Chapter 2 Ben

Chapter 2

Ben

Ben was really hoping that moving to a remote island near Michigan's Upper Peninsula would mean that his kids' cell phone signal would be so weak, he wouldn't have to compete for their attention with a dozen social apps he didn't fully understand. But no such luck. Signal strength here on Starfall was just strong enough to send Mina and Josh running for their rooms to complain to all their friends back in Arizona about their boring and grooooooss new home.

How he felt the depth of disappointment and disdain communicated by all those extra teenager O's.

"Dad!" Mina yelled from upstairs. "Josh took the good bedroom! He was supposed to take the last one on the right! He is in direct violation of a verbal agreement painstakingly negotiated while driving between Iowa and Ohio."

"The Iowa-Ohio Housing Agreement is rendered null and void by the fact that one party negotiated while unaware that the last bedroom on the right is painted pink with lace curtains!" Josh hollered back almost immediately after. "I'm all for fluidity in gender norms, but add to that the fact that the windows face east, meaning I will take a direct shot to the eye from the morning sun, the totality of disadvantages outweighs the goodwill earned by honoring the agreement! Besides, Mina sleeps like the dead. If she's stabbed in the eye by the solar system, she won't even feel it. I will!"

"It's not about the wall color or your fragile sleep cycle. Sleeping in the smaller bedroom on the left puts me at the disadvantage of having access to two electrical outlets, instead of four, which is why I negotiated for the blue bedroom in the first place! I have way more electronics than you, when you consider my hair-care routine, and therefore, I need more outlets! And the bookshelves, which will be of no use to you!" Mina screeched. "Your lack of foresight does not invalidate the agreement!"

From the safety of the dark, cold porch, Ben sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. Why was it that his kids used bigger words when they were cranky and tired? They sounded like underage college professors. He blamed private schools.

"Besides, more windows mean more sunlight, which means your corner of this icy hellscape will be warmer!" Mina cried.

Oh, Ben did not have it in him to explain that—unlike back in Arizona where sunlight turned any room into a pleasant greenhouse—windows did not make for a warmer room in Michigan. Windows only gave the cold air more places to creep in and make sleeping in three layers of clothing necessary.

"Guys, I told you there would be little problems like this when we moved into a house built in 1924," Ben called back. "Just live with it tonight and we'll fix it tomorrow when I can get it straightened out."

"Fine!" they yelled back in a unified tone that shouldn't have been possible, given the bickering.

Shivering into the coat he wasn't quite used to needing again, Ben shook his head. He should have known better than to think that the long drive and the excitement of an extremely bumpy boat ride over the newly thawed lake would tire them out enough to keep them from arguing as they moved into his parents' home, Gray Fern Cottage—a name that had always confused Ben. It wasn't as if there were many ferns in the yard. Most of those grew on the state-protected land on the other side of the island. But the Hoults had always been a proud, competitive bunch. He supposed the earlier Hoults thought that if their nearest neighbors, the Shaddows, had a house with a fancy-sounding name, they should, too. He figured the "cottage" bit was sort of self-deprecating, considering that the Hoult's shroud-gray house—while respectably spacious by most standards—was dwarfed by the enormity of Shaddow House.

"Dad, do I really have to share a bathroom with Josh?" Mina yelled from upstairs. "This is cruel and unusual!"

Sighing, Ben opened his favored shopping app and searched for power strips. And scotch. And then he remembered that shipping to Starfall Point was complicated by the fact that the island was only accessible by boat. There was no such thing as two-day shipping when you lived on Starfall. He would have to go to the hardware store the next day and hope for the best.

Even if Mina did deem sleeping on bedding used by the rental guests to also be grooooooss , Ben supposed it helped that they didn't really have to unpack or set up the house that night. The permanent move to Starfall wasn't going as he'd hoped, but somehow, exactly as he'd expected. His kids didn't know this place, the quirks of the island, the people, the house. The island was its own ecosystem with its own calendar and economy. And his kids were completely unprepared to negotiate any of it.

That was Ben's own fault. He'd let his ex-wife talk him into avoiding the island altogether after the kids were born. Isabelle hated sleeping in his parents' guest room when there was a perfectly good five-star hotel right there on the island. She hated the way locals treated Ben just like everybody else, good old Ben that they'd known since forever, and not "Dr. Benjamin Hoult." They didn't get the best tables in the island's restaurants. She couldn't throw his name around at the island's clubs because the island didn't have any. The best he could get for her on Starfall was a discount on fudge from as many shops as she wanted. Which she did not, because she was usually doing some low-carb thing. His now-late parents had retired to Florida and began renting the house out using a local property management company about ten years before, when Isabelle declared that they would just pay to fly the elder Hoults to visit them in Arizona .

"It's not like we can't afford it," she would huff, and Ben would just go along with it because it was easier than arguing. "Easier than arguing" had defined the last few years of his marriage, and Ben wasn't particularly proud of it.

So, if the kids were a little cranky settling into the house this first night, he was going to allow them all the squabbling room they needed. Even if it required scotch.

He was so caught up in his online search for liquid comfort—was the Starfall Party Store still open after all these years?—he almost didn't register the sound of boots crunching through the snow to his right.

Three women, bundled up against the cold, were carrying what looked like glass party trays up the sidewalk to Shaddow House. He couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but he definitely recognized the voice of the shorter woman in the Great Lakes Loons baseball cap. Then he heard the taller redhead say something about ghost locks. Maybe she was talking about a video game? Josh was always playing something called "Ghost Airlock IV" or "Blood Meerkat: The Revenge" or some such thing.

