Page 55 of Escape to Lighthouse Cove

Grace turned her head sharply. “He did? Out loud?”

Noah nodded. “A couple of giggles. I couldn’t believe it.”

“Wow,” she said softly, and for a moment she looked near tears. “That’s because of you, you know,” she told him. “Don’t even bother trying to pretend it isn’t.”

“I think it’s probably a variety of factors,” Noah replied fairly, and she laughed and shoved his shoulder.

“You have a bond with him, Noah. You know you do.” He gave a small smile of acknowledgment. He was fond of Jacob, more so every day, and he thought the boy liked him, too. It was a nice feeling. “And I’m so grateful for it,” Grace continued. “He and his dad… well, as you know, that was complicated.”

“Yes.” They both had a lot of complicated going on in their lives, but right now Noah felt as if they were starting to untangle it, just a little. Maybe one day it would be a lot.

“Anyway, I’m grateful,” she said, smiling at him, and then they rounded a curve in the track and came upon the cottages.

There were four of them in total, made of brown shingle, surrounding a pool that was now a gaping maw of concrete. Noah slowed as he took in the sight—shutters askew, shingles blown off, a window or two broken, one door hanging off its hinges.

“Wow.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Twenty years is a long time for a place to be empty, I guess.” For some reason, some part of him had been expecting the cottages to look the way they once had—curtains at the windows, begonias in the window boxes and planters, loungers by the pool. He’d spent many happy summers as a kid here, as family friends and cousins and people he couldn’t even remember stayed in the cottages, lounged by the pool, played tennis on the courts behind the cottages that were now bare of nets, weeds growing through the cracks in the concrete.

“Do you think they’re safe to go inside?” Grace asked.

“I think so?” Jacob was tugging Grace’s hand, clearly eager to explore. “Why don’t I go first?”

He opened the door to the first cottage, stepping into the great room with a stone fireplace at one end; there were still some old, charred logs in the grate. All the furniture was gone—Isaiah must have arranged that, stored it somewhere or maybe sold it. The air smelled musty, but the rooms were in surprisingly good shape—no peeling wallpaper or warped floorboards.

“What a nice space,” Grace murmured. “And I bet there are views of the ocean from upstairs. I’m going to go look.” She started for the first stairs, holding Jacob’s hand.

“That might be dangerous—” Noah began, feeling the need to caution her.

She tested the first step. “I think it’s fine.”

Grace headed upstairs while Noah walked around the downstairs, hazy memories of running through one of the cottages for a freeze pop or soda before hurtling back out to the pool. Easy days that weren’t tarnished by anything yet. He’d been so young.

And yet… he paused by the kitchen, a sudden memory assailing him, sharp and clear and yet he was pretty sure he’d never recalled it before. Jem, annoyed by some kid who had been staying here, one of their dad’s business colleague’s children they had been ordered to entertain. Jem had been difficult, stubborn in that silent way he used to have sometimes, dragging his feet and refusing to speak. Noah had had to coax him along. He’d traded freeze pops to appease him—given him his blue raspberry and taken the cola flavor that neither of them had liked. And Jem had known he would do it; Jem had always known he would do whatever he had to, to make him happy.

Until he hadn’t.

Strangely, the memory didn’t make him feel guilty or sad or frustrated, although at the same time he felt a little of all three. But Jem had just been a kid. A sometimes-stubborn, often quiet, weird little kid.

He hadn’t been perfect. He hadn’t been the saint that Noah realized, in his guilt, he’d been starting to venerate. He’d just been a boy. A brother. He’d annoyed Noah, and Noah had annoyed him. A lot.

Why did that realization make him feelrelieved?

“You can see the ocean!” Grace called, and he smiled and headed upstairs.

Grace turned from the window to see Noah come up into the master bedroom, devoid of furniture but with an incredible view. Jacob had gone off to explore the other bedrooms, and Grace had let him; despite a few broken windows, the house seemed completely solid.

“Isn’t it incredible?” she asked, nodding at the ocean glinting in the distance, and he smiled at her without looking out the window.

“Yes. Incredible.”

Somehow Grace didn’t think he was talking about the ocean. She turned back to look at the view, her cheeks warming, a dart of pleasure causing her stomach to dip. “These houses are great,” she said, babbling a little in her nervousness. She and Noah had talked a lot, but she wasn’t entirely sure where they stood. He hadn’t said “let’s date” or even “let’s try dating.” He’d just said he had something to give. That could, Grace knew, mean a lot of different things. “And solid,” she added, trying to cover the swirling nature of her thoughts. “I thought the way you talked about them, and Becca too, that they’d be complete wrecks. Ruins, but they’re not.”

“No, they do seem pretty solid.” He sounded surprised, a little wistful. Grace wondered if coming back here had brought up memories—both good and hard.

“You could do something with them, you know,” she said suddenly, turning back to face him in something like challenge, and his eyebrows lifted.

“What? Airbnb?”

“No, nothing like that. I mean something useful. Something…real.” Noah cocked his head, clearly waiting for more. The idea had just come to her, but suddenly it seemed like a good one. A great one, even.