He was happy for his friend. Sean was a good man and he deserved a good life. He’d moved on from the Coast Guard. He’d moved on from that one terrible night.
And Clint was still here.
He closed the laptop and stood up. He grabbed his tool belt and headed for the lighthouse. He needed to clear the upper gutters on the keeper’s quarters roof where it connected to the main tower.
He set up his tall aluminum ladder and climbed. The metal rungs were warm under his hands. The physical exertion felt good. It kept his mind quiet.
When he reached the roofline, the view of the coastline opened up around him. The sparkling water of the Gulf stretched toward the horizon.
He looked down toward the beach.
Melissa was there. She sat near the edge of the water with her camera resting in her lap. The morning light was perfect with long dramatic shadows on the water. But she was not shooting. She just sat there, motionless, staring out at nothing.
Frustration flared inside him. He shouldn’t care. She was just a tenant. But watching her sit frozen with that camera in her lap…
He pulled a handful of wet leaves from the gutter and tossed them into his bucket. He worked aggressively, scraping the metal clean.
An hour later, the sun was beating down hard. He climbed down the ladder and put his tools away. He needed to check the foundation near the base of the lighthouse tower. The old brickwork near the drainage pipe had looked suspicious after the last hard rain.
He walked around the curving white wall of the tower. He stopped when he saw her.
Melissa was kneeling in the dirt near the base of the lighthouse. She had her camera raised to her eye. She was pointing the lens at the old brick drainage pipe.
A literal drainage pipe.
He stepped forward, and the gravel crunched under his boots.
She lowered her camera quickly and turned to face him. Her dark eyes were guarded. She held the camera tightly against her chest like a shield.
“Sorry,” she said. “Am I in your way?”
“No.” He stared down at her. “Just checking the foundation.”
She stood up and brushed the dirt from her knees. She did not look at him directly. She looked at the white wall of the lighthouse. “I was just getting some shots of the masonry. The way the light hits the texture is interesting.”
“The masonry.”
“Yes.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. He did not know why he was pushing this. He should just walk away and let her take her pictures of bricks. But the anger from the roof was still burning.
“Looking for something specific?” His tone was sharp.
She took a half step back. “I’m just documenting the architecture.”
“You have been documenting for months.”
A flash of defensive anger crossed her face. “Architectural photography requires taking a lot of pictures.”
“Of drainage pipes.”
“Of structural details,” she corrected sharply. “It is my job, Clint.”
He let out a short, harsh laugh. “No, it isn’t.”
Her eyes widened. The anger in her expression faltered.
He felt a sharp twinge of regret. He was being a jerk. He was taking all his own guilt and dumping it on her. He should stop talking.
