Now Lucas ran the cloth along the edges of the cabinet doors, taking care to remove every speck of dust so it wouldn’t mar the finish. There was only one woman he couldn’t get from his mind, and it wasn’t Sydney.

Lucas glanced at the calendar hanging cockeyed from a prong on the pegboard. October 21. Today would have been their four-month anniversary. If Kate were here, he might’ve bought her a bouquet of daisies and taken her to Cioppino’s for lobster. Afterward, they would’ve gone home, and he’d have put on her favorite classical CD and kissed her on the corner of her lip, right where—

Cut it out, Luc. You have got to move on. How many times had he relived moments of their time together?

He’d tried to stay busy. He worked well into the night until he was too tired to do anything but shower and fall into bed. It was easier that way. He was tired of pitying glances from friends and neighbors. He could imagine what they were thinking. Poor Lucas. First he lost Emily; now he’s lost Kate. Tsk, tsk, tsk. But no one brought up Kate, as if the very mention of her name would shatter him.

Everyone wondered where she was, though, including the media, some of whom had come to the island, hoping for an interview. Was it any wonder he spent his days holed up in his shop? Even here, he hadn’t escaped the phone calls. Ethan intercepted them, and at least now the calls were coming farther apart.

The story had quieted down the past couple weeks—a blessing for Kate, he was sure. He supposed her career would rebound since the scandal died so quickly. She’d probably have her next book on the shelves next year sometime, and her life would continue as it had before he’d entered it.

But Lucas couldn’t imagine his life returning to normal. Even though the story had fizzled out, he still found himself avoiding people. Even his family—a fact that hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“We missed you at lunch Sunday,” his mother had said when she dropped by the shop the previous week. Lucas noticed right away there was something different about her. She seemed less on edge. Happier, despite Lucas’s withdrawal. Was his mom that happy to have Kate out of their lives?

Lucas didn’t think she’d bought his excuse about being late on an order. His dad had come by later that week under the premise of borrowing his jigsaw, but Lucas had seen through that.

“You’re putting in a lot of hours lately,” his dad said.

“Business is good.” He wasn’t fooling anyone, and he knew it.

“You know, that Kate was something special.”

Lucas clamped down hard on his jaw. Was his dad trying to rub it in? Didn’t he know Lucas knew it better than anyone?