“No. Marty said he’s been in the shop a few times, but they just talk about books and buildings. He hasn’t introduced himself around town. Keeps to himself.”
“He was always like that. Quiet until he had something worth saying.”
“Unlike some people.” Sally tilted her head toward Winnie with the faintest grin.
Winnie managed a small laugh. “I talk plenty.”
“You talk around things. There’s a difference.” Sally pointed a finger at her. “You told me once that your father used to answer every question with a story about fishing. And I said you do the same thing, except your stories are about the lighthouse.”
“I do not.” Except, maybe she did… She opened her mouth and closed it again. Sally grinned.
The bell above the door chimed, and a young couple came in, tourists from the look of them, sunburned and carrying a folded map of the harbor walk. Sally slipped into shopkeeper mode, pointing them toward the sunscreen she’d just moved to a back shelf and recommending the fish tacos at the Sandpiper. Winnie sipped her tea and let the interruption settle her.
Sam was asking about historic buildings. Of course he was. He was a mathematician and historian who had spent his career following the threads his father had left behind.
Not that she’d followed his career or searched him out online. Why had he come back to Starlight Shores?
He hadn’t come by the lighthouse to see her. And that bothered her more than she wanted to admit. She shut that thought down before it could go anywhere.
She was seventy years old. She ran a lighthouse property with six cottages, a nephew who wouldn’t move forward, and a tenant who wouldn’t look up from her camera. She did not have room for maybe.
But her hand drifted to the bracelet again, and this time she let it stay.
The tourists left with a bag of local honey and a recommendation for the sunset view from Fisherman’s Wharf. Sally came back to the counter and picked up her tea as if no time had passed.
“So, back to your two lost causes,” Sally said.
“They’re not lost causes.”
“Clint and Melissa.” Sally leaned one hip against the counter. “You ever notice they seem to bring out the worst in each other? Every time I see them in the same room, somebody’s jaw is clenched.”
Winnie turned her cup slowly on the counter. “Or the most honest.”
Sally raised an eyebrow.
“They’re the only two people in each other’s lives who won’t accept the performance,” Winnie said. “Everyone else lets Melissa be pleasant and distant. Clint gets the same pass. But those two look at each other and see right through it, and it makes them furious.”
“That’s one way to read it.”
“My father used to say the beam from the lighthouse didn’t care whether you wanted to be seen.” Winnie paused. “It just showed what was there.”
Sally laughed, shaking her head. “Again, with the lighthouse metaphor. And only you would make two people arguing over a tripod sound romantic.”
“I didn’t say romantic.”
“Your face said it.”
She smiled, but her mind had already circled back. Sam in Marty’s bookshop, asking careful questions about old buildings. And Sam at the Harbor Festival, scanning the crowd before stepping back into the shadows.
Had he left and come back? Had he been here all this time? No, surely someone would have mention a stranger in town all that time. There weren’t a lot of people in town who would tie him to the young man who used to come here in the summer with his family. But she had. Sally had.
“More tea?” Sally asked.
“No, I should head back.” Winnie eased off the stool and felt her knee protest again. A storm for sure. She gathered her bag, straightened, and rolled her shoulders once.
“Winnie.”
She turned back.
