Page 127 of Chasing the Sun

The morning light filtered through the kitchen windows, catching in the hanging copper pots and the glass canisters lined up like sentries on the counter. It was peaceful. The kind of slow, cozy morning that felt stitched together by hand.

Cal had been at the hospital since dawn, checking on Wes. The surgery had gone as well as it could have, but healing didn’t follow a timeline, and I knew he was still struggling to wrap his mind around it.

I missed him, but it wasn’t the restless, aching kind of missing. It was softer now. Steady.

Because I knew he’d be back.

Because he’d told me he loved me. And I believed him. There was a quiet strength in being loved out loud. Not begged for. Not bargained. Just ... offered, freely. I hadn’t known how much I needed that until Cal gave it to me.

“How are the biscuits coming?” Helen asked, sliding a golden waffle onto a plate and topping it with a dollop of honey butter.

“They’re going to be ugly,” I warned, lifting a misshapen lump of dough onto the baking sheet.

“As long as they taste good.” Helen gave me a wink.

We worked in tandem for a while, moving around each other like we’d done this a hundred times. She passed me the jam without asking, and I restocked the clean mugs by the coffee bar while she flipped bacon with a practiced flick of her wrist.

There was something grounding about mornings like this. The scent of yeast and fruit preserves. The hum ofconversation from the front porch. The sound of the kettle whistling in the background.

I loved everything about it.

“Hey, Helen?” I asked.

She turned, lifting a brow. “Mm?”

“I think I want to keep looking into her.”

Helen wiped her hands on a dish towel, then leaned a hip against the counter. “Into who, dear?”

“The woman,” I said. “The Lady of the Dunes. I can’t stop thinking about her. What if we’ve been telling the wrong story all along?”

Helen’s expression shifted. Not surprised, exactly. Just thoughtful. “What makes you say that?”

“I keep circling back to that letter I found in the trunk,” I said, lowering my voice even though we were alone. “The one that said ‘meet me at the lighthouse’ and ‘he is watching.’ Everyone says she was Alma Lovell, but what if she wasn’t?”

Helen frowned. “What do you mean?”

“What if Alma’s last name wasn’t Lovell?” I said, the words tumbling out. My fingers gripped the edge of the counter, knuckles whitening. I couldn’t help but feel as though this wasn’t just about solving a mystery, but about setting something right. It was about finishing the story of a woman who never got to write her ending. “What if her last name was really Barker?”

Helen frowned again, deep in thought. “The locket had the initials A.L. That piece doesn’t really fit.”

“It fits if the locket was a gift from her future husband. Maybe it was an engagement gift or a token of their future life together.” My mind was swirling with possibilities. “The engagement announcement you had shown me neverlisted a last name for her. It only saidAlma and William Lovell.”

Helen’s eyes widened just slightly, and then she looked past me toward the hallway, like she was seeing all of the old ghost stories in a strange, new light.

“Alma could have been one of the Barker children,” she murmured. “Now that’s an interesting angle.”

“You even said there wasn’t much known about them, right?” I asked. “They lived here, in the Drifted Spirit, and at one time the inn and the farm were part of the same land. What if Alma was their daughter, had some kind of secret lover, andshehid the trunk in the root cellar in the barn?”

“You’re right about that.” Helen nodded slowly. “The Barker children were a boy and a girl. Or, at least, that’s what the old records and photographs tell us. A lot of those details are spotty at best. But there was always some speculation about what happened to the children after the family moved away.”

I set the tray of biscuits aside, my pulse kicking up. “I know it sounds like a wild theory, but something about it just ... fits.”

Helen studied me, then smiled—soft and proud. “Well, if anyone can give the Lady’s story a real ending, I suppose it’s you.”

I blinked. “You don’t think it’s silly?”

“Honey.” She shook her head. “Half the people who come to Star Harbor do so because of that ghost story. But you’re the only one who’s ever cared about the real woman behind it. I think that says something.”