It seemed so. She looked at him now without the old fear and shame and without the more recent anger.

It definitely hadn’t been like the Hollywood version of an exorcism. Nobody’s head had spun around 360 degrees. No incantations had been uttered. No holy water had been required—unless you counted the lake. Which, actually, she probably should. She squinted at him. “So you want to be friends. Or not not-friends.”

He looked at her for a long time. She startled when he turned around and jogged back to the playground. He ducked under the monkey bars and grabbed one. He was so tall that he had to lift his legs off the ground. “Wanna hang out?” he hollered.

She laughed.

And joined him. There really was no reason not to.

She wasn’t as tall as he was, so while he had the lower part of his body tucked into a crunch position, she only had to bend her knees to hang. “Okay. Not not-friends.”

“Really?” His face lit up. There were little lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there when they were kids.

She smiled. “We’ll see how it goes.”

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

As the end of September approached, the renovation was well underway. It was going better than expected.

Mostly because Pearl kept sending Sawyer over to “help.” From her vantage point at the bakery next door she had a ringside seat for the reno. It had taken Eve a while to figure out why Sawyer would mysteriously show up with, for example, a sander exactly when she was getting ready to rent one.

“Just go with it,” he’d said when she’d protested. “Pearl and company are total meddlers, but you can exploit that.”

“Maya said you guys call this town Matchmaker Bay now? Is Pearl sending you here because she’s trying to get us back together?”

“Yeah, probably, but I’m immune to her meddling.”

She was, too, she’d rushed to assure him. Which was true, for the most part.

It was nice to see him around the inn again. He’d been there when she’d found Lucille’s old mermaid coat hooks hiding in a drawer in the parlor, and he, as delighted as she was at their reappearance, had given her a high five. She’d forgotten how much she had always liked Sawyer.

The other thing that was going shockingly well? Swimming lessons. Also with Sawyer.

As she left the hardware store with a handful of paint chips, she pulled out her phone to text him. I’m headed to the cove in about half an hour.