“How long do you usually walk with him?” Caitlin asked.
“The entire loop takes about thirty or thirty-five minutes. Pepper will show you the way,” Marion answered, stooping to give her darling pet a pat on the head. “Be a good boy for Caitlin and I’ll have a treat waiting for you when you get home.”
The frisky little dog led Caitlin down the street at a brisk pace, and as they passed the windmill, she could hear Shane and Sammy hammering away. “Slow down, Pepper,” she said, in no hurry to return to the racket at the cottage.
When they reached the end of Windswept Way, Pepper turned north, keeping to the edge of the main road for a hundred yards until turning onto a side street named Seashell Drive. He expertly navigated the deserted neighborhood, which appeared to contain more summer homes than year-round residences. Afew new streets had been added, and a myriad of houses had been constructed since Caitlin had ridden a bike through these blocks as a teenager. She wouldn’t have known which direction to go without Pepper guiding her.
After several more turns, the dog led her down a long, straight street. As the pavement gave way to a sandy stretch of road, Caitlin realized they were headed for the beach. Pepper made a beeline for the staircase that descended the dune toward the water.
“No, no, Pepper. We don’t want to go down there. Come on boy, come on,” she coaxed him. He turned and looked at her, but then he darted forward, straining on his leash. Knowing that if she refused to budge, he’d hurt his neck, Caitlin reluctantly followed him down the steps. When he got to the bottom, he turned south, looping back toward Windswept Way.
“Okay, we can walk on the beach for a while, but we’re not going to the end,” she warned, referring to where the dunes dwindled to a flat expanse and the beach was interrupted by the tidal river and marshland. On the other side of this inlet, the beach and dunes picked up again in Benjamin’s Manor, which could be reached on foot during extreme low tides. But Albert and Lydia had always referred to the inlet as “the end,” so that’s what Caitlin called it, too.
As a teenager, she’d loved strolling along the remote, pristine stretch of shoreline that lay south of The Windmill Cottages. She could spend hours combing the tidal pools for the prettiest periwinkle, scallop, moon snail, and jingle shells she could find, or studying the behaviors of horseshoe, hermit and fiddler crabs, as well as piping plovers, egrets, and oystercatchers.
But after Nicole drowned, Caitlin felt betrayed by her beloved seascape. She developed such an intense disdain for the land near the inlet that even now she could barely raise her eyes to glance at it in the distance.
Instead, she focused on Pepper as he happily padded over the shallow pockets of soft, golden sand. They passed several wooden dune staircases until they came to the one leading to The Windmill Cottages.
“Okay, Pepper, this is our stop,” Caitlin announced. “We’re going up, even if I have to carry you.”
But her threat was unnecessary because Pepper was already several paces ahead of her. The small animal impressively hoisted himself up the tall stairs so quickly she could hardly keep up with him. When they reached the top, they hurried through the woods, cut across the lawn near the cottages, and headed down Windswept Way toward Marion’s house.
“Back so soon? Did you have a good walk?” she asked when she opened the door.
Caitlin wasn’t sure if she was addressing her or Pepper, but she joked, “It was very pleasant, but I don’t know who was walking whom. If it weren’t for Pepper leading the way, I’d probably still be wandering around that network of new streets over in the Seashell Drive area.”
Marion smiled like a proud parent and unhooked the animal’s leash. “Sounds like you deservetwotreats,” she said to Pepper, and he raced down the hall to the kitchen, where his goodies apparently were set out for him. “While you were gone, one of my book club members dropped off a meal of butternut soup, with bread pudding for dessert. Would you like to join me for an early supper?”
Caitlin appreciated the offer, but when she and Pepper had passed the cottage, she noticed Sammy’s car was gone, but Shane’s truck was still parked in the driveway. She hoped to say goodbye to him before the weekend.
I’d better not tell Marion that, or she’ll think I lied about not being interested in going out with him—which I’m not, shethought.But it’s always fun to chat with him, and I’ve missed doing that while Sammy’s been here.
“Thanks, but I bought fish that I need to make while it’s fresh,” Caitlin said. After promising to come back the next afternoon to walk Pepper again, she hurried down the street toward the cottage.
“Hi, there,” Shane called when she came up the driveway where he was removing a stack of folded tarps from his truck bed.
“Hello,” she replied, a little breathless.
“You’re looking very rosy this afternoon,” Shane said, and she was sure his comment made her cheeks burn an even deeper shade of pink.
“Must be this fresh Dune Island air.”
“Yeah, that’ll do it,” he said with a grin. Was he perpetually in a smiling mood? “You’ll be happy to know that we’re done knocking holes in your walls for now, so next week you won’t feel the whole house shaking.”
“Youwere the ones causing that?” teased Caitlin. “I thought Hope Haven had been hit by a series of earthquakes.”
“I’m sure you did,” he acknowledged with a chuckle. “Even though you shouldn’t notice any more seismic activity, don’t put away your earbuds just yet—you’ll need them for when I start to reconstruct what we just demolished.”
Caitlin wished she could come up with a witty response to keep the banter going, but she drew a blank. “Thanks for the heads-up.”
“I also wanted to let you know that Sammy’s going back to school on Monday, which is sooner than expected.”
“Oh, that’s good!” she said a little too enthusiastically. “I-I mean it’s good they got the water pumped out and the damage repaired so quickly, although I’m a little envious. The apartmentabove mine in Santa Fe flooded last month, and I won’t be able to move back into my place until almost Christmas.”
“What happened, dripping ceiling?”
“It was more like a waterfall.”
