Page 59 of Beachfront Pages

"Maybe you never knew her." She looked directly at him. "Maybe you knew the part that poured your wine and laughed at the right times. That part's gone. I left her in a townhouse in Georgetown with the boxes."

He sat back. His mouth did the thing it did when a deal went sideways. His jaw tightened. The charm drained right out of him. The charm wasn't working, and a man only used his charm when it paid off. For one ugly second she saw the whole of him clearly, the way a person finally sees a magic trick once somebody points out the wire.

"I came a long way," he said.

"You did. I'm sorry it didn't go how you planned." And she found that she did mean the apology, a little, the way you could be sorry for a stranger's wasted afternoon. "You should probably head back. Not waste any more of your time."

He stood. He reached to button a jacket he wasn't wearing, caught himself doing it to air, smoothed the front of the pressed blue shirt instead. "If you change your mind⁠—"

"I won't."

"You might."

"Drake." She looked up at him. "Go home."

He went. The bell jingled. Through the glass she watched him cross the street to a rental car that gleamed too new for this town. She kept watching while he pulled out. The car got small down the road, then it was gone past the marina.

She didn't feel triumphant. She'd half expected to. She'd built up this whole idea of having a calm afternoon around the idea of feeling at peace at the end of it.

What she felt instead was tired. It was a good tired, though. Like the tired after a long trip, or the tired after finishing a project that had been hanging there for way too long.

The coffee had gone lukewarm. She drank it anyway, both hands still wrapped around the mug. A boat bobbed in the harbor. The Harbor Ladies Club sitting at the corner table had given up pretending not to look and gone back to their muffins.

Jan appeared at her elbow with the pot. She refilled the mug without asking. Hot over cold, steam curling up fresh.

"On the house," Jan said. "That one's on me."

"You didn't have to do that."

"I know I didn't." She tucked the pot against her hip. "Some folks you pour for and some folks you'd like to pour over their head. He was the second kind." A beat. "You okay, hon?"

And the old answer rose up automatic, the one she'd handed everyone for half a year. Fine. I'm fine. It sat right there on her tongue, smooth as ever.

Fiona didn't say it.

"I'm getting there," she said instead. Which was true. "Thank you, Jan. For the coffee. For hanging around the register."

Jan's face softened. "It was nothing."

"It was, though."

Fiona drank the fresh coffee while it was hot. She left a tip on the table that was far too much for a cup of coffee and she didn't let herself reconsider it. The woman had stood guard. That was worth more than a fair tip. She placed the bills under the empty saucer so the fan over the counter wouldn't take them, picked up her bag, and went out into the bright sunshine.

She headed back to her cottage, walking slowly, enjoying the day. She decided to walk along the beach and watch the waves roll slowly to shore, ever constant, dependable.

A gull tracked her down the beach, hopeful, then gave up and lifted off over the water.

Fiona stood a while at the edge with her shoes in her hand and the warm Gulf running over her feet. Then she turned for home, toward the lighthouse and the small cottage that had started to feel like home.

Chapter 20

The notice dinged on his computer. An email. Marty almost didn't open it. Gerald Pryce, the name in the sender line. A man he'd gotten a few emails from during the last twelve years. From his old department. Old life. Gerald had stayed at the university while Marty drove south. Gerald had been a friend. Kind of.

The subject line read, Look familiar?

Marty pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and clicked it open.

A forwarded publicity announcement. A publisher's banner across the top, the kind of breathless copy he'd spent a whole career rolling his eyes at. And under it, Gerald's note. "Wasn't this the sort of writing you used to call beneath us? Turns out it pays better than Faulkner. Ha."