“Good point. Instead of wanting to kill him, I’ll be grateful. After all, if he hadn’t acted the way he did, we never would have bonded that first night at college. Do you remember?”

“Of course. I remember all of it.”

“I remember Brittany sticking a photo of him on the wall so that we could draw on it. I gave him a nose ring and pink hair.” Skylar walked back to the car and hugged Lizzy. “See you soon, Tinker Bell. Make me a necklace. And make Emily throw out everything she owns that is black.”

Emily watched her friend leave and then slid back into the car.

She wondered briefly why Zach would be flying for Island Air, and then decided that as Brittany wasn’t here anyway, it didn’t matter. Neither of them stayed in the same place for long. He’d be gone long before Brittany returned.

Keen to get home as fast as possible, she drove back along the coast road to Castaway Cottage. Today there was no blue sky, and the wind whipped the sea into a foaming, boiling cauldron, toying with boats and keeping swimmers out of the water. Surf crashed over the rocks, exploding in a burst of white froth.

Emily kept her eyes on the road.

If she worked really hard at it, she could just about pretend the sea wasn’t there.

Two decades had passed, but she could still remember the moment when the water had closed over her head and dragged her down, hungry for an innocent victim.

Sweat formed on her brow.

Pulling up outside the cottage, she saw that Lizzy had fallen asleep.

Absolved of responsibility for a brief, blissful moment, she closed her eyes.

Only when the child slept did she manage to shake off the tension.

* * *

Out in the bay, Ryan made use of that wind as he hauled the sail and turned the boat. “So, your charm with women is something I aspire to emulate.”

Alec ducked under the boom. “I wasn’t trying to charm anyone.”

“That’s good to know.” But he could tell that his friend’s black mood had lifted and was glad he’d suggested making the most of the wind and the tide.

Work could wait until darkness fell over the water.

In the meantime, he was going to make the most of living next to some of the best sailing waters on the planet.

Penobscot Bay was peppered with hundreds of small uninhabited islands, many with secluded anchorages. A few of the larger islands, like Puffin, had working harbors and communities that swelled to ten times the size during the summer months.

They sailed along the coast, past beautiful old estates of weathered clapboard and wooded enclaves, rocky coves where forest met the sea, inlets, harbors and fishing villages dependent on lobstering and commercial fishing. Ducks and gulls bobbed on the surface of the water, and in the distance he could see the ferry making one of its three times a day trips back to the mainland.