Page 24 of Beachfront Pages

"Nobody needs six dozen lemon bars," Bryan said.

"Nobody needs them. That's not the point of a lemon bar."

"It's an art opening, Cass. Not a bake sale," Grant said.

"Every opening's better with a lemon bar. Ask anybody."

"It still means tables," Grant said. "A spread always means I'm carrying tables."

"You love carrying tables."

"I tolerate carrying tables. There's a difference."

And just like that the fire pit turned. The show took it over, easy as breathing, and most of the circle went with it because it was nothing to them. A clean save. The kind a hostess makes look like an accident.

Fiona watched the stiffness slowly go out of Winnie's shoulders as she let the talk wash over her, said nothing into it, and after a minute her thumb went back to the rim of the mug. Then she was Winnie again. Gracious and unbothered. Whatever had reached up and grabbed her, she'd put it away again.

"You're quiet again," Sally said, low, just for her.

"Still the thinking kind."

"Mm." Sally patted her knee and let her be.

Fiona understood she'd just been steered, gently, the same way Winnie had. Sally Morris missed nothing. She only chose what to do about it. What she'd chosen was a change of subject, and Fiona was grateful for it. She'd have given a lot to take the question back.

She stayed another half hour. Leaving right away would have said something, and she didn't want the something it said.

When she finally rose to go, Sally got up with her. They walked together to the edge of the courtyard, past the gazebo, to where the firelight gave out and the dark took over.

"You don't have to walk me," Fiona said. "It's forty feet."

"I'm stretching my legs. A woman my age sits too long, she fuses to the chair." Sally tucked her hands in her pockets. They went a few steps in the quiet. Then, easy as anything, "Don't beat yourself up over it. The Copeland thing."

"I shouldn't have asked."

"You didn't know. How could you?" Sally stopped at the edge of the pavers. "Winnie's carried the Lockhart family her whole life. Four generations of keeping that light, and not one of them ever once got to set it down. There's old hurt tied up in it. Some of it she doesn't even understand herself, I don't think."

"Is it Sam? The man Melissa works with?"

Sally was quiet a beat too long. "Sam's a good man," she said, which wasn't an answer, and she clearly knew it wasn't. "If you want lighthouse history, you ask him. He'll talk. Leave Winnie out of the old part. She's earned that much."

"I will." Fiona meant it. "I like her, Sally. I wouldn't hurt her."

"I know you wouldn't. That's why I'm telling you, not warning you." Sally patted her arm, then turned back toward the fire. "And eat a real supper. You're getting thin, and it worries Winnie, which means it worries me."

"Good night, Sally."

"Good night, hon."

She watched Sally head back to the fire and continued down the path to Sea Glass Cottage.

"That went well," Fiona told the dark. Talking to herself was a habit she'd given up trying to break. "Made the kindest woman in town go quiet at her own fire. Nicely done."

A night bird answered from the sea oats, which was about the level of conversation she could handle.

She stopped at her door and looked back across the courtyard at the keeper's quarters tucked against the side of the lighthouse. Light spilled out from a window. She wasn't going to keep asking Winnie questions. That much she'd decided somewhere between the gazebo and the garden. But the thing the name had touched was real, old, and not going anywhere. And there happened to be a man in this very town whose whole life was old coastal history. A man whose name was Copeland.

"Talk to Sam," she said, trying the shape of it. "Leave Winnie be."