“It doesn’t matter if he did. I’m not fool enough to get involved with a Wearne.”

“Why?” She didn’t really mean to ask, but the question just came so naturally to her that it slipped out.

“Leave it, Libby.” Mabena slashed a hand through the air and took off at a half run, clearly intending to leave Libby in the dust. Or sand.

She drifted to a halt. It was the first time her friend had ever called her Libby. But she’d said it in anger. And then left her here.

“Don’t take it personally, dearover.” Mr. Gibson filled in the empty spot Mabena had left at her side, even slipping a companionable arm around her and chafing a hand over her arm. “You’re not a true Scillonian until you’ve been snapped at by Mabena Moon.”

She let him urge her onward. And rather liked the sensation of walking under the protective wing of a grandfather. Her own had sheltered her so a time or two. But not nearly often enough.

And to be honest, the comfort didn’t dull the sting of the snapping. “She’s never spoken to me like that.”

“No, I don’t suppose so. But then, you’ve never witnessed her history before, I daresay. Not safe on the mainland, far from it all.”

She angled her face up so she could see his. Saw a bit of Oliver’s jaw in his, which lent her strength for some reason. “She’s never told me anything about her family. Or why she left the isles.”

“She wouldn’t. And a better man than me would probably say it was her story to tell, not mine. But as you have to live with her . . .” He bent his head down, eyes somehow both twinkling and shadowed. A play of fire and smoke, light and dark. Joy and pain. “You’ll want to avoid further mention of the Wearnes. She has a history with them.”

“With Casek?”

“No.” He said it on a breath of laughter. “His twin brother—Cador. They were engaged, until he left her for a well-connected girl from London. Her father was in publishing, and he had dreams of literary grandeur, you see.”

No. She didn’t see at all. Mabena had been engaged? Had been tossed aside? And she’d never breathed a word of it? “So she left the Scillies?”

“That’s right.”

She faced forward again, watching her friend’s back disappear behind another knot of people, then over the rise. Or maybe not her friend at all. Friendship required a certain amount of openness on both sides, didn’t it? Maybe Mabena was no more her friend than . . . than Lottie Wight.