Chapter One – Found at last
True love never dies out. Its embers burn long after one of the participants has moved on – or died.
Carolyn Stoddard Hawkes is one woman who has found this fact to be true the hard way; she's seated alone at a table in the Blue Whale, the local pub, built especially for the sailors passing through the lonely fishing village of Collinsport. Mrs. Hawkes has been widowed for two years, and now, after several months of repression and grief, she's started spending her evenings out in a drunken haze. She speaks to no one, acknowledges nothing, and does nothing except partake in her favorite scotch.
Only one word circles her mind throughout these uneventful, unfulfilling evenings: Jeb. Her husband, who was taken so cruelly from her one stormy spring night. They were only married three weeks, but what blissfulness! What happiness! Now, all this young widow feels is anguish and despair. Many a night, while everyone was sleeping, she has stepped out to Widow's Hill, the cliff where a vengeful man ended her husband's life. She could stand there for hours, wondering if there was any hope at all, if happiness can only be earned by joining Jeb in his eternal peace. Only then will she think of the rest of the world, still alive, that love her so: her mother, uncle, nephew, and cousins. The thought of anyone else feeling what she felt causes her so much sadness that she steps away from the edge of the cliff.
Instead, she pours her efforts into drinking – a habit she started while Jeb was dealing with his enemies. She twirls her glass around, drinking every so often, returning to Collinwood in the early hours of the morn. She has no job; Carolyn merely lives off her mother's millions, wasting them away.
The door opens again, a common noise heard at the Blue Whale establishment. Carolyn can hear footsteps coming closer toward her. She looks up, and her eyes fall on a tall, handsome, blond-haired, blue-eyed man: her deceased husband, Jeb Hawkes. An expression of total enlightenment falls over her lovely face. "Jeb!" she exclaims, dropping her drink, and running toward him. They look into each other's eyes, and Carolyn says, "I've waited so long for this moment, Jeb. Now that you're back, we'll never be separated. We're going to be together." They embrace.
