I suck in a breath and anchor my spine to the wall. Maybe I can disappear…
Sunset spills into the shop, and broad shoulders crowd the open doorway. “What the—” A palm skims the wall, searching, until a bulb snaps on overhead.
I scramble to duck behind a pile of boxes.
“Don’t worry.” Sawyer spots me through a gap in the fishing poles. “They can’t see you back here.” He nods at the window.
If I strain my neck and tilt my head just right, I can make out Luke and Kristen past the edges of the enormous greenMpainted on the glass. Luke turns to the beach, one hand shading his eyes as he scans the shoreline. Is he searching for me? He pivots the other way. I think he is.
“Let him suffer,” Sawyer says. “He’ll figure out you aren’t comin’ at some point.”
I agree to wait with a dip of my chin. Barreling outside without a plan and no backup is the last thing I want to do.
“Dare Watson bought this place a year ago,” Sawyer says, sidestepping the junk. “He’s a friend of mine. You know him?”
I shake my head.
I knowofpeople from work.
If I weren’t so distracted by Luke, maybe I’d make more friends. Or…any. And it’s not like a hundred people are sitting by their phones back home waiting for my call, either. No one warned me that when you divorce a husband, you divorce all your “friends” too.
“He was too cheap to pay for a new sign.” Sawyer’s tattooed forearms strain under the weight of the box he lifts off the wooden countertop behind me. “But that’s why most people around here call him Mullie…if you’re wonderin’.” Unceremoniously, the box drops to the floor. “I wish he’d get around to sortin’ this place out instead of chasin’ so much tail. He’s got shit everywhere. Tea?”
I blink.
Sawyer’s hand dwarfs a blue tin with two bags rattling around inside. Oh.Actualtea. There’s a kitchenette buried under all the boxes.
“It’s just the cheap kind,” he says. “That okay?”
After waiting for my nod, he pulls a mug off the shelf above his head. Just one.
I try to make my mouth work, but I only croak an awkward “Yuh…”
Sawyer’s head swivels, and he cocks his chin. “Thought I might’ve finally got you talkin’.” He’s trying to coax me out of my shell. It works.
A shy smile tugs at my lips. “You’re not having one?” I point at the mug.
“Can’t say I drink much tea.”
I twist the loose cuff of my sweater around my wrist. “I like tea…”
“Thought you might.”
He did? Is that agoodthing?
My mind spins, fumbling for why he reached that conclusion despite not knowing me. The frumpy clothes? My shoes? Is itwrongto enjoy a cup of tea? What does he drink? He takes his trawler out before dawn. Hehasto drink coffee. I doubt he dines in at the cafe. He’s the type of man who has an enormous jar of the freeze-dried blend in his pantry. I bet he drinks it black.
Sawyer’s eyebrows furrow as he watches me chasing thoughts around my head.
“Don’t read into that,” he says. “It’s not like what happened outside. I didn’t mean…” He pauses. “You’re an old soul, Elsie Hoskins. You…shit.” He flicks me a sheepish look. “How deep am I diggin’ myself into this hole?”
The polite thing to say is, “It’s okay.”
He doesn’t buy it. “You sure?” he asks.
The tension in his shoulders relaxes when I smile up at him. After a small nod, almost like he’s saying, “Good,” he flips the switch for the plastic kettle on the countertop.
With nothing except the back of his blue flannel to distract me, my gaze wanders to the window. The lashes of orange in the sky are almost drowned in indigo now, and the first prickles of starlight peek from behind the clouds. Kristen’s barely a dot on the horizon. Luke’s the only person on the beach.
