But now they were wound tighter than ever.

They didn’t want her here. Not the elegant one with the short blond hair and the nice clothes. Not the bubbly, engaged one. Certainly not the man with the disarmingly blue eyes who’d hardly said a word.

Not five minutes into dinner they’d all disappeared into what she assumed was the kitchen, and no, she hadn’t known what their muffled voices were saying back there. But she had a darn good idea what they were talking about. Or rather, who.

Wilder had tried to smooth things over while they were gone, joking about siblings being siblings, but the second Maggie had left the room to check on them, Sydney had taken the opportunity to escape. She lowered to the bed now, the pillow-top mattress too inviting.

I shouldn’t be here. The only question was whether to repack her suitcase immediately and ask Wilder for a ride back to Augusta tonight or wait until morning.

With a sigh, she tugged her phone from her pocket and tapped out a text to Micah. I made it to Maine but the truth is, I could use a brotherly pep talk about now. Call me?

She waited in the silence of the bedroom. Nothing.

Until the muffled creak of the hallway floorboards. Footsteps. They slowed just outside her door and then paused altogether.

Perhaps Wilder had decided to take mercy on her, help her sneak out of the house undetected. A perfect idea, but for one thing—she’d feel awful for leaving Margaret Muir that way. The older woman seemed so sweet, so kind. So filled with something Sydney recognized.

Longing. She’d felt it in the woman’s embrace earlier, heard it in her husky voice as she’d said Sydney’s name.

Maggie wanted her here. Even if the others didn’t.

At the soft rap on her door, she lifted to her feet.

“Sydney?”

Not Wilder. But at least it wasn’t Neil or one of his sisters. She moved across the room and opened the door. Maggie stood just outside, holding a covered tray.

“Oh, you didn’t have to . . .” Her voice trailed as her stomach betrayed her, growling so loudly it drew a quirk of Maggie’s lips.

“Can I come in?”

Sydney opened the door wider and stepped aside. Maggie padded in, pausing in the center of the faded white rug that partially covered the floor. “I have to apologize for the others. If they were young enough to be grounded, I’d sentence them to their rooms for a year, but alas, the best I could do was scold them and forbid them from touching my blueberry cheesecake. Which is just fine—more for you, me, and Wilder.”

She set the tray on the sill of the room’s lone window—large enough that a person could sit in it. In fact, before supper, Sydney had imagined doing just that. Grabbing a book from the wall of shelves she’d glimpsed in the living room earlier, pulling the quilt off her bed, and curling up in that oversized windowsill.