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Ruthie parked in front, climbed out, and found that she’d been absolutely right about the weather. The wind was kicking along even harder than it had been up on the hill, rushing down the length of the small valley, and the knives felt more like machetes.

She was happy to walk inside, and even happier when she saw that she’d entered some kind of local fiber paradise. The section closest to the door featured apparel, all of it not only handmade, but beautifully designed. She was impressed by the shapes of the clothes and the colors. Further in, she found rows of yarn on racks that she could see were from yarn dyers and brands she knew. There were bins of even more yarn on the wall, all with High Gully Yarn tags on them, indicating that it was likely made right here.

It was warm inside, so she unzipped her parka and stuffed her mittens and that Army hat into its pockets. She eyed the rack, but made her way to the bins to get her hands on what was offered here. And when she was over near the mohair, admiring its soft springiness, she caught the eye of the woman neatening up the long table down the middle of the store.

“Are you wearing your own work?” the woman asked, standing up and flipping her long braid over her shoulder as she looked at the sweater Ruthie was wearing.

Ruthie smiled immediately. “I am.”

And she was only too happy to show that work to the woman, who identified herself as Imogen Martin and looked to be in her early twenties.

They talked about colorwork, colorways, and the perils of stranded knitting. They talked about popular fiber artists of the day and their favorite patterns of the past year. And when Ruthie was standing at the register, buying skeins of yarn dyed right here in Cowboy Point that she definitely didn’t need, she felt certain she’d found a kindred spirit.

Imogen must have felt the same way. She smiled brightly and asked, “I haven’t seen you in here before—are you local?”

“Just visiting.” Ruthie said that even though it didn’t feel right, but she pushed on. “I’m actually the first guest in the Lighthouse Inn.”

Imogen looked intrigued. “I’d heard that it was open, at last. But I didn’t know that any guests had come. That’s wonderful. How is it?”

“Absolutely beautiful.”

And it was between her and her heart whether she meant the inn, or the innkeeper.

“It’s a great story,” Imogen said as she put Ruthie’s purchases into a small bag with a happy-looking alpaca logo stamped on it. “That hundreds of years ago an ancestor of the current owner would go and build such a funny thing out here in the middle of nowhere. And now a descendant of that man would basically do the same thing.”

“The same thing?” Ruthie asked.

“That’s what they say.” Imogen slid the paper bag across the counter. “They say Dallas is heartbroken, so that’s why he spent all these years restoring a monument to exactly that kind of heartbreak up there.” She laughed. “I don’t know if it’s a monument to heartbreak, in fairness. Longing, maybe? Pining?”

“Is he?” Ruthie shouldn’t have asked this, or anything. But she couldn’t seem to help herself. “Heartbroken, I mean.”

“I don’t actually know the answer to that,” Imogen said with another laugh, and maybe it was all right that Ruthie was talking about Dallas like this here because it didn’t seem at all meanspirited. “We all grew up here, but I can’t say I know him. Not personally. But it’s poetic, isn’t it? A lighthouse on the top of a snowy mountain?”

It was already looking like dusk when she went outside, though the afternoon wasn’t late at all. It was much colder now. And she could tell that as the light disappeared, it would take what little warmth there was with it. She stood by her car anyway, looking up toward that lighthouse on the ridge, and thinking about poetry. And pining.

Poetry, pining, and the way Dallas had looked at her when she’d walked in that door last night.

Like maybe she was the ghost, and really, that made sense.

Ruthie had felt like a ghost in her own life for six months now. She hadn’t exactly trusted her cousins or her aunt when they’d tried to tell her who she was and what her life was like, but it had been easier to listen to them. It had been easier to let them weave a story that sounded like her around her, because she hadn’t had any connection to a different story inside of her.

Sometimes she wondered if she’d died in that accident. And all of this was just her as a ghost, refusing to let go.

But then, just as she was trying to decide if she should do something dramatic to see if she actually had blood in her veins, or if she’d wake herself up—or not wake up, as the case might be—she startled slightly when Dallas’s big truck pulled up beside her.

He rolled down his window and they looked at each other for what seemed like far too long while dusk fell all around them and, up above, she could see the lighthouse’s beam scrape across the darkening sky.

“What are you doing?” Dallas sounded gruff and out of sorts, but his gaze was sharp. And entirely focused on her.

“Oh, you know.” She tried to smile. It felt harder than usual. “Just trying to figure out if I’m real.”

“I can answer that for you. Yes. You are.” His gaze seemed to slice deep into her. “Why would you think otherwise?”

“I was trying to decide if I thought I was actually a ghost.” This time, the smile was a little brighter, she hoped. It felt more natural. “Jury’s out.”

“I’m pretty clear on exactly how real you are, Ruthie.”

And he didn’t say that he could still taste her, but she knew he was thinking it, because that’s what she was thinking too.