Salt and Ink

Seven years ago, Sloane Ashford drove out of her coastal hometown with a secret she couldn't carry and never looked back. Now a worn hatchback, a half-open window, and the staccato pop of bridge expansion joints are returning her to the cove, the salt air, and every choice she tried to outrun. When her daughter Daisy begins asking questions about the father on the other side of the country, and her aunt Mireille summons her home with implications she won't explain, Sloane finds herself standing on the same shoreline she fled, face to face with Gabe Calloway, the man she's never stopped writing about in the pages of her journal. He still lives in the house. He still has her ink. And he's still looking at her like she never left. But returning means more than a second chance at love. It means facing Henry's voice in her head telling her she ruins everything, the watchful eye of Mayor Patricia Whitfield, and the truth about why she really left. To stay means Sloane must stop running from her past and finally put her heart on the page. To leave again means losing the daughter, the man, and the home she never stopped belonging to.