“Who in town would make a good Puck?” Nancy Peyton asked. Her blue eyes twinkled when her gaze met Lindsey’s. “I’d offer up my nephew, Charlie, but he’s too busy with the latest incarnation of his rock band.”

Lindsey winced. Nancy wasn’t kidding. Lindsey rented the third-floor apartment of Nancy’s three-story captain’s house, and her nephew, Charlie, lived on the floor between them. Usually, he only practiced once a week, but with the new band learning his material, practices had been more frequent, and both Lindsey and Nancy had taken to wearing earplugs while at home. The only one who didn’t seem to mind the noise was Lindsey’s dog, Heathcliff. As soon as he heard the bass beat of the drums, he began to wag and howl as if he were the lead singer.

“How about my brother, Sully?” Mary Murphy asked. She’d brought the food for today’s crafternoon from her restaurant the Blue Anchor, so it was a feast of crab salad sandwiches and sweet tea. Lindsey turned and scowled at her. She knew Mary had been just looking for an opportunity to bring up Sully in the conversation. Lindsey had been dating Captain Mike Sullivan, known to his friends and family as Sully, up until a few months ago, when he’d decided to give her some space—space she had not requested. And so, they had spent the summer apart.

“Did you know the earliest reference to A Midsummer Night’s Dream is from 1598?” she asked. “No one knows exactly when it was written.”

“Nice segue . . . not,” Charlene La Rue said. “Are you telling us you don’t even want to picture Sully in tights?”

As soon as she said it, Lindsey’s brain flashed on a mental picture of Sully in tights and tunic with a wreath of flowers on his mahogany curls. It did not help that the man had a sailor’s muscular build and that tights on him would not be a hardship on the eyes.

“I am so not answering that question,” she said, at which the others all laughed. When they quieted down, she couldn’t help but ask, “How is he, anyway?”

“Pitiful,” Mary said. “He worked like a dog all summer, almost as if he was trying to keep his mind off something or someone.”

“Humph,” Lindsey snorted. “Well, he wouldn’t have had to if he hadn’t dumped me just because he wrongly thought I still had feelings for my ex.”

“Lindsey, I know I shouldn’t butt in,” Mary said. Her blue eyes, so like her brother Sully’s, were full of anxiety. “But if you knew the things in Sully’s past that make him—”

“No,” Lindsey interrupted. “Don’t tell me. If there is something Sully needs to share with me, he has to do it himself.”