But today—with Mr. Barrett’s assessment and Maggie’s telling grin—he just couldn’t muster the peace he wished for. “You might as well tell me, Maggie. I know that look.”

The breeze riffled through her ever-whitening hair. It’d been a deep, radiant red when he’d first met her as a kid. Oddly, the change in color hadn’t seemed to age her—not really. Nor the lines in her face or even the age spots on her hands. At sixty-five, she was as spry as ever.

But also, sometimes, as sad and weary as ever. Oh, he knew she thought she hid it. But this was Maggie. He knew her. Knew her so well.

Knew her enough to predict her next words.

“I think Wilder found her, Neil. I think it might really be her this time.” Her lemon-yellow cardigan flapped in the wind.

Captain claimed his usual spot at Neil’s side, his tail swishing through the sand. “Maggie—”

“I know you don’t like me getting my hopes up. But I can’t help it.”

Her gaze flitted over his shoulder and he knew without looking where it landed—the grouping of rocks down shore, the spot where it’d happened. The accident that’d cost Maggie her first daughter twenty-eight years ago, long before Neil had ever stepped foot on Muir land.

But Maggie refused to believe that her then-two-year-old granddaughter had been lost too. They’d never found a body. Thus, Maggie had never stopped hoping.

“I just hate seeing you disappointed—”

Her gentle smile returned to her face. “I might not be disappointed this time.”

“I take it you’ve invited her here.” That’s what she’d done every other time. Four visits from four strangers in his twenty years at the farm. Four inevitable letdowns every time the stranger turned out to be just that—a stranger with no actual ties to the Muir family.

It’d been Harry Monroe, Wilder’s father, manning the ongoing investigation back then. Maggie had only roped Wilder in recently after Harry passed on and Wilder took over the agency.

“Wilder’s working on it. He says she has red hair.” Maggie stepped closer to him and reached both hands up to pat his cheeks, having to rise to her tiptoes to do so. “It’s going to be okay, Neil. I can feel it in my bones. Change is coming to Muir Farm and I’m so very ready for it.” She stepped back.

“It’s cold, Maggie. We should head back to the house.” And then he could start Googling equipment wholesalers and brainstorming how to come up with an extra ten or fifteen thousand dollars—or resigning himself to the thought of parting with his own savings just like he’d done last year when the furnace had gone out.

But Maggie’s feet were planted, her gaze fixed on the sea, the hope on her face almost enough to rally his own. Almost.

“Change is coming, Neil MacKean.”

He reached for Maggie’s hand, squeezed, and let the sound of the sea take the place of his reply. That’s what I’m afraid of.