On Friday afternoon, her fifth day at the aunt’s, she heard the rumble of a pickup and the spit and crunch of gravel. A door slammed. She lowered her book.

It was probably Sam, the assistant who kept to the studio. Something was going on with him; Maggie just didn’t know what. He was like a phantom who made himself known with sounds, the cracks and thuds of his labor and, once in a while, a question for the aunt, who’d taken the week off from work. Just through these sounds, the sharpness of some, the heaviness of others, Maggie could tell he was unhappy. And why was that? She thought back to the first time she’d met him. Who were Kate and Linnie? What didn’t he want his father to know? How did the aunt figure into these situations?

And Aunt Wren. What was up with her?

Maggie could see why Mom had picked here as the place for her and her daughter to go. It was the solution on which she hinged hopes. For Maggie, healing, and for herself, the same, only with her sister in mind.

What Maggie couldn’t understand was why Aunt Wren had agreed. Why would this woman—the runaway, the recluse—open her house to the sister she’d spent most of her life avoiding? Open her house to a niece she didn’t even know?

Maggie dropped her frown to the novel in her lap. The characters in this one were especially aggravating—the protagonist, silly; her love interest, a total jerk. And yet Amanda Darling was convinced Colt Manning harbored a sensitive core.

Maggie snorted. Sure, he’s just pretending to be an asshole.

Exasperated, she slapped the book shut, slid off the bed, and grabbed her cardigan.

Downstairs, she opened the screen door. Mom and Aunt Wren were crouched by the water, as if they were searching for something. Probably my beach glass, Maggie thought gloomily. “Mom!”

The wind and water half-muffled her call, but her mother still heard it. She looked up and smiled.

Maggie dangled the keys she’d found by her mom’s purse on a kitchen chair. “Mind if I borrow the car?”

According to Aunt Wren, Maggie had two options for bookstores, one twenty minutes southeast in Allenport, the other twenty minutes southwest in Kesley. “I always go to the one in Allenport,” the aunt had said. “So do Thomas and Sam. It has a nice selection, and it’s bigger and busier than the other one, probably because of Allenport College.”

“How do I get to Kesley?” Maggie had asked.