Now the man in the glasses with the notebook was staring at Lilian and Indi instead of Sydney. As was pretty much every face in the room.

Indi turned to her sister, a sort of panic in her eyes.

But Lilian was pure calm. “I’m afraid most of those dinners were before my time. It’s not really feasible to expect Maggie to single-handedly host such a large event.”

“Wouldn’t be single-handed,” Patti Brighton-Smythe cut in. “The committee would help. The whole community would. Used to be the Muirs loved taking the helm of this kind of thing. Why, I remember when—”

“Thanksgiving is less than a month away,” Lilian interrupted. “It’s simply not doable. I’m sorry.”

A look passed between the two sisters, one Sydney couldn’t hope to decipher. But there was a weight to it. As if Lilian’s excuses to the committee were just that—mere excuses meant to cover a deeper trepidation.

But what? Did it have something to do with Maggie’s reasons for declining to join them today? When Neil had suggested it, it’d been clear he’d already known what Maggie’s answer would be. Maggie herself had said the other night that she rarely ventured away from home.

Was she as wary of inviting townspeople to the farm as she was of leaving it? Why?

And what would it be like to have a sister with whom she could communicate the way Lilian and Indi just had? Silently—just a look, an expression.

She’d come today thinking maybe she could ask around about JP. But maybe deep down her real reason had been a desire to somehow bond with these two women. Maybe if something wonderful happened in the twelve days she had left in Muir Harbor, if she found out they actually were legally related, if not biologically—

“Ms. Rose, it is, yes?”

The man in the glasses no longer stood by the front window, instead having come up beside Sydney.

“Um, yes. But how did you—?”

The man offered a crinkled smile. “Could we talk outside for a moment?”

Lilian and Indi were whispering back and forth to each other, oblivious to Sydney or the man. So she followed him outside. He nudged his glasses upward with his pencil, offering her a warm, if probing, smile. “Cecil Atwater. Publisher of the Gazette. And editor, reporter, photographer, and ad salesman. Very much a one-man operation.”

“Uh, Sydney Rose. Though it seems you already know that.”

“I wish I could credit my prowess as a newspaperman, but I’m afraid that’s simply Muir Harbor for you. News doesn’t so much travel as it gallops. Full-speed.”

But how had anyone known she was here? Had Lilian said something to someone at her office? Or maybe Indi had mentioned her presence to a customer.

“I’d love to talk to you about what brought you to our fair city.”

“Shouldn’t the galloping news have already answered that question for you?”

He chuckled. “Oh, I know the bare facts, certainly. You’re Maggie’s latest hope. But I’d like to hear more. Where do you come from? How many pieces has Wilder Monroe put together? Is it for real this time or—”