“I’ll think about it,” she said.
Cassidy nodded and didn’t push. Bryan looked like he wanted to push but caught something in Cassidy’s expression and held back.
“Fair enough.” Cassidy closed her laptop. “The timeline’s flexible. We’re still in early planning, so nothing would start for a few weeks.”
“Stay for lunch at least,” Bryan said. He nodded toward the kitchen. “My mom made her shrimp and grits. The batch she makes when she’s in a good mood, not the Tuesday batch.”
“What’s wrong with the Tuesday batch?”
“Nothing. The good mood batch is just better. Don’t tell her I said that.”
Through the kitchen window, Melissa could see a woman she recognized as Bryan’s mother moving between prep stations, talking to someone out of view. A younger woman—Bryan’s sister—carried a tray of glasses and nearly dropped one. An older man at the fryer turned to say something, and the whole kitchen seemed to respond at once, voices layered over the clatter of pans and the hiss of oil.
“I should get going. I’m not really hungry after all.” She stood and adjusted the strap on her shoulder. “But thank you. Really.”
She left through the deck entrance and made it down the steps before her legs decided she wasn’t quite ready to leave. She stopped on the sidewalk. Through the Sandpiper’s large front window, she could see Bryan’s table. Cassidy had moved to his side of the booth and was pointing at something on her laptop again while he shook his head.
In the kitchen, visible through the pass-through window above the bar, Bryan’s mother was laughing at something while she stirred a pot. His sister leaned against the counter, stealing bites off a plate. An older woman Melissa hadn’t noticed before sat on a stool near the back door, shucking corn and talking to no one in particular, or maybe to everyone.
They were loud and messy and completely unselfconscious, the way people are when they’ve forgotten anyone might be watching.
Melissa’s hand moved to the camera at her side. Her fingers found the grip. She lifted it an inch. Her thumb found the power button, and she held it there.
Through the window, Bryan had joined his mother. His mom wiped her hands on a towel and swatted him away from the plate he kept picking at. His sister came over and said something that made them both turn, and for a half second the three of them were framed perfectly, caught in mid-sentence, mid-laugh, mid-argument.
Melissa’s finger hovered over the shutter.
You didn’t help. You didn’t ask. You just took.
She lowered the camera and let it hang against her hip.
The walk back to the lighthouse took twenty minutes. She didn’t take a single photograph on the way. When she reached the courtyard, she could hear the rhythmic scrape of a sander coming from somewhere near Compass Rose Cottage. Clint, probably. Always fixing something.
She went into Captain’s Watch and set her camera on the kitchen counter. Her phone buzzed. A text from Cassidy.
No pressure. Just wanted you to know the offer stands whenever you’re ready.
Melissa set the phone down and stood there in the quiet of her cottage, listening to the scrape of Clint’s sander through the open window. Her camera sat on the counter where she’d left it, still powered on, the lens cap still off.
She hadn’t noticed that until now.
Chapter 5
The morning air hung heavy and damp over Starlight Shores. A thick Gulf Coast humidity settled right into a man’s bones before the sun even cleared the horizon. Clint wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead with the back of his wrist. He tightened the final screw on the porch railing at Compass Rose Cottage.
He gave the wooden rail a firm push. Solid. It did not budge an inch.
He pulled a pen from his pocket and ticked a box on his maintenance clipboard. That was three items down. Three small problems solved before seven in the morning.
He liked the routine. He fixed what was broken, and the world kept turning. He did not have to make life-or-death decisions here. He just had to keep the gutters clear and the paths safe.
He shook his head and picked up his toolbox. He had work to do.
He walked along the stone pathways connecting the cottages. The lush native plantings in the courtyard garden were damp with morning dew. The memorial bench dedicated to his family members sat empty in the early light.
“Morning, Clint.”
He stopped and turned. Emily was stepping out of Starfish Cottage. She held a steaming mug of coffee and wore an oversized paint-splattered shirt.
