Love isn't always about staying together. Sometimes it's about letting go.

Six months after Moira disappeared beneath the waves, Garrett Bishop is barely surviving. His salvage boat is gone. His reputation is destroyed. Federal charges turned him into a cautionary tale. All because he loved a mermaid and thought that was enough.

He's been clean for months. No contact. That was the deal. The only way for them both to heal. But when Moira surfaces on his deck one winter night, looking hollow and broken, Garrett realizes the separation hasn't saved either of them.

She's dying. Slowly. The mer council's punishment for loving a human is isolation—cut off from her pod, her friends, everyone who might support her. Three months, maybe four. That's all she has left. And she came to say goodbye.

But Moira doesn't just want goodbye. She wants Garrett to leave. Pack up his Oregon beach cottage. Move inland. Build a new life somewhere the ocean can't remind him of everything they lost. Stop waiting for her to surface. Stop watching the waves like she might come back.

It's the hardest thing she's ever asked him to do. Walk away while she's still alive. Let her die knowing he's chosen to keep living. Prove that their love mattered enough to make him want to be happy again, eventually.

Garrett doesn't know if he can do it. Leaving feels like abandonment. Like giving up. Like saying their love wasn't worth fighting for. But Moira is begging him to go. And maybe the truest form of love is respecting what the other person needs, even when it tears you apart.

So Garrett moves to Montana. Takes construction work. Lives in a one-bedroom apartment above a hardware store. Walks through grief one brutal day at a time. Tries to figure out what happiness means when the person you love is dying a thousand miles away and you're powerless to stop it.

Then Moira's brother brings news. She's gone. Peaceful. Slipped away in her sleep.

And Garrett has to learn how to keep living anyway.

Years pass. Garrett rebuilds. Finds work that gives him purpose. Meets a woman who understands loss because she's lived it too. Learns that healing doesn't mean forgetting. That you can honor someone's memory by choosing joy. That love can survive death if you're brave enough to carry it forward instead of being buried beneath its weight.

This is a story about grief and healing. About the difference between giving up and letting go. About building a life after loss when everything you planned has crumbled. About the kind of love that asks you to keep living even when the person you love is gone.

Where Tides Meet is the emotional conclusion to the Tides of Fortune series—a bittersweet romance that asks how much you're willing to sacrifice for someone else's peace. For readers who want romance without easy answers. For anyone who's ever had to let go of someone they loved and learn to be okay anyway.

This is not a traditional happily-ever-after. This is the story of two people who loved each other enough to set each other free. And sometimes, that's the most powerful love of all.