“What fills the holes in a soul?”

Samson’s eyes scroll over my face for a few seconds. “Pieces of someone else’s soul.”

He lifts me slightly so that less of my skin is beneath the water. He drags his mouth across my jaw, and when his lips find mine, I’m hungry for them. Starving.

I feel him harden, even though we’re in the water. Yet still, all we do is kiss. This kiss lasts for several minutes. It’s both not enough and more than enough.

“Beyah,” he whispers against my mouth. “I could stay here forever, but we should probably head back before it gets dark.”

I nod, but then I kiss him again because I don’t really care if it gets dark. Samson laughs, but he quickly shuts up and returns the kiss with even more urgency.

I wish there were more parts of him I could reach. I can’t stop running my hands over his chest and his shoulders and his back. They end up in his hair as his mouth makes its way down my chest. I feel his warm breath against my skin, right between my breasts. He lifts a hand to the back of my neck and I feel him touch the knot on my bathing suit top.

Then he looks me in the eye, silently asking for permission. I nod, and he slowly pulls at the string until it’s untied.

The straps to my bathing suit fall down, and Samson leans forward, kissing the top of my breast. He slowly begins to work his mouth down until he takes my nipple in his mouth.

I suck in a shaky breath. The sensation of his tongue against my skin sends chills down my body. I close my eyes and press my cheek against the top of his head, never wanting him to stop.

But he does, thanks to the sound of an engine in the distance.

He immediately pulls away when we both hear it. There’s a truck down the beach headed in this direction.

Samson lifts the straps of my bikini and reties them around my neck. I groan, and maybe even pout. We make our way back to the shore, even though the truck turned around and headed back in the other direction before it reached us.

We’re both quiet as we pack up our things into the golf cart. The sun is beginning to set on the other side of the peninsula, casting a red and purple glow across the sky. The wind from the ocean has picked up and I look over at Samson for a moment. He’s facing the breeze, his eyes closed. There’s a calmness about him right now, and that calmness spreads to me.

His moods are contagious. I’m glad he seems to only have one or two. I’ve never felt as stable as I have since I started spending all my hours with him.

“Have you ever closed your eyes and just listened to the ocean?” he asks. He opens his eyes and turns to face me.

“No.”

He faces the water again and closes his eyes. “Try it.”

I close my eyes and blow out a breath. Samson’s hand finds mine and we just stand there together, in silence, facing the water.

I listen for what he’s hearing.

Seagulls.

Waves.

Peace.

Hope.

I don’t know how long we stand here because I become consumed by the meditation. I don’t know that I’ve ever stood in one spot with my eyes closed and just let go of my thoughts.

I let them go. All of them.

Eventually, it’s like the world grows completely silent.

I’m pulled out of that silence when I feel Samson kiss the back of my head. I open my eyes and inhale a deep breath.

And that’s the end of that. Dinner, a make-out session, and a stress reliever. What a date.

“Where’s your dog?” he asks as we start to climb into the golf cart.

I look around, but don’t see Pepper Jack Cheese anywhere. I call for him, but he doesn’t come running. My heart picks up a little and that doesn’t go unnoticed.

Samson calls for him.

I start to get worried because we’re a long way from our houses, and if we don’t find him, he may not be able to make his way back.

“Maybe he’s behind the dunes,” Samson suggests. We both make our way over to the high rows of sand. Samson grabs my hands and helps me up the dune. When we reach the top and look on the other side of it, I’m immediately relieved to see P.J.

“Oh, thank God,” I say, scaling down the other side of the dune.

“What’s he doing?” Samson asks, walking behind me. P.J. is about ten feet away, digging furiously in the ground.

“Maybe he found some crabs.”

When we reach him, I freeze. Whatever he found, it’s not a crab. It looks like... “Samson?” I whisper. “What is that?”

Samson drops to his knees and starts wiping dust off what looks like bones in the shape of a hand.

I pull P.J. away, but he fights to get out of my grip. Samson is now digging, moving sand away, revealing more and more of what is obviously a human arm.

“Oh, my God,” I whisper. I cover my mouth with my hand. P.J. slips out of my grip and gets away from me. He rushes back to Samson’s side, but Samson pushes him away.

“Sit,” he commands the dog.

P.J. sits, but whimpers.

I lower myself to my knees next to Samson and watch as he continues to uncover more of the bones.

“Maybe you shouldn’t touch it,” I suggest.

Samson says nothing. He just keeps digging until he reaches the shoulder joint of the skeleton. There’s still a shirt attached to it. It’s a red-checkered shirt, faded and torn. Samson touches a piece of it and it falls apart in his hands.

“Do you think it’s an entire body?”

Samson still doesn’t answer me. He just falls back onto his haunches and stares at the ground.

“I’ll go get my phone and call the police.” I start to get up, but Samson grabs my wrist. I look at him and his eyes are pleading.

“Don’t.”

“What?” I shake my head. “We have to report this.”

“Don’t, Beyah,” he says again. I’ve never seen his expression so unyielding. “This is the guy I was telling you about. Rake. I recognize his shirt.” He looks back down at what he’s just uncovered. “The police will just throw him in an unmarked grave.”

“We still have to report this. It’s a body. A missing person.”

He shakes his head again. “He wasn’t a missing person. Like I told you, no one even noticed he was gone.” I can already tell by Samson’s demeanor that I’m not changing his mind. “He would want to be in the ocean. It’s the only place he belongs.”

We’re both quiet for a while as we think.

For whatever reason, I don’t feel like this is my decision. But I sure as hell don’t want to be here a second longer.

Samson stands up and disappears back over the dune. I have no intention of being left alone with human remains, so I follow after him.

Samson walks toward the water, and when he’s a few feet away from it, he just stops. He clasps his hands behind his head. I stop walking because it looks like he needs a minute to process this.

He stares at the water for what seems like an eternity. I just pace behind him, torn between doing what I know is right or leaving this decision completely up to Samson. He’s the one who knew the guy. I didn’t.

After a while, I finally break the silence. “Samson?”

He doesn’t face me. His voice is resolute when he says, “I need you to take the golf cart back to the house.”