“Want me to get you one?” The man shifted as though to get up. The natural light streaming in from the window subtly illuminated his face so she could see a shallow cleft in his chin, like a thumbprint.

“No, no, I’m good. Thanks, though.”

“A drink then?”

She shook her head.

“You think this is one of those fairy places where if you eat the food or drink the wine, you’ll have to stay forever?”

“Something like that.” You didn’t spend your childhood in Black Harbor avoiding cracks in the sidewalk only to be welcomed into the proverbial mansion and eat the food. “I don’t drink on the job,” she added.

“Because your pictures will be out of focus?” He lifted the glass to his lips. The corner of his mouth ticked upward.

Morgan nodded. “It’s a risk I’m not willing to take.”

Nor was it a risk she could afford. When she left Chicago with only the key and the clothes on her back, she’d used everything in her bank account to buy a one-way bus ticket to Black Harbor and a professional photographer starter kit—camera body, two lenses, off-camera flash, extra battery pack, the whole shebang. With the rest of her money, she’d purchased the only car her skimpy budget allowed. But, she was debt-free. Not everyone could say that.

“How ’bout after, then?”

Morgan tilted her head, sizing him up. “Anyone ever tell you you’re a little forward?”

He laughed, the comment sliding off him like oil on a feather.

Searching for a distraction, Morgan turned and observed the photographs on the mantel, locking on to a portrait of a young Reynolds family. Judging by the scrunchies in the two girls’ hair and Clive’s color-block vest, it looked to have been taken in the early ’90s. There was no denying that Clive was old-Hollywood handsome. He and Eleanor made an attractive couple. The frame was a touch out of line with the others. She nudged it forward, making it straight, when her hopeful suitor came up behind her. He stood close enough that she could feel the heat coming off his skin like she was sitting in front of a crackling fire; smell the sharp, evocative scent of his cologne: bourbon and black ice and a little bit of char. It was as though he’d simply selected them from a catalog and had them bottled into a quintessential male fragrance.

“Scary that that was twenty-five years ago.”

Morgan did the mental math. “So, 1995?”

He pointed to Eleanor in the photo. “I can tell the decade by the height of my mom’s hair. It was a sight to see in the eighties.”

“I bet.” Morgan pointed to one of the girls. She was nine or ten maybe. “Cora?”

He nodded, then drew her attention to the younger, fox-faced girl with golden hair, and a raven-haired boy who might have been thirteen. “Carlisle and David,” he said, packaging them together. “It’s a joke in our family, that David doesn’t love anyone but himself. He loves Carlisle, though, ’cause she’s his mini-me. They don’t look alike, but trust me, inside they’re made of the same stuff.”