They scatter, Mr. Larson grabbing his tray, Alex hurriedly rambling about final bazaar preparations and being back later while still managing to get in a suggestive eyebrow wiggle at Nolan and me, with drank-all-three-cups-of-coffee Wally jittering his way out of the room as if possessed by an evil caffeinated spirit.

Once it’s only the three of us, Nolan glances at me over the wad of tissues and shrugs, but I’m much too nervous to be so cavalier.

“It was an accident,” I tell Valerie’s stern face. “Sleeping together, I mean.” I feel myself redden and quickly amend, “Sleeping in the same room together, not together, together. We didn’t, um…”

“Nolan Endsley.” Valerie spares me. “What have you been up to?”

Nolan takes the tissue from his nose long enough to say, “I expect you know exactly what we’ve been up to, seeing as how you’re the one that sent her down in her Sunday best to disturb my work.”

“Work?” I gape at him, turning to Valerie. “He was sleeping when I came down here!”

“Traitor,” Nolan says under his breath.

“I know very well what you were doing,” Valerie says. “And you have spent entirely too much time alone together in this store, and I won’t have any more of it.”

An irrational part of me wonders if she knows Mark’s and Trisha’s numbers and is going to call them so they can ground me.

“Go spend time alone together out there.” She points a long finger at the window. “Preferably not by the lighthouse, though the lake is significantly calmer today. Go. Have fun. Maybe catch the remote control boat races down by the pier.”

Nolan surprises us both when he says, “I’m showing her Orman today.”

Valerie looks at Nolan like he just revealed he has seven extra toes and they’re all behind his right ear.

The thread between Nolan and me pulses, glows.

He shrugs at Valerie’s gaping and doesn’t look at me when he says, “She has to know.”

Eight toes. Twenty toes. An entire extra head. Valerie looks caught between astonishment and uncertainty.

“You’re sure?” Valerie says.

Nolan gives one deep nod and looks at me, a half-smile playing on his lips.

“If she says anything to anybody, I’ll sic Wally on her.”

“A fate worse than death,” I deadpan.

I feel a bubble of satisfaction trail along the invisible thread between us. It’s more like a thick yarn than twine today. Malleable but strong. I brush my fingertips against Nolan’s knee, my whole body warming at the shy touch.

Valerie is looking between us, her expression easing into motherly affection.

“Well, off you go,” she says. “And for God’s sake, comb your hair, the both of you. You look like you slept on the floor of a bookstore.”