Page 4 of Ebbing Tides (The Lighthouse Duology #2)

“No, I like it. It has a nice ring to it,” she said, her voice carried by her laughter.

“God, I’m just so glad you came along. I tried calling Charlie and Stormy, but nobody was answering their phones.

They were in the middle of playing a few board games with my kids, so I guess they were distracted.

But, holy crap, I was starting to freak out. ”

Was that why she’d been crying? She was scared? I guessed I couldn’t blame her for that. Being lost in the middle of a cemetery at night wasn’t for the faint of heart. Took a special kinda person to handle it.

Like me.

“Perfect timing,” I answered with a kind smile, then reached out to turn up the heat. “Are you warm enough? I can—”

“Oh! Yeah, I’m fine, thank you. Honestly, I feel like I’m in an oven now compared to how it was out there.”

My hand was already on the way to turn down the heat. “Are you too warm? Because—”

“No, no! Really, I’m fine. This … this is great.”

She smiled at me from across the truck. I caught her eye and found something shy, almost reluctant hidden there.

A question maybe. Curiosity, wonderment.

My heart lurched, my stomach flipped, and I quickly turned back to the road before I could think too hard about the things I was feeling and why .

“So, you have kids?” I asked, changing the subject as I steered the truck toward the hill.

The lights from Chuck—no, Charlie’s cottage came into view, and a surge of disappointment dropped against my shoulders like a twenty-ton sack of bricks.

“Yeah, I have three. All boys. You?”

“Me? Oh, um …” I swallowed down an ancient urge to say, Yep, two girls, baby on the way . “Nah. But, uh, all boys, huh? Wow. That’s gotta be a handful.”

Her laugh was soft, adoring. “They are, but honestly, they’re my entire world. I don’t know what I’d do without them.”

Other questions bit at my tongue, but one by one, I swallowed them back down with a guessed answer.

Is she married? Of course she is.

How long is she here? Does it matter when she’s eventually leaving?

Does she want to go out sometime? No, jackass, she’s married, and she doesn’t know you.

“How old?” I asked instead as Charlie’s place became a house and not a looming black shadow in the distance.

“Eight, five, and three,” she answered as she laid her arm on the center console, jostling something there. “Oh, crap, sorry—oh, that … that’s so weird.”

She lifted the Dodge truck I had bought for far, far more than it was worth, and suddenly, she was quiet. Eerily so, even as Lido nudged her shoulder with his nose.

I pushed him back. “Hey, get out of here,” I gently said to him before asking, “Are you okay?”

Her laugh was nearly nonexistent as she tried to push a smile onto her face. “Yeah, it’s just … my husband had this exact same truck,” she said, an air of melancholy in her voice.

I had to admit, I was a little confused.

I didn’t know too much about Charlie’s life or family—our friendship was on surface level, if that—but I knew he had two sisters-in-law.

One was his wife, Stormy’s, sister, and the second was his brother’s wife.

From what I knew of his wife’s sister, she was very happily married, but all I knew about his brother’s wife was that …

Shit, had Charlie ever mentioned her at all, apart from her name around Thanksgiving?

“Oh, yeah?” I pulled up outside the cottage. “I did too. It was my first car actually.”

She snorted then. “I lost my virginity in the back of that truck,” she said, her laugh suddenly genuine.

I laughed with her, and I couldn’t even tell you why. “I didn’t, but … there were other times,” I offered awkwardly, shifting in my seat as I cleared my throat. “Her name was Laura.” An ache filled my chest at the mention of her name, and why I had said it out loud to this stranger, I had no idea.

“His name was Luke.”

Luke … Chuck … Charlie’s brother was Luke, and he’s …

Dead , I quickly remembered. Not that Charlie talked much about himself or his life. But I remembered that. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten.

“Ah,” I whispered, my voice barely heard over the engine, still rumbling.

She smiled as if it was the most painful thing to do. “Yeah, well, anyway”—she pushed the truck door open—“it was nice meeting you, Max. Thank you for saving me from losing my toes to frostbite.”

Her exit was abrupt, like it itself was the end of the topic at hand.

Her husband. Her dead husband. She was a widow—the unfortunate, unwanted title hit me square in the chest—and the desperation for camaraderie, for connection , had my mouth opening and closing like a fish on a hook.

