Ryan jokingly hung his head in shame. He wasted no time conceding defeat on that one, admitting that he was wrong, maybe even “reaching a little” with his conspiracy theories.

“A little?”

“All right, a lot.”

“Okay, so we’re clear, then—the clowns are innocent?”

“Whoa, innocent? We’re talking about clowns here.”

“Fair point.”

As they laughed, there was movement on the ground. Two young boys had approached to board the Ferris wheel. Ryan didn’t recognize them, but their father, who was standing on the ground with his back turned, struck him as being oddly familiar.

“Do you know those boys?” Amy asked.

Ryan dragged his eyes back to her. “Not them—thought I recognized someone else.”

“Must happen all the time,” she said as the wheel started turning again.

“What does?”

“Coming across people you know. Isn’t that how it goes in small towns? Everyone knows everyone?”

Ryan smiled. “I suppose we do. I guess that sounds scary to someone who comes from the city?”

“Not at all,” she said. “The opposite. It actually sounds kinda comforting. Portland’s great, but sometimes it can feel a little impersonal. There must be hundreds of people living on our street back home, and yet none of us know each other. We don’t even know each other’s names. To me, that seems kinda sad.”

“It’s certainly different down here. We don’t have many neighbors in the valley, but if you take all the stores in this town square, for instance, I could probably tell you not only the names of the people who run them but a whole lot of other useless information as well.”

“Oh yeah, like what?”

“Point to one, I’ll show you.”

“All right.” The first store Amy laid her eyes on also happened to be where she had bought the muffin. “There, that one.”

“Easy, that’s the bakery. It’s owned and run by Oscar Pipps, famous for his mustache and his key-lime pound cake. On his days off he likes to take his boat out and go fishing. Once caught a thirty-pound steelhead right out in the bay. There’s a photo of it inside the hotel.”

“Wow, and do you know his star sign too?”

He laughed and waved his hand. “Try another.”

Amy pointed to the adjacent block next, singling out a narrow store with a busy window display and a frilly peach-colored canopy.

“Haberdashery. Mrs. Mallory is the proprietor, but because of her other pursuits—co-editing the Beacon and curating the local community theater group—the store is left to her daughter, Leslie, to run.”

Amy drew her head back, impressed. She wouldn’t know the first thing about the people who owned and ran her own local shops, never mind what hobbies they kept.

“Shall I keep going?” he asked.

“Sure, who’s next door?”

Ryan scanned the block and told her it was Handsome Frank’s Hardware.