Page 27 of Beachfront Pages

He nodded slowly, then looked at her closely again. "And what would you have me tell her?"

There it was. The question under all the other questions.

She could have answered it. The truth sat right there, fifty years of it. Her father's face the afternoon he'd told her, how frightened he'd looked. Promises matter more than happiness, Winifred. The Copelands can't be trusted. We have to protect what your grandfather built. She'd been twenty-five and so in love with the man on this bench that she'd thought her heart would split clean down the center.

She'd done what her father asked. She'd split it herself instead, and saved everyone the trouble.

"Tell her about lighthouses," she said. "Tell her about brick and how they kept the lamps lit. Tell her the long romantic history a person comes to a town like this hoping to hear." She drew a breath. "Not the rest. Not yet. I can't, Sam. Not while there's so much I still don't have answers for."

"I'm not trying to corner you."

"I know you're not. You never did." That was the worst of it, in a way. He'd only ever been gentle with her, even the day she'd been cruel to him on purpose. "It's only that the minute it comes out, it's out for good. My grandfather, your father, whatever it was the two of them and mine were doing up in that lantern room. I've kept it secret for so long, which is strange, because I'm still not certain what it is."

"You don't owe the world the whole story tonight."

"No." She looked at the lighthouse. "Just you, maybe. Eventually. If I can ever sort out what's mine to tell."

He was quiet a moment, then a low sound came out of him that was almost a laugh.

"You remember the night we rowed out past the second buoy," he said. "To see if the light reached that far."

"I remember you swore it would and it didn't."

"It reached. You weren't patient enough to wait for the sweep."

"I was twenty-three and freezing, Sam. And you'd promised me a romantic evening, not a science experiment in a leaky skiff."

"And yet you came." His mouth tipped up. "Every time I had some fool idea, you came."

"Somebody had to bail the boat." She let herself smile at the dark water. They'd argued the whole way out and the whole way back, and she'd thought, even then, that she'd never been so happy arguing with anyone in her life. "We caught the sweep eventually. You were so pleased with yourself I thought you'd tip us both in."

"I wanted to show you… everything. Share it with you." He shook his head slowly.

She didn't answer. She didn't trust her voice for a moment.

The breeze moved the sea oats by the gazebo. Somewhere a gull complained at the dark.

The silence between them was a careful one.

"Winnie," he finally said. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

The oldest lie in her repertoire. She'd told it to doctors, developers, and every well-meaning soul who'd found her out here alone with the beam going round. Two words, smooth as a stone off the beach.

He didn't say anything. He just kept looking at her. She understood he didn't believe her. Worse than that, she didn't believe herself. The not-believing sat between them like a third person on the bench.

"You always could spot it," she said. "When I was lying."

"Not always." His voice had gone rough at the edge. "Took me forty-five years to be sure about the biggest one."

She had no answer for that. There wasn't one. The lie she'd told him at twenty-five, the one she'd long since called the worst she ever told. He set it on the bench between them as easy as setting down a hat.

"I told myself it was kindness," she said. "Letting you go. You had a whole life waiting for you, and none of it was here."

"It wasn't kindness."

"No." She looked at her hands. "I know what it was."