“Gemma,” he said, decidedly not flirtatiously, “as your friend, I really think you should get back to New York.”

Celeste reached for Jack’s hand and he helped her onto the skiff. She hadn’t expected today to be the inaugural sail for the season, but the conditions were perfect and his sailboat was tuned up and ready to go. When his father died Jack inherited his vintage 1964 Bristol 40.

Marco had given them a lift out to the moorings.

“All right, you two—have fun. Say hello to Pacheco for me,” Marco had said. Jack’s father had named the boat Pacheco, after Duarte Pacheco Pereira, a fifteenth-century sea captain and explorer from Lisbon. The Barroses were fascinated by the seafaring legends in their culture. Apparently, Duarte Pacheco Pereira had been the first to calculate the degree of the meridian arc with remarkable accuracy for his time.

Celeste settled onto a bench and Jack motored out past the breakwater.

“I don’t know if the wind is going to cooperate today,” he said from behind the wheel.

“That’s fine,” she said. There was a transcendent calm when the motor was off and they were reliant just on water and wind, but today she wasn’t in the mood to drift along. She wanted speed, forward motion. Something to distract her from her troubled thoughts.

She still hadn’t confronted him about his overstepping last night with Gemma. After all the wine, she was too tired to get into it before going to bed.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Jack said. The sails were up and he’d cut the engine. She heard the water gently lapping against the boat.

“Don’t you think maybe you should have talked to me before offering Gemma a job?” she said.

“It seems like a win-win,” he said. “You have some family around; we fill the spot Alvie left open.”

“But, Jack, you know I don’t necessarily want my family around.”

“She’s a good kid. And you know it or else you wouldn’t have taken her antiquing yesterday.”

“That’s beside the point,” she said, softening just a little. She knew he meant well. “You should have asked me first.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right. But Provincetown always makes room for its wash’ashores,” Jack said. As someone born and raised in P’town, he could say this with authority. Anyone else was a “wash’ashore” for life—no matter how long they lived there, no matter how rich, no matter how famous. And some of the most famous artists of the twentieth century had called Provincetown home. “Celeste, look at this gorgeous day. The open sea . . . what more could we ask for?”

She smiled at him. It was true.

Jack asked her to fetch his sunglass case from underneath the bench. “Can you take the glasses out for me?” he asked from behind the wheel.