Page 68 of Beachfront Pages

"Fiona." He kissed her again, briefly, to stop her, and she felt his smile against her mouth.

Then they stood there and she held on to the front of his shirt and she had no intention of letting go.

Chapter 24

The fire was already going when Fiona came down the path, and she didn't have a single excuse ready to leave early.

That was the new part. For weeks she'd shown up to these gatherings with one foot already pointed back toward her cottage. A headache invented and waiting in her pocket like loose change. Tonight she carried a bottle of wine instead. A good one. She set it on the table between Cassidy's cookies and a platter of cut limes, and she didn't reach for a reason to go.

"There she is." Sally looked at her and smiled. "You look like a woman who slept."

"I did, actually."

"Don't sound so shocked about it."

"It's been a while, Sally. I'd forgotten what it does for a person."

"Eight hours and a clear conscience. Cheapest face cream there is." Sally looked her over once more, satisfied. "Wine's a nice touch, too."

Fiona crossed to the far side of the fire and settled on a bench near Emily and Winnie. The heat came at her in a soft wall there, and the smoke leaned the other way. Winnie reached over, squeezed her knee once, then went back to her own glass like she'd done nothing at all.

The whole courtyard was in motion the way it got at this hour. Off to the side Bryan stood over the grill, turning fish with a long spatula, frowning like it might lie to him. Clint hovered at his elbow with a plate, getting in the way and being tolerated.

"Lower the lid, you'll dry it out," Clint said.

"You cook the grouper at the Sandpiper for one week. Then you can talk to me about the lid."

"I'm just saying."

"I know what you're just saying."

Across the fire, Grant had a paper napkin spread on his knee and a pencil out, sketching with quick small strokes, his head tipped to one side. Melissa sat by Sam, scrolling through photos on her phone and holding it up for him every few seconds.

"No. This one." She turned the screen toward Sam. "Look at the window line. See how the third one sits lower than the rest? That's not the building settling. Somebody built it that way."

"I've been telling you that for a month." Sam's blue eyes crinkled. He sat close to Winnie, near enough that his knee nearly touched hers, and he hadn't drifted off the way he might have a few weeks back. "The cover should be the lighthouse. You keep fighting me on it."

"The cannery's stronger and you know it."

"The cannery's falling into the sea, Melissa."

"That's what makes it stronger."

"You two are going to fight about this cover until the book's out of print," Clint said.

"Probably," Melissa said, cheerful about it.

Winnie watched the two of them go back and forth, her sea glass bracelet glinting at her wrist, the corner of her mouth turned up. She caught Fiona watching her watch them and didn't bother to hide it.

"They've been at this for months," Winnie said, low. "I gave up refereeing weeks ago."

"You like it."

"I like the noise." Winnie turned her glass slowly in her fingers. "The house was too quiet for too many years. I'll take the noise now."

Cassidy had the bench across the way, and she was three sentences into a story with both hands going.

"So Bryan tells the health inspector the freezer's always made that sound. Always. Like it's a feature of the freezer." She was already laughing at her own setup. "And the man crouches down to get a look at it, real serious, clipboard out. And the freezer picks that exact second to give up the ghost. Just dies. Loud. Right in his face."