Jessica could have spent the entire day simply standing with her feet planted in the sand of the main beach, except she’d forgotten how cold the coast could be on a summer day.
Freshwater runoff from last night’s rain was slipping to sea just below the surface of the sand, rapidly turning her feet into ice cubes. A thin fog was sneaking over the water and toward the beach. The inland Willamette Valley on the other side of the Coast Range must be heating up to drag the fog in off the water even at midday. And then the first wave of the rising tide reached her ankles and she yelped. The Pacific Ocean was damned cold.
She scooted up the beach to get clear of the next wave. Her mother was wisely back at the car, well clear of the rising tide. She’d also pulled on a light jacket the color of
