At the children’s request, and after a few tears from popped animals, she had shifted to snack duty. She couldn’t stop thinking about the Prims, her husband, the Inn, and her father. Her distraction led to burned popcorn in the kettle. The smell had dissipated somewhat but hung like a phantom in the lobby as she exited.
With a shake, she focused on the slippery grass as she climbed the last bit of the hill. Huffing and puffing, she hadn’t managed to shift from her issues to the pain in her aching muscles. She found a spot and sank onto the damp ground, drawing her knees to her chest and slipping her legs into the oversized sweatshirt for warmth.
“Dad? You out there?” she whispered. She hadn’t said that name out loud in a long time. It scratched her throat. “What did you want to happen? Why weren’t you more explicit with your will? It’s not like you.”
A weight slipped off her shoulders. The tickle in her nose disappeared. “You know what bugs me the most? We left so much unspoken. Neither of us wanted to share what we were actually going through. I don’t want that anymore. I want everyone to know everything I’m feeling and thinking. I want to be understood.”
Or maybe just one person.She gazed toward the Inn, willing him to appear. He didn’t. Christopher was busy somewhere with something more important than her whims.
“It would be so easy for Christopher and I to slip back into our old patterns. We can’t. He’s different. So am I, although I’m not sure how much of my transformation has been positive.” She untucked her legs and reached for a weed, ripping the leaf along its central vein. “You might have liked how I’ve been humbled. I wish I could get to know Christopher. You set him up to be my enemy. Or maybe you thought he’d be an ally? Why didn’t you just tell us who deserved to take over the resort and why. Then I wouldn’t have to decide…”
She couldn’t say the next part. She could barely think it. Tugging the sweatshirt lower, she searched for every ounce of warmth and protection from the chill in the morning air.
“Why is Christopher so discouraging to Steve Prim? Why not encourage him? The expansion has nothing to do with Christopher’s money. Why should he care?”
Because he knows what happens when you run out of money.She shivered. She remembered the hard days in middle school. Christopher’s parents worked hard and provided him a normal, middle-class life. Until his dad got injured on a construction job when Christopher was eleven and a string of surgeries created a mountain of medical bills. It was almost impossible for the Lewis family to ever get out of debt. Christopher became a zealot about saving for a rainy day. As a kid, he had taken every odd job he could find.
She didn’t have a healthy relationship with money either. She wouldn’t have survived without Dad’s continued financial support. What happened now that Dad was gone? What was her next step?
“Hey, stop ripping up my grass,” a deep voice called.
Startled, she scrambled to her feet, wiping her hands over dew-soaked pants and pulling the sweatshirt low. “Mr. Willie?”
“None other.” He lifted the latch on the gate and let himself inside the cemetery, hinges squealing. From a tool bag on the ground, he pulled out a canister and sprayed indiscriminately.
He wasn’t silent, making noise as he worked, and, the smell that clung to him—stale cigarettes—permeated the air. Her senses should have alerted her to his presence earlier. Lost in her thoughts, she was too easily startled.
Or was he capable of stealth?
She’d never been a kid detective, and she wasn’t a paranoid person. Days later, she couldn’t shake the awareness during the last night at the lighthouse. She hadn’t been entirely alone inside the building.
Christopher ignored her ghost claim and insisted a human was responsible. She didn’t think anyone in town could have crossed the bridge without alerting her. But Mr. Willie snuck up on her a minute ago.Had Mr. Willie started the fire?
She feared that answer more than any other. She preferred a ghost.
“Stop messing with the grass,” he barked. “Don’t rip it. Don’t kick it. Just leave it.”
She froze with the toe of her shoe digging into the ground. Being called out like a child didn’t feel good. But she was relieved. Mr. Willie couldn’t be the ghost. He would have berated her for trespassing and disturbing the sanctity of the lighthouse. He couldn’t stay silent about any of the property under his purview. “Mr. Willie, did you track me down?”
The pinched expression he shot her as he looked over the gate chilled her. She delivered the question as tease. She’d been hunting him. His reaction was too serious.
“Can you blame me if I did?”
She reddened. No, she could not. As much as she might wish to erase some of her more spirited escapades from the community’s collective memory, she couldn’t. Part of coming home was accepting that everyone had a firm opinion of her.
The best she could do was prove she’d matured through her actions, not her words. But, right now, she needed a little clarification. “Are you acting on your own accord? Or going along with someone’s orders?”
He chuckled. “I’d forgotten how your mind fills in the blanks. You’re always so darn entertaining.”
Like a clown?She smiled weakly. He’d evaded her with skill, a worthy verbal sparring partner. She’d keep that in mind for future encounters.
He turned away. “No one told me to follow you. I saw you on my rounds and thought you might have my keys.”
She approached the fence, the top railing only reaching her waist. “I was looking for you all morning. You’re tough to stalk.” She tossed the keys.
He caught them with one hand. “Good. I’d hate to be predictable. How did you find the cottage?”
“The same.”More or less. She wasn’t sure telling him she’d been too chicken to go inside reflected well on her.
