She glanced at the clock on the stove. Almost noon. She hadn’t eaten.
“It’s open.”
Clint stepped inside with a tool bag over one shoulder. He looked at the laptop, then at her, then at the laptop again.
“Winnie said your bedroom window’s stuck.”
“Right. Yes. Sorry. It’s been stuck for a week. I kept forgetting to mention it.”
“She mentioned it for you.”
“Of course she did.”
He set the tool bag down on the floor and headed for the bedroom. Melissa heard him wrestle with the sash. Then he said something under his breath that she didn’t quite catch. Finally, the scrape of something being worked loose. She turned back to the laptop.
A few minutes later he came back through the kitchen.
“Needs a new sash cord. I’ll come back this afternoon.”
“Thank you.”
He didn’t leave. He was looking at the laptop screen over her shoulder, and didn’t pretend he wasn’t.
Her hand moved toward the lid. She left it open.
“Jan,” he said. “At Harbor Brew.”
“From this morning.”
He didn’t answer. He stepped closer, and she angled the screen slightly so he could see.
She scrolled through the morning. Jan. Sally. Bryan. He looked at each frame without comment. She’d stopped breathing somewhere around the third image, waiting.
When she reached the end, he was still quiet. His hand was on the back of her chair, not touching her, and she could smell faint sawdust and coffee on him.
“These are different,” he said.
She went still. Waited for these are posed. These are too intimate. You’re doing what you said you wouldn’t do. Any version of the verdict she’d been writing herself at three in the morning for two weeks.
“These are good.” He paused. “Really good.”
She swallowed. “Thank you.”
“I mean it. The one of Bryan’s hands. And the one where Sally’s looking out the window. Those are…” He didn’t finish. He took his hand off the back of her chair. “They’re yours. In a way the lighthouse shots weren’t.”
“What do you mean, mine?”
He looked at her. “The lighthouse shots could have been made by anybody who knew how to expose a photograph. These couldn’t.”
She’d expected a shrug. Maybe a nod. Not that.
“Clint.”
“What?”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll be back around three with the cord.”
