“Look at me.” He tipped up her chin. “You say that the past doesn’t matter, but you stand there looking at that book of your father’s and you ache. You say that what we had in the past doesn’t matter, but you keep going back to it so that’s yet another lie.”

Into the silence her cell phone vibrated like an insect. She pulled it out of her pocket.

Joe moved away from her into the front room of the store and out of her view while she looked at the display. The phone vibrated again, shook and shimmied in her hand as she stared at it. By the time she followed Joe a minute later, he was talking to the police officer. She walked up to them and showed Joe the text message.

They won’t stop looking for me until you’re gone. Get gone.

He eyes slid over the digital readout, then up to hers. He had his fire marshal face on, inscrutable. Only the corners of his mouth, turned slightly down, gave him away.

“I guess we’re still bothering somebody,” she said in a surprisingly normal voice. “Or should I say me. I’m still bothering somebody. That’s not really saying much though, since I’ve been bothering pretty much everybody I’ve come across since being home.”

“Red—”

“Here.” She thrust the phone at him. “Just…do what you do and figure it all out.”

He grabbed her hand and squeezed until she looked at him again. “I will,” he promised.

And though just about everything was going wrong, including them, she nodded because she believed him. She believed in him.

Chapter 21

Chapter 21

Summer woke up alone in Joe’s bed. She hadn’t closed the curtains the night before and the early morning sun slanted in the high, narrow windows, warming her, making her squint as she looked around.

She was hugging Joe’s pillow, lost in his warm comforter, and though the room faintly smelled like him, she was alone. As she had been all night.

Joe had sent her to his boat while he worked. Empathy and something else hit her, something that felt suspiciously close to neediness, and she tossed the covers aside. His bathroom was the size of a postage stamp, the shower even smaller. She pictured him in here, that tall, long body bumping into the walls as he soaped up. She used his shampoo, and then sighed dreamily over the scent of him lingering on her as she dressed and moved into the galley.

Her cell phone sat on his small wooden table, being used as a paperweight to hold down a note scribbled in Joe’s handwriting.

Red,

Let me know where you’ll be today.

Joe