“Just hear me out, Indi. I’m not trying to hurt you.”

Ah, so it was Indi Muir talking to the man. Ben, she’d called him, hadn’t she?

“If that’s the case, then I’d really hate to see what actually trying to hurt me would look like. Because I can’t think of a single thing that could be worse than this.”

“I can.” The man’s voice raised a notch. “Going through with something I know isn’t right would be worse. Walking down an aisle when I’m not ready to make those kind of vows would be worse.”

“The bride walks down the aisle, Ben, not the groom.”

Sudden understanding at what he was hearing thumped through him. He took a step backwards, but the moan of old hardwoods creaked underfoot and he froze. The couple currently on their way to not being a couple would know someone was here now, right? But then, they hadn’t heard the bell over the front door when he walked in.

“Can’t you see I’m trying to do the honorable thing? I could’ve dragged this out. I could’ve kept pretending.”

“So you were pretending when you proposed? When you told me you loved me and wanted to spend the rest of your life with me?”

What was wrong with Philip? He shouldn’t be listening to this. Shouldn’t have even come in the store, not when the chances were next to none that this Muir he was eavesdropping on was even slightly connected to his grandfather’s Muir. After all, that letter he’d discovered in Grandpa’s bedroom, the one addressed to a Maggie Muir in Muir Harbor, Maine, was almost fifty years old.

Grandpa. Again.

Well, if the man he’d known as Grandfather had ever sounded anywhere near as soft and affable as the man who’d written that letter the warmer title might’ve fit.

Affable. Ha! The writer of that note had been downright lovesick.

And he just couldn’t square it. Couldn’t for the life of him imagine Professor Ray Camden writing anything so wordy and tender. Either Grandfather had changed, hardened through the years, or he wasn’t the man Philip had known his whole life. Probably both.

“ . . . deliberately choosing to misunderstand me. It’s not that I don’t love you. I just don’t want to marry you.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” For the first time, a tremble entered the woman’s voice.

Indi, her name is Indi.

He liked it. Liked the rhythm of it paired with her last name. The kind of name that waltzed off the tongue—or, well, would waltz, he assumed, if he ever had a reason to say it out loud. Or maybe not. If he tried to say it to her, if she was anywhere near as pretty as her voice and her name or, most likely, even if she wasn’t, he’d stumble over the syllables like a toddler just learning to walk. Er, talk.

But what reason would he ever have to say the woman’s full name out loud to her face anyway? How weird would that be?