Sally leaned on the counter, her expression serious for the second time that afternoon. “I don’t know how long he’s been here, but he hasn’t knocked on your door. What are you going to do about that?”
“Nothing.” Winnie slung her bag over her shoulder. “Same as I’ve been doing.”
“And how’s that working?”
Winnie pushed through the door. The brass bell chimed its two familiar notes, and the humid afternoon air wrapped around her, thick with salt and the low drone of boat engines in the harbor.
She walked home the long way, past the marina and along the seawall where pelicans lined up on the pilings. The sun had dropped low enough to turn the water copper. A shrimp boat was heading in, its nets folded, its wake spreading behind it in a wide V that erased itself as quickly as it formed.
At the turn toward the lighthouse, she paused. From here she could see the cottages arranged in their familiar semicircle and the courtyard garden. Driftwood Cottage had its porch light on. Clint was home. Captain’s Watch was dark, which meant Melissa was either out somewhere or inside with the curtains drawn.
She touched her bracelet again, and continued walking home.
Chapter 7
The sky over the Gulf had gone the color of a bruise. Purple-gray clouds stacked themselves along the horizon, dense and low, and the wind had shifted from its usual lazy southwest push to something with more bite in it.
Melissa stood on the path between Captain’s Watch and the lighthouse, her camera bag slung over one shoulder, and watched the clouds build. She should go inside. Any reasonable person would go inside. The weather alert on her phone had been buzzing for the last hour, and she’d silenced it twice.
But the lighthouse.
She’d photographed it hundreds of times in the soft pink of dawn, in the flat white of midday, and in the golden hour when every surface turned warm and forgiving. She had a hard drive full of those images. Safe images. Pretty enough to hang in a dentist’s office without making anyone feel anything at all.
Right now, the lighthouse looked different. The darkening sky behind it turned the white tower stark and exposed, and the first gusts of wind sent the palms along the courtyard path into frantic motion. The light hadn’t come on yet, but it would soon, and when it did, that beam cutting through storm clouds would be a shot she used to live for.
She couldn’t justify it with professional language. No project. No client. She just wanted to take the picture.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d wanted to take a picture for no reason.
She set her bag down on the courtyard bench and unzipped it. Tripod first. She extended the legs and locked them, tested the stability against the gusting wind. Too light. She’d need to hang her bag from the center column for ballast. She pulled out her weather cover for the camera body, a clear sleeve she hadn’t used since she’d stopped covering storms. The plastic crinkled in her hands as she unfolded it.
Her fingers were steady. That surprised her. Two years of photographing window frames and the geometric lines of buildings that couldn’t look back at her, and now her hands were steady for a storm. Her pulse had picked up, but it wasn’t exactly fear. It was closer to excitement.
She was threading the camera onto the tripod mount when she heard boots on gravel behind her.
“What are you doing?”
Clint. Of course it was Clint. The man had some kind of radar for anyone doing anything on this property that he hadn’t personally approved.
“Taking pictures.” She didn’t look up. She adjusted the tripod head, angling it toward the lighthouse tower. The first fat raindrops hit the stone path.
“Storm’s getting worse. It’s not safe.”
“I noticed the storm. That’s the point.” She snapped the weather cover over the camera body and checked the seal. “I’ve shot in worse.”
“Inside, Melissa.”
Now she looked up. Clint stood on the path with his arms crossed, and his jaw set in that particular way that meant he’d already decided how this conversation was going to end. He wore his usual work clothes, khaki pants and a faded blue shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, and his hair was already damp from the rain that was picking up speed.
“I’m not one of the shutters you need to batten down.”
“The wind’s going to hit forty miles an hour in the next twenty minutes. Maybe more.”
“I’ve covered hurricanes.” She turned back to her camera and adjusted the aperture. “Category three. Standing in storm surge up to my waist with a camera over my head. I think I can handle a Gulf squall.”
“That was then.” His voice was flat. “Not here. Not on my watch.”
The words sat between them. Not on my watch. Like she was a liability, or she was someone who needed managing.
