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“I never stopped loving you.”

My heart gave a painful, familiar lurch. For one terrible second, I was seventeen again, standing with him after school and believing that whatever happened, we'd face it together. Then the memory faded, and I was thirty-six, standing in my grandmother's house with a man who'd left me without a word and returned years later expecting nothing.

“You should have told me that before you left.”

He flinched as though I'd struck him, but he nodded. “Yes. I should have.”

Then he stepped outside. He didn't ask me to reconsider, and he didn't try to turn his confession into a promise I wasn't ready to make. He simply walked down the steps and toward his vehicle.

I closed the door and pressed both palms against the wood, my hands trembling. For a few seconds, I stayed there, trying to steady my breathing. The truth hadn't made anything simpler. I understood more about why Josiah had left, but understanding wasn't forgiveness, and it certainly wasn't trust.

I still loved him. That was the part I didn't know what to do with. I could listen to him. I could let him try to show me who he'd become. But I wasn't ready to decide whether I could let him back into my life, and I wasn't going to let him make that decision for me a second time.

Sylvester jumped into my lap and turned around twice before settling against me, his soft fur warm beneath my hand. I looked down at him and stroked the silky gray coat, letting the familiar rumble of his purr fill the quiet room.

“So, what do you think I should do?” I asked him.

Sylvester blinked up at me, utterly unconcerned with the fact that my first love had just confessed he’d never stopped loving me and turned my world upside down all over again.

CHAPTER NINE

HARBOR LIGHTS INVESTIGATES ANYWAY

Max

I woke on Monday morning feeling as though I'd spent the night wrestling an alligator, and the alligator had won. I lay staring at the ceiling, listening to Hartwell Cove wake up around me, until my brain helpfully reminded me that Harvey Sinclair was dead, Josiah Mercer had driven me home the previous evening, and the man I'd loved since I was thirteen had told me he'd never stopped loving me. I rolled over and dragged a pillow over my head, groaning into it. There were mornings when I appreciated my brain's ability to organize information. This wasn't one of them.

A soft thump came from the window, followed by a scrape I recognized immediately. I lowered the pillow just in time to see an orange head appear over the sill. Sylvester hauled himself inside with the casual confidence of a cat who considered windows a perfectly acceptable alternative to doors, floors his personal property, and other people's houses an extension of his own territory.

“Good morning to you, too,” I muttered.

He walked across my stomach as though I were an inconvenient piece of furniture, settled beside me, and nudged my hand with his forehead. I sighed and scratched behind his ears. “You've been here for six seconds, and you're already demanding service.”

His purr started almost immediately. Sylvester had been visiting for three and a half years, gradually extending his stays until I sometimes wondered whether he remembered where he actually lived. He still went home occasionally, but lately his visits seemed more concerned with acquiring things than spending time with his owner.

Usually, the things he acquired were food. Occasionally, they were objects of questionable provenance. I'd found socks, flip-flops, and, on one memorable occasion, a bra on my porch. I'd recognized it as belonging to a woman two houses down and returned it to her, only to have her stare at me as though I might be the one responsible for its disappearance. I assured her I wasn't in the habit of wearing her underwear, while Sylvester sat nearby looking deeply satisfied with himself. Everyone knew by now where he deposited his stolen bounty. If someone lost a sock or a piece of laundry, the first place to look was my porch. If they didn't find it there, I'd have to ask around and hope the cat hadn't taken his collection somewhere else.

“I'm going to have to buy you some treats,” I told him. “You can't keep bringing home stolen property and expect me to support your criminal enterprise indefinitely.”

His purr grew louder.

“That's not a denial.”

I eventually persuaded him to get off my stomach and made coffee before checking my phone. There were messages from Ricky, notifications about the festival, and a text from Tammy asking whether I was alright. I replied that I was fine, or as fine as anyone could reasonably expect to be after witnessing the aftermath of a murder and having an emotional conversation with an ex who had managed to complicate my life without even trying. I hovered over the keyboard, considering whether to add something about Josiah's confession, then deleted the words I'd started typing. Ricky would have been delighted to receive that information, and I wasn't emotionally prepared for the resulting interrogation.

My phone rang before I'd finished my coffee. Dad's name appeared on the screen.

“Hi, Dad. Everything alright?”

“Perfectly fine, son. How are you?”

That was never a promising opening. Dad usually called to share some new adventure that had seemed like an excellent idea to him and a catastrophe to everyone else involved. The fact that he was asking after me first suggested either a remarkable change in his personality or a desire to soften me up before delivering bad news. I pinched the bridge of my nose, bracing myself.

“I'm alright. What's happened?”

“Nothing's happened. Why does everyone assume something's happened?”

“Because last time you called, you'd been banned from a campground for panning for gold in the decorative landscaping.”