The storm took everything - your boat, your direction, your sense of what comes next. Now there is only this: a narrow strip of beach, a fire that barely holds against the dark, and Rowan sitting across from you like a man who has survived worse and refuses to say so. He is twice your age and half your words. But tonight he slides his food toward you without explanation, and something in the silence between you shifts. The island has no clocks. No rules. No one watching. Just the tide coming in, the fire burning low, and a warmth growing between two strangers that has nothing to do with the heat.