Surfacing - Book One in the Swans Landing Series

Chapter 38

Josh brushed my hair back behind one ear. “I won’t be gone forever. But Sailor is my family and she needs me right now. We both need answers about what happened the night my dad died, and right now Coral Mooring is the only clue I have.”

I pressed my ear against his chest, listening to his heartbeat. I didn’t want to let him go. Every part of me screamed to hold on forever. He was mine, he was meant to be here with me.

“Stay,” I whispered, echoing the same words he had once said to me. “Stay with me.”

“I’ll come back,” he promised. “Sooner than you think. This isn’t a good-bye.”

His words were meant to bring me comfort, but we both knew that he couldn’t promise anything. The ocean was full of its own kind of danger.

“Take care of my mom for me, okay?” he asked, his voice tinged with sadness.

“She probably won’t let me get close to her,” I reminded him.

“I know, but try to keep an eye on her while I’m gone.” He kissed the top of my head, hugging me tight. “Take care of yourself, Woodser.” Josh let go and stepped back, his eyes drifting toward the water where somewhere out there the rest of our kind sang a song for him and the others who had left before him.

“I’d better go,” he said. “Sailor is waiting. She didn’t want to come close so Miss Gale couldn’t see her and force her to stay.”

“Where will you go?” I asked.

“There’s a place that my dad once wrote about in his papers,” Josh said. “The old ancestral home of the finfolk. People say the ones that leave return there, if they can find it.”

“Be careful,” I told him. “Watch out for sharks.”

A smile twitched at the corners of his lips. “I will.”

He started to walk away. The breeze whipped my hair around my head and the finfolk song sent a shiver up my spine.

“Hey, you never told me what it is you see on song night,” I called out. “You said it used to be your dad. What is it now?”

He flew across the sand back to me, reaching up to rub a warm hand across my cheek. I closed my eyes, trying to imprint this moment into my memory.

“You,” he whispered. His lips were warm on my forehead, brushing delicately across my skin and sending tingles exploding through my body. I held onto his fingers as tight as I possibly could, afraid to let go.

Finally, he stepped back, smiling at me one last time. Josh walked down the shoreline, pausing for a moment to slip out of his pants in the shadows before marching into the cold, crashing waves.

Dylan still sat in the same place I’d left him, sifting sand between his fingers when I returned.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

I settled down next to him, letting out a long sigh. “I hope so,” I said. “Of course, knowing Sailor Mooring, we haven’t gotten rid of her for good. She’ll probably be back soon to torment me.”

Dylan laughed. “That is what she does best.”

As I leaned back, enjoying the warmth of Dylan’s friendly embrace around my shoulders, a movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. I turned and there, along the edge of the trees, Mom disappeared in and out of the shadows. Even from this distance, I could see her smiling and hear her laughter as the song swelled to its final crescendo across the water.

“Good-bye, Mom,” I whispered as she faded away into the night.

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Thanks for reading Surfacing, the first book of the Swans Landing series! The rest of the series is now available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, and other ebook retailers.

Submerging (Swans Landing #2) by Shana Norris

Sixteen years ago, Sailor Mooring’s mother dove into the Atlantic Ocean and was never seen again. Now, Sailor is following her mother’s long swim to find answers to the questions that have haunted her life: Why did her mother leave? And what really happened the night Sailor’s father died?

Callum Murchadh has spent the last five years banished from his home and his people. At nineteen, he now lives a human life in the northern islands of Scotland, where maintaining a quiet existence is crucial to keeping his secrets hidden.

But having a finfolk girl step off the ferry and into his life was the last thing he expected.

Sailor finds herself both drawn to Callum and frightened by his warnings. He may hold the clues she needs to reach the ancestral home of her people, but knowing whether to trust him isn’t easy.

Shifting (Swans Landing #2.5) by Shana Norris

Dylan Waverly has lived his entire life on the tiny island of Swans Landing with his best friend Sailor Mooring at his side. But now Sailor has left, and no one knows if she’ll ever return. Dylan remains stuck in a half-life between land and sea on an island that is slowly dying.

Dylan thinks he knows where his life is headed, until a human girl makes him wish for something more. Now he wonders if maybe there is another way of living, another choice he never imagined possible.

But is one girl worth crossing the line that separates humans and finfolk, and causing tensions on the island to erupt?

Surrendering (Swans Landing #3) by Shana Norris

Josh Canavan swam an entire ocean in search of the truth about what happened the night his father died. Now he’s made the journey back in order to save the people and the island he loves.

But when the devastating truth about his father’s death is revealed, can Josh trust who he is long enough to fight the threat that will destroy Swans Landing as he knows it?

Surrendering is the conclusion to the Swans Landing series by Shana Norris.

For more information, including where to purchase the ebooks, visit http://www.shananorris.com/surfacing/