Those blue eyes focused on her as if they were peeling back the layers.

“What happened?” he asked again. His voice was rough and low, but his touch warm. That blue, pulsing light that surrounded him seemed to envelop her, too.

She was horrified when her eyes filled with tears.

This time, she was able to yank her arm free and turned away to face the windows and the water beyond. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You always want to talk about everything.”

“Not anymore,” she murmured.

“How much does it hurt?” he rasped, sounding as if he were in some pain himself.

She rested her cheek on her knee and willed the tears away. “Not so much anymore.”

“You do remember that I can tell when you’re lying,” he said, spinning her chair around and forcing her to look at him. She saw storms in his eyes. More gray than blue now. She wondered what he might see in hers.

Would he look past the bravado and see what lurked beneath the surface? The thing that hadn’t existed before. The thing that had changed everything.

“That was a long time ago,” she reminded him quietly. “We’re both different people now.”

He rose, straightening those mile-long legs of his and returned to the kitchen. “You’re gonna need to stock up on some essentials,” he observed as he loaded up his bags. He was leaving. She was relieved and sad. As much as he annoyed her, his presence chased away the shadows. And that pissed her off.

“I’ll get around to it,” she told him, quickly wiping a tear away when he wasn’t looking.

Groceries collected, he paused and gave her another once-over. “You look tired. You should rest.”

“Good-bye, Brick,” she said pointedly. He headed toward the door, and she waited until he’d opened it. “I like your beard,” she called after him.

With a clench of his jaw and one last smoldering look, he was gone.

3

“Remi Honey?” Not much surprised Chief Darlene Ford. Born and raised on Mackinac, she’d served the island as a cop for nearly thirty years. But finding her youngest daughter—who was supposed to be working and living in Chicago—standing on the front porch seemed to be enough to put a hitch in her step.

“Surprise!” Remi wrapped her mom in a too-tight hug and held on for dear life. The name badge clipped to the front of Darlene’s offseason uniform sweatshirt bit into Remi’s shoulder. She may have inherited the woman’s green eyes, but she hadn’t gotten any of the extra height.

“Well, holy hell!” Darlene breathed, squeezing her hard. “Why didn’t you call and tell me you were coming? I could have gotten your room ready. How are you? Are you taking your prescriptions? Is something wrong? How’s your painting going? Have you sold any?”

The motherly interrogation made Remi laugh as she released her. “I wanted to surprise you and Dad. I don’t need my room because I talked Agnes Sopp into renting me a place. And everything else is just fine.”