“That’ll do it,” he said.

Maya stood and brushed her hands off. “I really appreciate the help. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t shown up.”

“Without a phone you might have been walking back to Sugar Bend.” Either that, or the other guy who’d stopped would have helped himself. Though it made no sense, Tyler already felt protective about Maya and didn’t want to think about the other guy in relation to her at all. He unclenched his fingers, which had tightened into fists at the thought of the man.

Maya opened her car door. “So I’ll see you back in town, I guess. Maybe you should come to one of our classes at the shop.”

Tyler chuckled. “I’m not very artistic.”

“You don’t have to be. When I first sat down with Trudy, she told me to play. And that’s what I did.” She shrugged. “It’s pretty fun.”

He didn’t see how playing around with seashells and old driftwood could be fun, but then again, she’d be there. He had a feeling he’d do anything—learn to knit, play bunco, try yodeling—as long as he could do it with Maya. “Okay, maybe I’ll do that.”

She smiled up at him. A divot dimpled each cheek, and the sun dazzled from a small dot of silver to the right side of her nose. A tiny silver bird.

“Cassie’s no one,” he blurted.

“What?” Maya reached a hand up to shade her eyes from the late-afternoon rays.

“Cassie, the girl back at the store? She’s just—well, she and I used to—”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to explain.”

“Yes, I do. We used to date, but we broke up a long time ago. She just . . . well, she’s persistent.”

Maya blew a puff of air from her nose. “Yeah, I picked up on that.”

“I just don’t want you to think that there’s . . . anything happening there.” He exhaled. Come on, Tyler. This girl made him feel so flustered and nervous.

“Okay,” she said simply. Then with a wave, she pulled back onto the road and drove away. Behind her trailed strands of silver mist, curling and twisting in the summer sunshine.

Ten

Liza had to invent a reason to go back to the Fox Cove development. She’d already asked the contractor, Carl, all the questions she needed answers to the first time she went, but she needed to see the boat again, and she didn’t feel comfortable just showing up to poke around down by the water.

Before photos. People love a good before and after.

She’d already walked up and down the street, snapping photos of all the houses in their preconstruction state, and now she stood in the middle of the yard behind the most dilapidated house in the neighborhood: 61 River Ash Road. She stared down at the river and the hunk of metal washed up on its shore.

Her mind told her to put one foot in front of the other and walk toward it, but it was like trying to push together two magnets with the same poles. She kept seeing that old photo—Jay Malone standing in this boat, holding his fish, with that big, wide smile on his face. Nothing should have felt off, but it did.