Telling herself the reason she lingered was to watch the lady safely reach the beach below, and not because of any lack of courage when it came to facing her past, Mabena sat a few more minutes at the window, worrying the shawl. Beth’s favorite shawl, ever since her grandmother had finished it before she left the isles for finishing school. She wouldn’t just leave it behind if she went somewhere.

Anxiety feasted on her insides again, forcing her to her feet. Enough dillydallying. She wasn’t back for her own sake—she was back for Beth’s. Setting Mrs. Tremayne’s handiwork on the chair she vacated, she snatched up her straw hat and pinned it in place, wishing its brim were a bit wider so she could dip her head and hide beneath it whenever someone too familiar came into view.

And that was an inevitability, even here on St. Mary’s. She didn’t know everyone here as well as she did those on Tresco, but she knew them still. With only two thousand or so residents on all the isles combined, the only strangers she’d ever see here were the tourists.

The moment she stepped outside, pulling the door shut behind her and locking it, Mabena dragged glorious salt air into her lungs. She may not have missed the nosy neighbors while on the mainland, but she had, without a doubt, missed the isles themselves. The perpetual symphony of water lapping shore. The cry of countless birds. The scents of sea and plants and . . . yes, the Polmers’ bakery, which was tantalizingly close to this seaside cottage. Perhaps she’d just slip in and . . .

No. She knew the Polmers too well. And he had always gone there every time his feet touched the soil of St. Mary’s. She’d avoid such places, at least for now.

She’d avoid Hugh Town altogether. Instead of the road into the village, she chose the sandy track that wound its way through the high grasses, hugging the shoreline. It would deliver her to the quay, where any locals with boats would be, ready to charge tourists a modest fee for a little tour or ferrying to another island, or come over for their own purposes. It wouldn’t be difficult, either way, to find someone to take her the rest of the way home.