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So soon after the divorce from Maxine’s father, the bakery and her time with her daughter had been essential for Rose. It had mattered more than Maxine could ever understand.

As she set a blondie, a brownie, and two cookies on two plates for the girls, she still felt that strange man’s eyes on her. “Do you know what you’d like?” she asked him again, glancing up to see him sitting with his hands crossed over the table in the booth directly in front of the counter. Something about him suggested he never allowed himself any sugar and counted every calorie.

Rose had never asked anyone to leave the bakery before. She’d never had to. Now, she imagined herself setting her jaw and demanding that this man walk into that heinous storm outside, into the darkness and back wherever he came from. But of course, she couldn’t. A creepy sensation went down her spine.

“Maybe a coffee while you wait for the storm to pass?” she asked.

The man turned to watch as Maxine and Minnie slid into Maxine’s favorite booth to eat their dessert. “Is that your daughter?”

Maxine’s cheek twitched, but she didn’t turn all the way back around to look at him.

“Yes,” Rose said, because she couldn’t figure out a reason to lie.

“She looks a bit like you,” the man said. “But maybe she looks more like her father? That can sometimes happen.”

Rose crossed and uncrossed her arms. She was getting the creeps from this guy.

“What about some tea?” she suggested. “The chocolate chip cookies are really good. I import a particular brand of sea salt from Cyprus.”

The man’s smile widened. “Cyprus. My goodness. Sure. I’ll take a cookie.”

Rose breathed a momentary sigh of relief, then slapped a cookie on a plate and walked it over to his booth. Outside, the rain was falling so hard that she couldn’t see all the way across the street. Even the bank’s sign had disappeared.

“What brings you to the island?” she asked.

“I’m here for work,” he explained. He still didn’t touch the cookie.

“What kind of work do you do?”

“It’s sort of complex,” he said. “A bit of writing. A bit of research.”

Rose was reminded of Minnie’s mother, Hannah, and how she’d come to the island as an investigative journalist, only to be cornered by the Legacy Club and forced to stop her investigation into their dealings at once. Everyone in Nantucket had a complicated relationship with the Legacy Club. Nearly everyone’s lives had been altered in both positive and negative ways.

Rose wondered whether this man was connected to the Legacy Club in some way. Somehow, she doubted it, as the Legacy Club members typically involved only those they knew from the inside—namely those from Nantucket Island itself. They didn’t trust anyone else.

But maybe the Legacy Club had decided on different tactics? Eleanor Pike and the others were getting older, but that didn’t mean their wisdom had diminished over the years.

If this man had something to do with the Legacy Club, what did that have to do with Rose?

“Are you an islander?” the man asked.

“I am. Born and raised,” she said proudly.

“Never left the island?”

“I did. I went to culinary school,” she said. “I specialized in baking and pastry making.”

“Hence the bakery.” He gestured around him.

“Yes.” Rose’s smile fell off her face.

But outside, the rain had begun to calm, and the black clouds receded, leaving only gray ones that peppered the island with sprinkles. Maybe this meant the man could pack up his cookie and be on his way. Perhaps it meant she could sit with Maxine and her new friend Minnie and learn all about their first day of junior year. Maybe the Nantucket parents and children would come out of their hiding places, laughing with relief, and join them here for cookies and conversation.

“High school, huh?” the man said, glancing over at the girls again. “I remember high school. Do you remember high school, Rose?”

It was the first time he’d used her name, and it felt like an attack. Rather than panic, Rose reasoned that he’d seen her name in the newspaper hanging not far from his table, where an article celebrated the opening of her bakery ten years ago. Still, she couldn’t help but think that he’d come here, knowing too much about her.

“Of course,” she stammered.