"Thomas asked if the supports needed rechecking. In March. I'm still decided whether or not we should have words."
Clara laughed — the easy, unthinking kind that belonged to good days — and followed him down toward the beach.
Maeve found them first. Because Maeve always found them first.
"There she is! The famous author!" Maeve pulled Clara into a hug that smelled like kitchen grease and perfume. "I've told everyone. And I mean everyone. Even the tourists. Especially the tourists. I've been handing out bookmarks at the pub for a week."
"You made bookmarks?"
"Lena designed them. I printed them. Teamwork." Maeve held Clara at arm's length. "You look beautiful. Doesn't she look beautiful, Jack?"
"I've been saying that for an hour."
"Smart man." Maeve squeezed Clara's shoulders. "Ben and Tyler have everything set up at the Pages & Salt table. There's already a line. I'm not exaggerating — there's an actual line. Mostly townspeople who want to support you, but also a few tourists who recognized thename from online. You have fans, Clara. Real, living fans."
"I might be sick."
"You're not going to be sick. You're going to sit at that table and sign books and be gracious and let people tell you your work matters, because it does." Maeve's voice softened. "I'm proud of you, love. We all are."
Clara blinked hard. "If you make me cry before the signing, I'm blaming you."
"Fair. Go. Jack, make sure she eats something before she sits down. She gets shaky when she's nervous."
"Already on it."
Mrs. Conley intercepted them at the pie table with the inevitability of a natural disaster.
"Clara! The book! I read the whole thing — well, Ed read it to me because my glasses need updating, but that's beside the point. It's wonderful. Although I do think the font on the title could be larger. And the sea witch looks a bit like my cousin Dorothy, which is either a coincidence or a very pointed creative choice."
"It's a coincidence, Mrs. Conley."
"Mm-hm. Well. Dorothy had it coming either way." She turned to Jack. "And you — are you in the book? I heard there's a carpenter character."
"There's a character who builds things," Clara said carefully. "He's not based on anyone specific."
"He's absolutely based on me," Jack said.
"He's not."
"He builds things, he's charming, he's afraid of commitment. It's practically a biography."
"The character is a shipwright from the 1800s."
"With my emotional arc."
Mrs. Conley looked between them with undisguised delight. "You two are my favorite entertainment. Better than television. Ed! Ed, come listen to this!"
Ed, who had been standing six feet away pretending he couldn't hear emotional situations, raised a hand in greeting and moved to a safer distance.
The signing was overwhelming.
And wonderful. And surreal. And nothing like Clara had imagined, which was good because she'd imagined an empty table and pitying looks and the specific humiliation of sitting behind a stack of books thatnobody wanted.
Instead, there was a line. Not a massive line — this was Beacon's End, not New York — but a real one. A dozen people, then two dozen. Townspeople and summer visitors and a handful of readers who'd driven from Portland after seeing the event on Tidal Lock's social media page, which Nora's team now managed and which featured Clara's actual face instead of a cartoon lighthouse.
Ben had arranged the display with the quiet precision of a man who cared deeply about presentation. Tyler was working the register with the authority of someone who'd been waiting for this moment. Lena stood behind the table taking photos and threatening anyone who looked like they might not buy a copy.
Clara signed books. Smiled. Talked to people who told her that Tidal Lock had meant something to them — that they'd found it during hard times, that Marina felt like someone they knew, that the lighthouse keeper's story had made them feel less alone. Every time someone said something like that, Clara had to pause and breathe and remind herself that she was in public and could not ugly cry at her own book signing.
