that summer |percabeth au| ✔︎

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN - Epilogue

It was a sunny day in Amatheia Cove, diamonds glinting off the Pacific as I stood watch on Candy's deck. Barely a mile from shore a school of dolphins dove through the waves, their gray fins whipping the water into meringue peaks.

It had been my vista all summer. The deck, the dunes below, the vast ocean beyond, all its beautiful creatures.

And now, two weeks after we'd lost the regatta and the chance to save it, I was looking to the sea for strength.

Candy was right when she'd said that Mr. Jackson hadn't shown up at the Cove with an agenda to sell, but a seed was planted the night of the Solstice, blooming into a plan and a handshake during those long days Percy and I had worked on the Queen of Cups. The houses had been sold. If all went according to plan, Parrish and Dey would close in the fall, determine fair market value for Candy's rent until Prop 27 came to a vote in November.

Mr. Jackson expressed regret at hurting his sons, at hurting Candy. But once the opportunity presented itself, he'd wanted to sell. To break free of the place that in so many ways reminded him of his own failures, the way he'd lived his life for so long to impress Lucius Stoll. The way he'd neglected his wife in that fruitless pursuit. The affair, the arguments, the pain.

Despite the added strain it was putting on their marriage, Mrs. Jackson was doing what she could to contest the sale, to throw a wrench into the inspection, to hold it up just long enough for us to figure something else out. But she wasn't the owner, and legally there wasn't too much she could do.

Not everyone gets a happy ending, however deserved it may be. Life had been doing its damnedest to teach me that, starting with my first saltwater breath, the day my mother died at sea.

But that didn't mean we were giving up.

"Almost time, Annabeth." Candy found me on the deck, her hair wild with the day's potential energy. "The food's all arranged, laptop and projector are good to go, goodie bags are out, the Be Amazing candles are lit, the coffee is on...Are we missing anything?"

I took her hand, gave it a reassuring squeeze.

"Your calm demeanor is an inspiration to us all," she said.

Yours, I corrected her. I held up my wrist for a whiff of her Calm Down Balm, a blend of chamomile and lavender she'd cooked up last week. Thank you. For everything.

She shook her head, that wise smile rising on her lips. "Annabeth, these people aren't coming today for my candles and coffee. They're coming because you've shown them that you're a woman with something to say. They're coming because they want to hear it."

It hardly seemed real, but I knew she was right. I felt it inside, way down where new things grew from ashes and dark.

"So you're all set with your slides?" she asked. "Your notes? Visual aids?"

I nodded.

Though they were surprised and a bit uncertain, three representatives from Parrish and Dey, along with Mayor Stoll and a couple of other town officials, had accepted my invitation. An informational luncheon, I'd suggested, at the very gallery they'd just purchased. Travis had convinced the Black Pearl to provide the lunch, and I'd be providing the information.

A proposal, actually.

Everyone kept saying that P&D, with the mayor's blessing, wanted to turn the Cove into a tourist trap. But what all of these developers really wanted, multinational and local alike, was to bring in money.

In Bluever, our little organic cocoa farm became an exclusive hot spot, a place that still produced the same sustainable crop, but now attracted some of the world's wealthiest celebrities and clientele. Our friends and neighbors had also helped grow the ecotourism industry through guided cultural and wildlife tours, dive and surf shops, and organic restaurants.