Bree perched on the counter, watching Lucy clean out the big stainless steel refrigerator. “It’s funny,” she said. “I thought coming inside this house would destroy me, but all it does is make me nostalgic. My mother fixed so many bad dinners in this kitchen, and Dad’s grilling didn’t help. He burned everything.”

Bree’s father had done a lot worse than burn hamburgers, but that wasn’t Lucy’s story to tell. She held up a barely used jar of mustard. “Want this?”

Bree nodded, and Lucy set the mustard in a cardboard box, along with the other leftover groceries she was sending to the cottage.

Bree pushed the sleeves up on the heavy sweater she was wearing against the early fall chill. “I feel like a woman of leisure not having to spend all day at the farm stand.”

“Some leisure. You’ve been working like crazy.” Bree had lost a third of next year’s honey to the vandals, a group of punks who’d been caught as they drove onto the ferry. But thanks to the summer’s dry weather and warm days, she’d still managed to harvest more than a thousand pounds.

“I’ll love Pastor Sanders forever,” she said.

The Heart of Charity minister had arranged a meeting for Bree with a wholesaler on the mainland who supplied a chain of Midwest gift shops. The woman had loved Bree’s samples: the flavored honeys, lotions, candles, and note cards, the beeswax furniture polish, and the one hand-painted Christmas ornament that had survived the vandals.

“The new carousel labels sealed the deal,” Bree said. “She loves them. Said they give all the products a whimsical elegance. But I still didn’t expect such a big order.”

“She has good taste.”

“I don’t know what I’d have done if she hadn’t ordered. Well, I do know, but I’m glad I didn’t have to.” She nodded again as Lucy held up an unopened bag of carrots. “I can’t abide the idea of being financially dependent on Mike. Been there, done that, not doing it again.”

“Poor Mike. All he wants is to take care of you, and all you want is to take care of yourself. You’re going to have to marry him soon.”

“I know. But the thing about Mike Moody …” A dreamy smile came over her. “He’s steadfast. That man is not going anywhere.”

Lucy swallowed her pain. “Other than in and out of your bedroom window every night.”

Bree actually blushed. “I told you about that in confidence.”

“The same way you told me what a lusty lover he is. Something I could have gone to my grave not knowing.”