“I have to get back to the café,” Alex says, when I don’t open the truck door. “I mean, not really, but if you two are going to touch faces, I’d rather see you later.” Wally has already leaped out the back and is running past the blue house and down toward the fort and out of sight.

“Amelia?”

“Hmm?”

Alex’s eyes are kind when he takes my hand. “He’ll be thrilled to see you.”

My heart is beating in my throat and I can’t imagine what it will do when I knock on the door of the boathouse.

I have to stall.

“But I haven’t thanked you for the box and the album, and we haven’t even talked about what Jenna told you at the festival, and—”

Alex’s finger doesn’t touch my lips to quiet me, but his intention is clear.

“We have time for that later, okay?”

My heart slows a little, and glows. What a luxury time is, what a gift.

I look out the passenger window.

“How can you be sure he doesn’t hate me, since I didn’t call or anything?”

I hear rather than see Alex’s smile. “Fate. Now get out of my truck. There’s less than three hundred forty days until the next bazaar and I’m a very busy man.”

Nolan is not in the fort.

I see him as I descend the slight hill that slopes into the sand of the beach. He’s standing knee-deep in the water, looking out at the pearl pink sunset.

Wally sees me first, and his welcoming bark startles a few gulls. The clamor of their wings and Wally’s incessant yelps as he takes off after them cover the sound of my feet splashing into the water, shoes and all.

His spine is straight, his hands in the pockets of his jeans, and I want to know what he’s thinking. I’m desperate to read his face, to trace the lines on his palm, to see if his lips are as soft as I remember, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’ll have to tap him on the shoulder. Then I feel the thread go tight between us.

His shoulders tense, his hands easing out of his pockets, he slowly turns to face me.

Nolan Endsley does not say a word, but I can feel our connection humming with energy. I have to say something, anything, to break this terrible, terrible silence. All the words I rehearsed, all the scenarios I played out in my head, disappear.

“You’re in the water,” I say.

Nolan says nothing. I regroup. I try to put words to the tingling sensation in my fingers, the loud thrum of my heart.

“There’s a photo,” I say, “of two people, and they’re looking at each other.”

Nolan says nothing.