandcastle with her and the girls, okay? I am so tired of you treating me like I’m some dumb baby all the time. I hate you.”