Page 13 of Beachfront Pages

Not the whole thing. Just the moments. The way he'd said promise back to her, slow, like he was weighing it. The way he'd almost smiled. The way he'd dismissed Hank Carson. Her Hank. Her detective. Twenty years of her life in fifteen books—which should have been sixteen by now—and he'd waved it all off with the casual confidence of a man who believed genre fiction was a lesser country.

She should have been furious. She was, a little. But under the fury was a warmth she hadn't felt in a while.

She'd enjoyed it.

Not just the argument. Him. The ink on his hands and the glasses that couldn't find a home. The way he'd looked at her when she'd pushed back. Not offended or defensive. Interested. Like she'd surprised him, and he didn't get surprised often enough.

She shifted the bag to her other arm and kept walking. The palmetto scrub rustled in the breeze. The water was flat and bright.

She was passing Sally's store when the door opened and Sally came out holding a foil-wrapped biscuit.

"Told you I'd have it ready."

"You really didn't have to do that."

"Honey, nobody has to do anything in this town. We just do." Sally pressed the biscuit into her free hand. "You look better than you did on the way in, I'll say that. Got a little color."

"Must be the sun."

"Must be." Sally's eyes flicked to the paper bag from Tides & Tales, and a small knowing look crossed her face that Fiona chose to ignore. "See you around, Fiona."

"Thanks for the biscuit." She kept walking. The biscuit was warm through the foil.

She'd been out for over an hour with the walk, the shop, the argument, and the walk back. And in all of it she hadn't thought about her manuscript. Hadn't thought about the deadline, or Rachel's voicemails, or the contract she was ignoring.

Hadn't thought about Drake. Not once. Not until just now, when she'd noticed she hadn't.

Huh.

She climbed the porch steps and let herself into Sea Glass Cottage. She set the lighthouse book on the table next to her laptop, where Hank Carson still waited, patient as ever, in his alley in the rain. The laptop looked at her, trying to guilt her into opening it. She should open it. She should write.

Instead she sat in the worn armchair by the window and cracked the spine of Sentinels of the Shore and turned to the chapter on the Lockhart Lighthouse. This lighthouse. The one whose beam swept through her cottage each night.

The manuscript could wait. Hank could wait. He'd been standing in that alley for weeks now. Okay, months. Another afternoon wouldn't kill him.

Not that Fiona was avoiding anything. She was doing research. For a completely different project she hadn't started yet and might never write.

That was all.

Chapter 5

The phone buzzed against the kitchen counter at nine in the morning, and Fiona knew without looking that it was Rachel. It was always Rachel at nine. Rachel believed in the morning. Rachel believed a person could accomplish anything before noon if they simply decided to, and she'd built a whole career on the strength of that belief, and most days Fiona loved her for it.

Today she let it ring.

She watched the screen light up and go dark on the counter, the way she might watch a wasp she didn't want to get close to. Four rings. Five. Then the little red dot, and the voicemail, and the small accusing number beside the icon that now read three.

Three voicemails she hadn't answered.

She made her coffee first. That felt important, somehow, to make the coffee before she listened, as if she could meet whatever Rachel had to say on a full cup instead of an empty one. She poured it black, carried it to the table, and sat down across from the laptop, which was closed.

Then she pressed play and put it on speaker, because she was a coward but not enough of one to hold the thing against her ear.

"Fiona, it's me." Rachel's voice filled the quiet cottage, warm and faintly out of breath, the way it always was, as though she'd taken the call while walking somewhere more important. "I know, I know, you're writing, you're in the cave, I'm not supposed to exist when you're in the cave. But sweetheart, I need ten minutes. The publisher called again. They're getting—" A pause, and Fiona could picture her choosing the word, smoothing it the way she smoothed everything. "—they're getting eager. About the manuscript. And there's something else. Something good. The kind of good we don't say no to. I don't want to do this over voicemail. Call me. Please? Just call me back."

A beat of silence. Then, softer, the part she probably hadn't planned to say.

"You okay out there? You sound far away lately. Even on email."