A lump formed in my throat.
Connor coughed. “We’re really close.”
“Aww,” I cooed, needing to joke my way out of this mood. “Are you a mama’s boy?”
“Yes.” He adjusted his hands on the steering wheel. “I absolutely am, and she loves it.”
“Oh, I’m sure…” I rolled my eyes, stomach rumbling before I could tease him more.
“Hungry?” he asked lightly.
I nodded. “Starving.”
He nodded back. “I know a place.”
* * *
While Teddy and Finn had gone into the yacht club together, they emerged separately. Teddy came storming out to show Connor his wounded elbow. “They didn’t even clean it!” he exclaimed after giving us the full scoop on the scrape (tripping out of his sailboat). “I just got this Band-Aid, which isn’t the right size…”
“Okay.” Connor nodded easily, which I noticed slowed Teddy’s shallow breathing. “My first aid kit has antiseptic wipes.”
“And a variety of Band-Aids?”
“And a variety of Band-Aids.”
Teddy smiled, and when his older brother joined us, he said, “Finn sailedreallywell today.”
“Really?” Connor asked. “How well?”
Finn shrugged but couldn’t hide a little smirk. “Claire Dupré told me she’s now reexamining her wants and needs.”
Where is Claire Dupré getting this mature language?I wondered.
Connor grinned and offered Finn a fist bump. “This definitely calls for fudge!”
The brothers cheered, and after stopping by the Jeep to clean and rebandage Teddy’s scrape, we walked through town toward Murdick’s Fudge. Earlier Connor and I’d gotten lunch at Behind the Bookstore, a cute open-air café tucked behind Edgartown Books. “Pace yourself,” he’d said when I’d made my intentions to devour my Italian toast clear. “Fudge should be highest on your list of priorities…”
A bell chimed overhead when Finn pulled open Murdick’s screen door, and an aroma of sweetness immediately wrapped around me. Pure chocolate, vanilla, and nuttiness all at once. I found myself transfixed by the marble tables in the front window; my mouth watered as I watched a fudge-maker pour batter into a mold on the thick stone slab. “Olivia!” Teddy called, and I turned to see cases full of different flavors of fudge. He frantically waved me over. “What do you want?”
Everything, I thought.
“You’re the expert,” I told him, wishing Maisie and Bryce were here. “What do you recommend?”
Connor held our place in line while the boys and I assessed our options. “Good afternoon, ma’am,” Teddy said when it was our turn to order. He rose up on his tiptoes in an effort to make eye contact with the bemused cashier. “We are going to take six slices…”
I looked around the shop while he listed our flavors—double chocolate, sea salt caramel, vanilla, rocky road, chocolate peanut butter, and something calledpenuche—and the gift box displaycaught my eye. The biggest one not only had the Murdick’s Fudge whale logo but also had featured an illustration on the lid: a warm red-orange sunset behind a lighthouse. This rendering’s window placement looked familiar. “Is this a real lighthouse?” I asked Finn, pointing to the box. “Orinspiredby a real lighthouse?”
“Of course it’s real,” he said. “It’s the Edgartown Harbor Light.”
My heartrate skipped.Yes!The lighthouse in Annie’s painting was either the Edgartown Harbor Light or the East Chop Lighthouse. And right now we wereinEdgartown, which meant we could probably walk to the Edgartown Harbor Light. Right?
“And we’ll also have a slice of maple walnut,” Teddy concluded, ever the professional. “But in a separate box, please.”
That’s sweet, I thought.He’s looking out for Connor.
His tree nut allergy was only the beginning. “Oh, there’s an entire list,” Connor had told me at lunch. “Tree nuts, cats, ice when it directly touches my skin—”
“No way!” I’d laughed. “Ice? Who’s allergic to ice?”
