“No, it’s not,” she snapped. “People should mind their own damn business.”

Her eyes burned. She hugged her arms tight across her chest and stepped on the rock and pushed hard with her foot.

“It doesn’t mean anything to me,” I said.

She whirled to me. “It should,” she blurted. “It should bother you. I don’t like people meddling in my life.”

“You said there would be problems,” I reminded her.

She looked away, toward the Inn, then turned and stepped quickly to me without uncrossing her arms. She leaned into me and I held her. I thought she was crying.

“It’s just a piece of paper,” I whispered.

“No, it’s more than that,” she insisted. She pulled her arms from her chest and wrapped me in them. “Do you know who did it?” she asked.

“No.”

“Carter?”

“It couldn’t have been. I left the jacket hanging on the back of a chair in the dining room. Carter was with me in the kitchen.

“Harry Burger? He’s always pestering us.”

“I don’t know,” I said. I faked a soft laugh. “Maybe it was your folks.”

I could feel her body tense.

“I was kidding,” I said. “It was a bad joke.”

She raised her face from my chest. Her eyes studied me. “Maybe not. My mother knows I see you.”

“How? Did you tell her?”

“I had to,” she admitted. “She’s been asking about Adam coming up, like last summer. I had to tell her why I didn’t want that.”

Carter had told me about Adam, and Amy had described him as being spoiled, yet she had mentioned his name only once, and only then to answer Carter’s plaguing questions in Arch’s. “Yes,” she had said to him, “Adam and I still date, or we did.” She had turned to look at me. “But we’re not married, or anything like that.”

“How did your mother take it? About us?” I asked.

“She wasn’t surprised, if that’s what you mean. My dad doesn’t notice a lot, but my mom does. She’s a little…” She paused. “Emotional.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.