She glanced up. His car’s wiper blades were in worse shape than hers, but she was able to make out a street sign up ahead.

“Yes, Blue Heron Trail. That’s it there.”

He hung a right onto a narrow caliche road that wasn’t nearly as picturesque as the name implied. They passed a water tank and a clump of squatty palm trees, then a leaning wooden mailbox. Macey peered out the window, searching for the house that the mailbox belonged to, but it was hard to see past the overgrown vegetation.

The Toyota bumped along as they passed another mailbox. This house was closer to the road, a weathered wooden cabin on stilts. It was dark and empty-looking—maybe someone’s weekend place. Macey leaned forward, searching for anything that resembled the little white bungalow that she’d fallen in love with on the website.

“I still don’t get why you wanted to be all the way out here,” Josh said.

“We came here for the beach. I want to be near it.”

“Um, no. We came here to film commercials for the tourism board.”

“Well, when we’re not working, I plan to hit the beach.”

“You’ll burn to a crisp.”

He wasn’t wrong. Macey’s skin was even fairer than his was.

“Not to sunbathe,” she told him. “I’ll take pictures. Or do yoga. Or maybe take up running.”

He lifted an eyebrow but didn’t comment on the likelihood of her suddenly becoming athletic.

They hit a rut, and she braced her hand on the dashboard as they passed another dilapidated house on stilts, this one with a rusted boat trailer in the driveway.

An animal darted in front of the car.

“Cat!” she yelped.

Josh slammed on the brakes. “It’s a possum.”

“That was a cat.”

He shook his head as the cat-possum disappeared into a clump of scrub brush.

“Seriously, Macey, this is the boondocks. Wouldn’t you rather be in town, near all the hotels and shops and nightlife? Not to mention people?”

Ignoring him, she squinted through the rain-slicked windshield. Josh needed people, not her. In particular, he needed women and bars and things to do after work. Macey wasn’t into all that anymore. She wanted peace and quiet, and a chance to get her life together after a hellacious spring.

A mailbox came into view, and she read the number.

“This is it,” she said.

“This?”

“Yes.”

He pulled into the driveway and parked.

Macey stared up at the little house on stilts. Peeling paint. Sagging gutters. A rectangular gray mark under the window where a flower box had once been. The place resembled the pictures just enough for her to know that this was, in fact, the house she’d rented for three months, for an unbelievably low rate that now seemed totally believable.

“It’s a dump,” he said.

She shot him a look. “It lacks curb appeal. So what?”