“Apparently, we need to talk,” Sloane grumbled at Seth as they walked back to the Paint by Number minivan, the vehicle they had been using all day. We just had the most terrific day, and hey, I want to savor the afterglow. I can do without the drama.

Seth stopped cold, shifting the lawn chairs he held as he fumbled with the cooler. “Right here? Right now?”

Before she could answer, her son tugged on her shirt.

“Moooom,” Joel whined. “I’ve got dream crumbs in my eyes, and I wanna go home.”

Sloane looked at her sleepy son, who was indeed rubbing his eyelids. She slipped an arm around his shoulders, acknowledging his plea.

She looked back at Seth. “I guess not right this moment. But soon.” Something was going on, and she needed to know what.

She had complied with her deathbed promise to Whitt, her late spouse, and had come to Cape Cod and found the mystery man, Joe—who happened to be her ex-flame Seth. Yet she still had no answers as to why it had been so important to Whitt.

Monalisa had laid the law down, ordering Seth to Tell her or I will, making it clear that Seth had something to tell her.

What the hell does he have to tell me? I wish he’d just spit it out. I don’t have time for this crap.

As the sun lowered in the sky, Seth began loading the minivan, making short work of their beach paraphernalia. “Gotta get the Paint by Number mobile squared away. Why don’t you ride with Aunt Monalisa and the kids, and I’ll catch ya later? Then we’ll have that talk, I promise.”

Sloane nodded and rounded up her son and Seth’s niece, Janie. After a very productive day, they headed back to the Inn. Everyone looked exhausted. Sloane rode home in comfortable silence with the kids and Monalisa. Seth led the way driving the Paint by Number bus.

*

Over the next few days, Seth got pulled away in one direction or another, and Sloane stayed as busy as she could. She had kids and a dog to care for since Janie and Whaley seemed glued to Joel during the day, plus the sketches and paintings she was working on.

Seth had both Wing It and Bradford Sail Inn to operate, flights and tours, booth and bookwork, and Janie and Whaley when nighttime fell.

Sloane—not by design and not in avoidance—became that ship that passed in the night.

The still unanswered questions that Monalisa had posed bothered her, but then, so did Whitt’s death, its aftermath, Joel’s selective mutism, and her future. Her two-week stay at the Inn was nearly at an end, and she had to decide whether to extend her trip or go home to face the legal music still haunting her.

She’d received several cryptic texts from her lawyer and answered him as best she could. However, she and Seth had yet to talk about the mission Whitt’s deathbed promise set her on. She was clueless as to what her next steps should be.

She was falling in love with Cape Cod. I could spend a lifetime here. And strangely, she thought she might also be falling for Seth.

Sloane loved the suspension of time she experienced on the beaches of Cape Cod and was loath to leave. The peace she found in the sand and sea could not be duplicated at home. Sure, there was Lake St. Clair and breezes, gulls, geese, and ducks, but there was no long sustained suspension of time. No recuperation. No restoration. No warm, friendly people. Nowhere to heal. The real world was just a few hundred yards from any moment of peace one could find.

In Cape Cod, Sloane could feel she was undergoing a sea change. Her entire perspective was changing as the sea helped her heal from the press of the media and the press and Whitt’s death. She couldn’t do that on the shores of a lake bounded by land, city, and suburb. Yet she felt torn between the tug of home and the lure of the freedom she experienced in Cape Cod.

Stay or go? She needed some sea magic, sea murmurs, something the sea could toss in her direction that would tell her what to do.

Sloane had also fallen in love with her morning routine at the Bradford Sail Inn. Enjoying the outdoor sea breeze in her flannel pajama with a cup of coffee and sketchbook, her fingers flying over her sketches of horseshoe crabs, oyster shells, sea birds, wave swells, beaches…all of it anchored her. Dressing later in the day, gradually, not rushed by a clock, schedule, or a job, held appeal.

She loved wearing casual shorts and t-shirts, coverups, and water shoes. She welcomed the banging screen doors, clacking clothespins, and whistling wind in the seagrasses. To be greeted by the dunes that overlooked the cottages, their long green grasses waving, was not something she was ready to give up yet. Leaving now felt just plain wrong.

Sloane’s paintings were due to arrive soon, according to her best bud Addie’s text. She had to figure out what to do with them. Will Monalisa like them? Will another gallery show a few? Can I ply them at Seth’s Wing It booth? Display some at local restaurants? So much to think about and…

Seth. What about my growing fascination with him? The fire between us? The race of hot blood through my veins whenever I see him? My heart pounding like it’ll burst right out of me? My breath catching whenever he shows up? What about all that?

She couldn’t answer all the questions zipping through her mind, so she concentrated on her art instead. Sloane decided to tackle painting the light bouncing off the waves if she couldn’t have her way with Seth. Her very hot way.

Painting sea light proved difficult to do. Capturing the play of sunrays on the waves, the sea sparkling like diamonds or winking like stars at night presented a challenge. She struggled to render all that.