“No, no,” Art assured his wife.

Eve had to clap a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud. Sawyer closed his eyes and looked down. His shoulders were shaking.

They waited a few moments, until the footsteps on the stairs faded. Her stomach hurt from all the suppressed laughter. But she still needed to know what he was up to. So when she was sure the coast was clear, she laid a palm on his chest and pushed him out into the hallway. “Sawyer, are you meddling in my renovation?”

“No!” His denial sounded as theatrical and manufactured as their previous dialogue had.

“This is why the right sort of tradespeople just magically show up at exactly the right time, isn’t it? You’re as bad as Pearl!” She didn’t know if she was annoyed—here he was again, doing what he thought was best for her—or touched. Because it did kind of rock to have everything going so smoothly.

“I better go have a look at the crime scene,” he said before she could decide how to feel.

The front rooms on this floor were the inn’s biggest. Because of that, and because they had balconies overlooking Main Street, they’d been in demand back in the day. Eve had loved them, too, and on the rare occasions they hadn’t been occupied, she would set up shop on a balcony to read or simply watch the world go by.

And she often hadn’t been alone.

As she followed Sawyer into one of the rooms, she was hit with contradictory sensations. There was the relief of no longer being crowded in the too-small bathroom. But there were also memories, memories like mousetraps threatening to annihilate her if she stepped wrong.

Sawyer inhaled sharply. Was he similarly affected?

To mask her unease, she walked swiftly inside, brushed past him, and came to a stop at the French doors. But of course that didn’t help, because it put her right in front of the balcony they used to canoodle on.

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

What? She was standing here trying to stave off a freak-out, and he was casually headed off on a bathroom break?

She stepped out and grasped the railing. She felt herself slipping into that place—that place where this town seemed to keep putting her—where she was caught in a confusing whirlpool of nostalgia and pain. Perched up here, she and Sawyer had had a view of the town but been apart from it. It had felt like it was them against the world.

“I thought we should have a toast.”

She jumped. He was back. Too soon.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.” He was holding one of Maya’s bottles of wine and a pair of plastic cups.