Her voice was musical as she spun tales about her corner of the world, telling him rumors about pirates’ gold buried somewhere on Corey and describing the cast of characters that called her island home. Populated almost exclusively by fishermen and their families, most of the islanders had lived on Corey for generations. Laire’s family had been there for ten generations, since sailing over from Scotland in 1685.
Erik, who appreciated history in general, could barely fathom that sort of certainty about his own heritage, which was a blurry mix of upper-class Southern stock, originating in England on his father’s side and Germany on his mother’s. Hard-pressed, he remembered something about a cotton plantation from the 1800s on his father’s side and lauded university folk from Greensboro on his mother’s, but these weren’t really facts, just impressions. Laire’s family history was easily traceable, vibrant and living, with a thread still intact that started in Edinburgh and existed, in her, this very day.
She explained to him that, unlike Ocracoke, another remote island in the southern Outer Banks, Corey didn’t have any ferry service, which made it very difficult to reach. And because it didn’t have ferry service, Corey didn’t have the sort of tourist amenities—a public marina, restaurants, shops, inns—that the other islands, including Ocracoke, offered. The influx of tourist dollars into the Banks had fueled the surrounding economies, which had, to some extent, given up on commercial fishing as a livelihood and lifestyle. But not Corey. Corey was still fueled by the same traditional work, and work ethic, that had existed for over three hundred years. Virtually untouched by time, like some remote communities he’d heard of in the mountains of Appalachia, the Corey Islanders had grudgingly invited some modernity onto their island—telephone, television, and even the internet (dial-up, for Chrissake!)—but by and large, they still managed to maintain an extremely traditional culture, not completely unlike whatever culture would have been found there twenty or forty or even sixty years before.
Laire spoke respectfully of her father, of whom she was clearly in awe, explaining that he and his brother (Uncle Fox, unless he’d misunderstood her) had started their own business on Corey, selling fresh catch to the surrounding towns, including Ocracoke, Hatteras, Buxton, and Avon. This was, he gathered, the mark of some local social standing—that they’d managed to figure out a way to sell their fish off-island—and he grinned at the pride he heard in her voice and saw on her face as she explained that they had their own dock and shop and even a website where nearby restaurants could place daily orders.
She spoke affectionately, though not without a little bit of eye rolling, about her two older sisters: overprotective Isolde, whom she called Issy, and Kyrstin, who was getting married next weekend to an island boy named Remy.
But her voice was markedly different—warm, wistful, and a little heartbroken, if he wasn’t mistaken—when she spoke of her mother, who’d passed away when Laire was very young. He sensed an active ache of loss, and it made his heart thrum with sympathy and tenderness. But her mother had done something quite shocking, apparently, by Corey standards: she’d attended college. Time and again, Laire inserted this fact into conversation about her mother, her eyes shining with pride. And he sensed, though she didn’t articulate it, that Laire wanted to be like her, and he wondered how that longing would eventually manifest itself.
And somewhere along the way, between Rodanthe and Manteo, between fresh mahi-mahi and the Elizabethan Gardens, Erik Rexford, the prince of North Carolina, started to wonder if Laire Cornish, the commercial fishing princess of Corey Island, could love him someday—because everything about being with her felt awesome, felt predestined, felt so fucking right. With her sitting beside him, zooming up the Carolina coast on the most beautiful early-summer afternoon he could ever remember, he made a wish that he’d never, ever live another day of his life without her. He made a wish that she would, somehow, someway, be his forever.
He took that wish and he buried it deep inside and freed it from his mind, to nestle safely and grow on its own, left only with a lingering hope that someday the children of wildly different neighboring kingdoms might create a whole new world of their own.
“Lord, I’ve been going on all afternoon,” she said, plucking her pop bottle from the cupholder, unscrewing the cap, and taking a sip. “It’s almost four. You should’ve told me to shut up an hour ago.”
“No way! I think your life is interestin’.”
She chuckled. “Like watchin’ paint dry.”
“A lot better’n that. I promise.”
“You know what?”
“Nope. Tell me,” he said, glancing over at her pink cheeks and tan freckles, falling wildly for her with every second they spent together.
“It’s your turn to answer some questions for me.”
“Is that right?”
“Yes, sir, it is.”
“Or else?”
“Hmm.” She tapped her index finger on her lips in thought.
“I’ve got it!”
“Tell me,” she said.
“I get a kiss for every question I answer.”