nodded toward the front window of the shop. “Who’s that man across the street? He’s just standing there…Maybe he’s lost?”
N ATE STOPPED on the sidewalk and looked across at the grassy area that separated the two sides of Main Street. New businesses had popped up, but much about Finnegan Cove was familiar. The park benches were freshly painted. The flowers were just beginning to bloom. The brick buildings were solid and clean, their roofs in good repair. It wasn’t the sun-washed glitz of Southern California; here there was a sense of reverence for what had come before. For permanence.
Nate didn’t want to be here. He hadn’t thought about returning to this place since he’d headed his old pickup out of town two weeks after his father’s trial and pointed west. Even when he came to Michigan to visit his father, he never considered stopping in Finnegan Cove. There’d been no reason to. Those who’d once befriended the Sheltons had ended up condemning them, along with the ones who’d paid little regard to a struggling fisherman and his two sons.
Before the cancer took her, his mother had had friends. Everyone liked Cheryl Shelton. She’d been sweet and friendly and always offered a helping hand to anyone who needed it. When she died, each of the three Shelton men felt the loss deeply.
Nate looked at his watch. Nine-thirty. He had a half hour before he had to meet Mike at the lighthouse. He headed toward the red-and-white-striped awning over a wooden sign advertising a bakery across the street where there’d once been a dentist’s office. He was nervous about seeing Mike again. Even before their mother died, Nate and Mike hadn’t seen eye to eye on much. Probably caffeine was the last thing Nate needed before facing his brother, but what the heck.
T HE TALL MAN IN JEANS and a light jacket Marion had pointed out was approaching the shop. The sun glinted off his dark-blond hair. His bronzed complexion told Jenna he wasn’t from around Finnegan Cove. No one on Lake Michigan had the hint of a tan in April. This guy had to be a transplant from someplace exotic and sunny. Cool and confident—that’s what he was, with the emphasis on cool. Residents of Finnegan Cove were solid, dependable, but definitely not cool.
He came inside and looked around. The last customers had left several minutes ago. The sandwich crowd wouldn’t be in for lunch for some time.
“Are you open?” the man asked, coming up to the counter.
“Until two,” Marion said.
He sat on a bar stool. Something about the man’s voice seemed familiar. Jenna studied him closely. He looked familiar, too, as if he was someone she ought to know. But that was impossible. How would she know a guy whose jeans even looked expensive—as if custom-made to fit his long, lean legs? He wore a shirt with a button-down collar. Guys in Finnegan Cove wore Wranglers from Wal-Mart, and T-shirts advertising the local bait-and-tackle hut. She couldn’t look away. The stranger was intriguing, and not just because they didn’t see many strangers before tourist season.
“I’ll have a cup of coffee,” he said, and pointed to the chrome cake tray covered with a plastic dome. “And that raspberry Danish.”
Marion slid the pastry onto a plate and set it in front of him. She stood a moment, her eyes intent on his face. Then she gasped and covered her mouth with her hand.
Jenna rushed over from the coffee machine. “Mom, are you all right?”
Marion’s eyes widened. Her lips twitched, as if she didn’t know whether to smile or frown. “After all these years…”
The man stared hard at her mother, then sat back on the stool. “My God. Marion Malloy?”
She exhaled a long breath and said simply, “Nate.”
Jenna dropped the cup she’d been about to fill with coffee. It broke into a dozen pieces. He tore his gaze from Marion’s face to look at her, and the past came back in a nightmarish rush. He was Nate Shelton—older, more filled out, without the wiry toughness of youth, and with a few wrinkles around his unforgettable blue eyes.
Marion cleared her throat, hurried to help Jenna clean up the mess. After throwing the shards in the trash can, she broke the awful silence. “You remember my daughter, Jenna, don’t you, Nate?”
He gave her an intense appraisal, as if trying to find her in his memory bank. “Sure,” he said after several uncomfortable moments. “You were just a kid when I…left.”
You mean when you ran away rather than face what your father had done. “I was thirteen,” she said. “Not so much a kid. Old enough.”
“I suppose you’re right.” He picked up his fork, cut into the pastry and then let it sit there. After a moment he looked at Marion and said, “So have you stayed in Finnegan Cove all this time?”
“I never thought of leaving,” she replied. “This is my home. And I bought this shop with the money…” She paused, looked down at the counter. “With the money I got after Joe died. Anyway, this is a nice business. My daughter helps out. We get along just fine.”
He nodded, acknowledged the full cup of coffee Jenna placed in front of him. “That’s good. I’m happy for you.” He took a sip. “You know, I think about what happened a lot. I’m sorry for what you went through.”
“Forget it, Nate,” Marion said. “It’s in the past.”
Forget it? Jenna rested her hip against the counter and said, “What are you doing here, Nate? I heard you were on the West Coast somewhere. Why have you come back?”
He stared up at her with those blue eyes that used to make her adolescent knees weak. “It’s kind of strange, I guess, me being here again. And my reason for being here will seem even stranger.”
She waited, raised her eyebrows in question.
“The old lighthouse,” he said. “I’m thinking about making an offer on it.”
Jenna’s heart tripped. She clutched the lapels of her blouse with trembling fingers.
He spoke matter-of-factly, as if his admission wouldn’t cut her to her core. “I’m taking a look at it this morning.”
“But you don’t live in Sutter’s Point,” she said, her voice harsh and defensive. “The man who’s interested in the lighthouse is from Sutter’s Point.”
“Oh. You must be talking about my brother, Mike. I think he’s made some inquiries about the lighthouse in the past few days.” Nate gave a half smile. “I see word still travels fast around here.”
Jenna closed her eyes. She couldn’t look at the handsome face she used to dream about years ago. The face so like his father’s.
The son of the man who had killed her dad was planning to buy the lighthouse.
CHAPTER THREE
N OW THAT HE’D HAD time to really look at Marion, Nate decided she’d hardly aged. Her hair, shorter than he remembered, was still a mass of chestnut-brown curls. Her figure was fuller, but obviously not altered drastically by working in a bakery. And her doe-brown eyes, which he remembered from across a crowded courtroom, still sent regret coursing through him. Almost as much as