But before I could say anything, she was out of the truck, and the door was closed.

I hardly had time to process what was happening as she hurried up the walk to Charlie’s house, and I was about to sigh and drive away when she turned around.

Melanie rounded the front of the truck to stand beside my window, and I pressed the button to roll it down.

“This is gonna sound ridiculous and crazy. I know you don’t know me—I know we don’t know each other —but … can you hold onto these for me?” She stuffed her hand inside her pocket and produced her pack of cigarettes and an old-looking lighter.

I looked at the items in her hand, and without a second thought, I said, “Sure, I—”

“Charlie doesn’t know I smoke,” she explained needlessly. “That’s why I walked so far away from the house. I didn’t want him to see me, and … I don’t know … get upset or something.”

I nodded, opening my palm, waiting for her to hand them over. “Yeah, it’s no—”

“They were my husband’s,” she went on, talking like she didn’t care who was hearing it. Like she just needed to say it . “I didn’t start smoking until after he died. It, um … I dunno … it makes me feel closer to him, I guess, which is probably stupid—”

“It’s not,” I interrupted gently. “It’s not stupid at all.”

My voice seemed to calm her barrage of speech, and she sighed, nodding. A solemn look passed her face as she laid the lighter and pack of cigarettes into my hand. Her eyes watered as she pulled away, staring at them, like she was dropping her kids off at school and letting go for the first time.

“Today would’ve been our wedding anniversary,” she said, her gaze holding on to the precious items in my hand.

“I thought I was doing okay. I thought I could come up here and have a nice week with Charlie and Stormy without thinking about him, but …” Her voice trailed off to make way for an embarrassed burst of laughter.

“Oh my God, I’m sorry. You have to get to work, and I’m just babbling on like an idiot.

You don’t even know me. Jesus, I need to shut up. ”

“It’s okay,” I assured her, closing my hand around her husband’s things. “I promise I’ll take good care of these.”

She gave me a weak smile, and I was even more desperate now, more than before, to show her I understood. To prove that I got it, truly . That I was also a member of the world’s shittiest club.

“And for the record, if it makes you feel any better, there will eventually be anniversaries that don’t completely suck,” I said.

“I mean, it always hurts like hell, but the shitty moments become more unpredictable. Anniversaries …” I pursed my lips, thinking about my own anniversary coming up.

“They still hurt, but they become more routine, I guess. More, um … expected.”

Melanie’s gaze shifted from sadness to curiosity. I knew she wanted to ask, but I also suspected that she wouldn’t. So, I answered before she had the chance to walk away.

“My wife died. Almost ten years ago.”

“I’m very sorry,” she replied, nodding.

“And I’m very sorry about your husband.”

She pulled in a deep breath and was about to say something when her attention was pulled toward the cottage. The front door opened, and Charlie stepped outside.

I guessed it was time to lock the cemetery gate, and it was time for me to take up my position.

“I should get back to my kids,” she said with a flustered laugh. “But … thank you.”

What exactly she was thanking me for, I didn’t know. But I smiled anyway and said, “You’re welcome. And I’ll drop these off, um … what day are you leaving?”

“I leave in a week. So, next Sunday.”

“Well, then I’ll be here next Sunday to return these to you.”

“Great,” she said, and for maybe the first time since I’d picked her up, she gave me—not my dog, me —a genuine smile. “Have a good night, Max.”

“You too, Melanie.”

She turned to leave, then hesitated. Her head tipped as she glanced back at me, her eyes meeting mine with a burning question, one I thought I knew.

Have we met before?

But then she seemed to let it go as she smiled—but, oh my God, that smile —and then she jogged away from the truck and caught Charlie’s attention on his way to his own car.

“Where the hell did you go?” he asked with a laugh. “I was ready to send out the search party.”

“It’s okay,” she replied and turned to wave at me. “Max rescued me.”

I turned to look at Charlie as I rolled up my window. I offered him a slight wave as his eyes met mine, and he waved back.

The interaction was over, and she disappeared into the house.

Another moment passed, just drifting through my whirlwind of a life.

But as I drove down the one-way road, lined with trees and headstones and the remainders of snow, the world seemed just a little brighter than it had when I left my house.