“Vanessa.”
“Was he old? Married? Wearing socks with sandals?”
“He was forty-ish, maybe. Not married from anything I noticed. No socks. No sandals. Barefoot in the surf like a cologne ad.”
Her mouth opens slowly in delight. “Kara Stone.”
“Don’t.”
“You met a hot beach man before breakfast?”
“I met a man who thinks grilling is a complete culinary philosophy.”
“Tragic.”
“Deeply.”
“Handsome?”
I pretend to inspect the shells. “Objectively, I suppose some women might think so.”
“Some women,” she repeats, grinning. “How noble and detached of you.”
“He had a fly rod, a tan, and the kind of shoulders that make a woman question the structural integrity of her standards.”
Vanessa laughs, loud and bright, and for a moment she is exactly what I need her to be. The person who can drag me out of myself without asking permission.
“There she is,” she says again, softer this time. “That’s the Kara I’ve been trying to revive.”
I look down at the shells.
“I don’t know about revived.”
“Better than last night?”
“Yes,” I admit. “A little.”
“Good.”
She pauses and there's a moment of quiet. I brace myself because this always means she's going to ask something maybe I don't want to talk about.
“Did you sleep?” she asks.
“Some.”
“Nightmares?”
“Not really. I woke up a few times, but the ocean helped.”
“And the cottage?”
“It’s beautiful.” I glance toward the porch. “Quiet. Private. Maybe too private, but beautiful.”
Her mouth tightens almost imperceptibly. “Too private how?”
I wave it off. “Just me being me. I heard something under the porch last night and almost convinced myself a murderer had followed me across Florida.”
“Kara.”
