Bryan looked at Grant. Grant raised both hands and shook his head. “Not getting in the middle of this one.”
Melissa almost smiled. Almost. She focused on the way the firelight was starting to compete with the fading sun and the shadows stretching long across the stone pathways. Beautiful light. It made skin glow warm, and eyes look luminous. The light she used to chase across continents with a press badge and an instinct for timing.
She kept her camera in the bag.
Winnie moved through the gathering like a current, filling glasses, adjusting chairs, and touching shoulders as she passed. She wore a pale blue cotton blouse, and her silver hair was swept back in its usual braid. The sea glass pendant at her throat caught the firelight and threw a tiny green reflection across her collarbone. She paused beside an empty chair and straightened the cushion before moving on.
Clint emerged from the direction of the maintenance shed, changed out of his work clothes into a clean shirt that still managed to look like it had been folded by someone who resented the concept of laundry. He carried a stack of paper plates and a roll of paper towels, which he set on the table with the air of a man completing a task rather than joining a party.
He took his usual spot near the fire pit. Close enough to participate. Far enough to leave without making it obvious.
She understood the positioning. She’d chosen her own chair with the same calculation.
The screen door of the keeper’s quarters swung open again, and Sally Morris came through with a covered dish balanced on one arm and her purse swinging from the other.
“I brought my mama’s banana pudding, and nobody better tell me they’re watching their sugar because I will not hear it.” Sally set the dish down with authority and surveyed the group. “Goodness, this is a beautiful evening. Winnie, your garden looks like something out of a magazine.”
“Clint cleared the beds last week.” Winnie tilted her head toward her nephew. “Wouldn’t let me help.”
“Because last time you did way too much and threw your back out pulling weeds. I figured I’d get it all cleaned up, so maybe you’d just do small sections at a time now,” Clint said without looking up.
Sally laughed and swatted his arm as she passed. “Always protecting everybody, whether they want it or not. Clint Lockhart, you are your aunt’s mirror image and don’t even know it.”
And then something happened that made Melissa blink.
Clint smiled. An actual smile. It made him look younger.
“Don’t tell her that,” he said. “She’ll get ideas.”
Sally squeezed his shoulder. “Honey, Winnie’s had ideas since the day she was born. The rest of us are just trying to keep up.”
Clint ducked his head, but the smile lingered. He looked almost boyish for a moment. Almost approachable.
He never smiled at her like that. She turned the observation over, examining it the way she’d examine an unexpected element in a frame. Clint gave her frowns, blunt assessments, and silence that felt like a door closing. He gave Sally warmth.
Not that it mattered. She wasn’t here for warmth.
The gathering settled into its usual pattern. Conversations overlapped, a hum of low voices and occasional laughter. Bryan told a story about a pelican that landed on a tourist’s kayak. Emily described a new painting technique she was experimenting with. Grant mentioned that the gallery had gotten a write-up in a regional arts magazine. Cassidy pulled out her phone to show everyone the festival committee’s new social media page, which already had more followers than the town’s official account.
Everyone was moving forward, building things, and making plans.
She sat in her chair and watched the lighthouse darken against the purpling sky. She thought about the photographs she’d taken that morning that were clean and precise. She thought about the calendar date on her laptop and the folder she shouldn’t have opened.
The fire popped, sending a small shower of sparks upward, and Winnie appeared beside her chair so quietly that Melissa startled.
“Didn’t mean to sneak up on you.” Winnie lowered herself into the adjacent Adirondack. She settled back and looked out toward the lighthouse instead of at Melissa. “How are you doing, dear?”
“Good. Fine.” She wrapped her hands around her glass of sweet tea. “Just taking time to figure things out.”
“Mmm.” Winnie sipped her own tea. The fire crackled between them, and the distant rhythm of waves filled the gaps. “How long does the figuring usually take?”
“Depends on what you’re figuring.”
“I suppose it does.” Winnie was quiet for a moment. The lighthouse beam had begun its slow rotation, sweeping out across the water in a steady arc. “You know, my father used to say the lighthouse didn’t need a keeper to make the light work. The mechanism ran itself. But somebody had to be there to notice when it stopped.”
Melissa waited. Winnie’s stories always had a second layer, and she’d learned that interrupting only delayed the point.
“I think sometimes we hide for so long we forget what we were hiding from.”
