A look flickered across his face. Irritation. Maybe disappointment. She couldn’t tell and didn’t want to examine why she cared.
“You’ve been here months. Aunt Winnie treats you like family, and you walk through the courtyard every day like you’re a tourist.” He said it like a statement that was actually an accusation.
The words hit home. She kept her hand on the door. “Are we done?”
He looked at her for a long moment. Then he shook his head and turned away, boots heavy on the porch steps. She watched him cross the courtyard toward the lighthouse, his broad shoulders rigid with whatever judgment he was keeping to himself.
She closed the door and stood alone in her temporary life.
On the desk, her laptop mocked her, even closed. Though it mercifully hid the calendar, the photograph, and the anniversary of the day she’d learned exactly what kind of person she was.
Through the window, the Lockhart Lighthouse caught the full light of morning, its white tower gleaming against a perfect blue sky. She had photographed it hundreds of times—no, thousands—from every possible angle. She knew its shadows and textures better than she knew her own face.
The lighthouse never changed. That was the whole point.
She looked at the lighthouse one last time. It stood rigid against the blue sky, a perfect white column that hid nothing. She reached out and pulled the curtains shut.
Chapter 2
The Friday sunset gatherings had a rhythm Melissa could predict down to the minute.
Winnie would appear on the keeper’s quarters porch at six-fifteen with a pitcher of sweet tea in one hand and a platter of something homemade in the other. Tonight it was crab dip and crackers, and the smell of Old Bay carried across the courtyard on the warm Gulf breeze. By six-twenty, Emily and Grant would drift in from Starfish Cottage, usually mid-conversation, usually touching in some small unconscious way. Hands brushing. Shoulders close.
By six-thirty, the fire pit would be lit even though it was far too hot for a fire in Florida in summer. Winnie insisted. She said the flames gave people something to look at when the conversation got too real.
Melissa arrived at six-twenty-eight, camera bag over her shoulder. She always brought the camera. It gave her hands something to do, and her eyes somewhere to land that wasn’t on other people’s happiness.
The courtyard garden looked soft in the golden light. Stone pathways curved between beds of native sea oats and coontie palms and clusters of blanket flowers that blazed orange and red near the memorial bench dedicated to William, Henry, and Robert Lockhart, the previous lightkeepers. The gazebo at the far edge caught the last direct sun, its white lattice glowing. She’d photographed it all dozens of times. She could frame every angle from memory.
She chose the Adirondack chair farthest from the fire pit and settled in, angling herself toward the lighthouse rather than the growing circle of people. The tower was losing its daytime sharpness as the sky mellowed, and she mentally composed a shot she wouldn’t take because she’d already taken it a hundred and twelve times.
“Melissa.” Emily waved from across the courtyard, her smile wide and genuine. Paint stains dotted the hem of her shirt. A bright yellow and a dark blue. She looked like a different person from the hollow-eyed woman who had arrived at Starfish Cottage months ago.
Melissa waved back. “Hey.”
“You should come by the studio tomorrow. I want to show you something.”
“Sure.” She wouldn’t go. Emily probably knew that, but she offered anyway.
Grant appeared behind Emily and set a bowl of fruit on the table near Winnie’s crab dip. He caught Melissa’s eye and gave her a nod. Grant was easier to be around than most people. He didn’t push. He’d spent enough years behind his own walls to recognize them in someone else and leave them standing.
“We’re planning the next exhibition,” Emily said as she settled into a chair beside Grant. Her voice carried that new energy she’d found since she’d stopped running and started painting again. “Grant wants to feature local artists exclusively this time. A whole series on coastal life.”
“Beth Ramsey’s been working on a collection of harbor scenes,” Grant said. “Jim’s got some new pieces. We’re thinking late summer, maybe tie it to the end of tourist season.”
Melissa listened from her safe distance and nodded at what she hoped were the right moments. Emily’s hands moved while she talked, sketching invisible compositions in the air. Grant watched her the way he always did, like she was the most interesting thing in any room. Their ease with each other was solid and settled.
Cassidy arrived next, with Bryan a half step behind her. They were arguing. Of course, they were arguing. They’d been arguing since the day Cassidy Wren set foot in Starlight Shores, though the arguments had changed flavor since the Harbor Festival. Less hostility, more heat. It was aimless bickering that had nowhere to go but toward each other.
“I’m just saying the vendor layout needs to account for foot traffic patterns.” Cassidy dropped into the chair beside Emily and crossed her legs.
“And I’m just saying we’ve been doing the Founders’ Day setup the same way for fifteen years and nobody’s complained about foot traffic.” Bryan sat on the arm of her chair like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“Nobody complained because nobody thought to measure it.”
“Not everything needs to be measured, Cass.”
“That is literally the least true thing you’ve ever said.”
