Storm Surge. Celia Ashley

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СКАЧАТЬ back into a loose ponytail. No doubt by the time she reached her destination, she’d have to arrange it again since she liked driving with the windows open.

      Deciding she would stop along the way for breakfast, Paige grabbed a granola bar and shoved it into the recesses of her purse. On the doorstep, she double-checked the lock three times. The action might be obsessive-compulsive, but the last thing she wanted to do was doubt herself an hour down the road.

      In the car, Paige hesitated before turning the engine over, her fingers wrapped around the keys dangling from the ignition. Although it was light enough to see shapes in muted colors, the sun had not yet risen. Looking toward her father’s house, Paige realized she could see the structure from the cottage driveway. The second floor with its steeply pitched roof peeked above the rhododendrons and pines between. Beneath the soffit overhang, a rectangle of radiating light indicated that an upstairs lamp had been turned on.

      Paige exited the car. She hadn’t seen Liam since the night she’d found him in her cottage. The hour was too early for visiting, but she found herself walking in the direction of the house anyway. She certainly wouldn’t knock on the door, but if he was up and about and noticed her, she’d make up some excuse for being there. She had wanted to talk to him, to measure his reaction to her since the “event.” Dan had implied Liam had lied to her, to both of them. She only wanted the truth…but perhaps only her version of the truth: the man who’d sparked her interest was a man she could trust.

      Fat chance, she thought, coming to an abrupt halt. If she had an interest, that meant she’d already recognized a fatal flaw in him. Such was her modus operandi.

      Pivoting on her heel to return to her car, movement in the window caught her attention and she ducked behind the evergreen branches. Illuminated from within, Liam passed the glass panes. From her vantage point, the view of his naked back and his tousled black hair caused an embarrassing flush to heat her skin. Still, she kept her eyes on him for a few seconds longer. Long enough to see a shadow pass along the wall behind him. He wasn’t alone.

      Paige hurried back toward her car and slid into the driver’s seat, where she gripped the wheel with both hands and stared through the windshield at the clapboard wall before her. What more fatal flaw could there be than a previous commitment? “You’re a fool, Paige Waters,” she muttered, and started the engine.

      As she headed north on the main highway, Paige wondered if everything about her quest would prove to be a blunder. If she had any sense, she’d turn the car around and head back to Nashville. She had a life there. This…this was someone else’s life, not hers. Not anymore.

      * * * *

      By the time Paige reached her destination, she’d calmed down considerably. The first thing she noted about the town was the tourist factor. That made sense. If her father had earned a living by taking people out on his sailboat, no better place than where vacationers sought a thrill. After parking her car in a five-dollar lot, Paige smoothed her unruly hair back into the band and climbed out, intending to head first to the expansive dock. If she could get the boat owners to open up, they might be a source of decent information. She’d only gone a half-block, though, when she spotted a sign for a local newspaper above a shop door. She walked in expecting to purchase one, but instead found herself in the establishment itself. Through an open doorway in the back, she heard the clatter of printers and smelled the scent of ink.

      “Well,” she said to the woman behind the counter, “this is a welcome sight.”

      The woman arched her brows.

      “So many papers have gone out of business,” Paige explained. “Most people want to read their news online. I like a paper in my hands.”

      “Gotcha,” the woman said with a grin. “Can I help you with something?”

      “I was planning to buy a paper to check out the local spots, but I have to ask, do you archive old editions anywhere? The library, maybe, or…?”

      “Something in particular you’re interested in?”

      “A charter boat went down. A sailboat. In high seas, I believe. In October, year before last.”

      “A charter out in October?” The woman shook her head at what she obviously viewed as an imprudent undertaking. “What was the name of the ship?”

      “I…I don’t know. But the owner, the captain, would have been Edwin Waters.”

      With a nod, the clerk began to type something on the keyboard at her elbow. After several minutes, she shrugged apologetically. “Are you sure he operated out of this harbor?”

      “That’s what I was told,” Paige said. “Or just sailed from here that day.”

      “Wait one sec.” The woman resumed typing and read through the results that popped up after. “Here’s a charter went down. Not much of a story. Just a paragraph. The sailboat capsized in heavy seas during a storm. Never should have been out there, if you ask me,” she added in an aside. “A couple of commercial fishing boats made an attempt to aid the ship when the SOS came, but without success. It’s not even mentioned here how many went down with the ship. I would assume he had a crew, passengers? Doesn’t say. We picked this up from another paper. Not one of our stories.”

      Paige craned her neck in an attempt to view the monitor. “Did the ship operate out of your harbor here?”

      “Can’t tell from this, but I doubt it. We would have been all over that if it had. I’m sorry. Is this someone you knew?”

      “Not well,” Paige said, and then left with a thank you and no gazette.

      Locating a bench down the block, Paige confiscated it from a child with an ice cream cone whose parents were calling him anyway and planted her rear end in the middle. Masts with sails furled bobbed from side to side in the near distance against a bluebell sky. Between whitewashed buildings, Paige glimpsed sailing craft and motorized boats, but no commercial vessels. Not surprising, since the town appeared to be a playground of the moneyed crowd and sightseers. She would head toward the docks in a few minutes, though she didn’t anticipate receiving any hard facts. For now, she needed to think. Sit and think about what she had ever hoped to gain from her search.

      “Excuse me, I think you dropped this.”

      Paige glanced at the hand extended before her face. Calloused and hard. A working man’s hand. She looked up.

      For a fleeting moment, she thought she knew him from somewhere, but then she realized he possessed what she and her friends at home had dubbed “the everyman face.” The high cheekbones and chiseled jaw advertisers used to grace ads by the hundreds in glossy magazines. The kind of man women wished they knew. The guy standing in front of her, however, hadn’t looked like that in a while. One too many battles had shattered his handsome countenance, and time had healed it in ways it shouldn’t have. The expression on his face made Paige draw back.

      “I don’t know what that is,” she said with a nod at his hand, “but it’s not mine.”

      “Are you sure? Take another look.”

      She frowned at the folded cardstock printed with a colorful, wrinkled depiction on the inner side. “I’m positive.”

      “Take it.”

      “I beg your pardon?”

      “It СКАЧАТЬ