Caroline Wilton had never played so much as Super Mario Brothers in all the years he'd known and loved her. Then again, he hadn't spoken to her in almost twenty of those years, so what the hell did he know?

He had to handle this carefully. Caroline was known for her temper, and even though they'd parted in an expected, amicable way, that didn't mean she knew he was coming back to the island or she wanted to see him. Hell, he wasn't sure he wanted to see her right now, when he was tired as hell, smelled like a three-day road trip, and his teenagers could yell embarrassing nonsense from upstairs at any moment.

And yet, for some reason, his asshole brain chose this moment to break loose from his careful hold, and he blurted out, "Caroline?"

Dammit, Brain. You got me through residency, but you fail me now?

His brain had no excuses, only silence.

She was still stunning, Ben mused, all flyaway dark curls and moon-pale skin. He hadn't expected anything else really, even as he'd checked Starfall locals' social media many times over the years to catch a glimpse of her. She didn't seem to have any public accounts of her own, but he'd secretly hoped to see her in other people's photos. Now, he was glad he'd spared himself the torture. His eyes roamed over her figure, which had always been lush and curvy; her eyes, like smoked whiskey; her mouth with its distinct cupid's bow. Her mouth was something he'd always admired about her. Caroline Wilton had confidence.

"Ben!" she yelped, turning toward him, her eyes wide. She did not look happy to see him. In fact, she looked scared, as her eyes darted to a blond woman he didn't recognize and…was that Alice Seastairs? How were they out here, together, late at night, moving glassware and talking about video games? Why would Caroline be scared of him? And why did the air suddenly smell overwhelmingly like rancid blueberries? What was going on ?

And Ben's stupid brain, for some reason, communicated to his left hand that it was a good idea to lift up and wave awkwardly.

"What are you doing here?" Caroline asked, her shoulders relaxing ever so slightly when Alice— Alice , who was Caroline's polar opposite back in high school and wasn't remotely connected to her social orbit—jostled the glass she was carrying and stroked Caroline's arm.

"I'm, uh, moving back," he said. "Dr. Toller interviewed me for the open spot at the clinic about a month ago."

"Since when?" Caroline said, frowning. "How did I not hear about that?"

"It's probably not something Dr. Toller wanted to get around before everything was settled," Ben said. "Didn't want to get everybody's hopes up about getting a second doctor."

"Yeah, but the Rose is the hub of most information on the island," Caroline mused. "Am I missing out on the important news bulletins?"

"We have had other things going on," the blond lady murmured. Caroline grumbled under her breath.

Ben blinked at her. Why were he and Caroline talking about the intricacies of small-town life when they were seeing each other for the first time in twenty years? Why was she so unreadable? And why was she spending time with Alice Seastairs, who had never had time for anybody when they were kids?

"So, you're still working at the Rose?" Ben asked.

"What else do you think I would be doing?" Her eyes narrowed. There was a bitter edge to her voice, and he supposed he deserved it. He knew her circumstances. She'd always insisted she couldn't leave the island. And what else was she supposed to do on the island besides work at her family's bar?

"If you're OK, we'll just take this up to the house," the blond woman said quietly. "Don't want the, uh, squirrels to get antsy."

Ben frowned. That was a weird thing to say. The island's squirrels were tucked away in their little nests at this time of year. He didn't remember meeting this woman in his years on the island, and she was giving off strong "recent transplant" vibes. Maybe she wasn't aware of the winter sleeping habits of tiny Northern tree-bound mammals?

"Oh, uh, sorry." Caroline cleared her throat. "Ben, you remember Alice. And Riley, uh, this is Ben Hoult. Ben, Riley is your new neighbor at Shaddow House."

"Nora let you move in? You must be family," Ben marveled.

"She was," Riley said, her pleasant smile never wavering.

Oh, shit, Riley's aunt was dead.

Dammit, exhaustion brain .

In that moment, he felt a pang of loss for Nora Denton. She'd been an aloof neighbor, but not an unkind one. His mother, like most people on Starfall, had spent years trying to coax Nora into the island's social circles—i.e., the Nana Grapevine, a grassroots social network of the island's elderly ladies. Hell, Mom had even insisted there was some distant family connection, a great-great-great-grandmother who had married a Denton cousin or something.

While Nora was gracious, and thanked people sincerely for the Bundt cakes and the offers for coffee, she never reciprocated. She never invited people into the cavernous confines of Shaddow House. Ben's mother had theorized that Nora didn't have permission from her employers, the Shaddow family, to have guests in their home, with what the entire island population assumed was a hoard of valuable antiques collected during their world travels "being robber barons or what-have-you." The Dentons had served as Stewards, caretakers to the Shaddows' property for as long as anyone on Starfall could remember. If Nora had passed, Ben supposed that Riley had inherited the position.

The only relative Nora had, to Ben's knowledge, was her sister, Ellen, who had broken family tradition and moved off-island the moment she turned eighteen. Maybe Riley was Ellen's daughter? She had her aunt's dark-gold hair and gray eyes.

Ben shook off his distraction. Man, it had been a long day. "I'm sorry for your loss," he said. "My own parents passed a few years ago, so I'm not updated on the island news."

"It's all right," Riley assured him. "I didn't meet her while she was alive, myself. Wait, Ben ? The Ben? Oh, dang." Riley cast a wide-eyed and guilty look at Caroline. "Well, I'll just, um, go…that way. Far from this conversational awkwardness."

"Real smooth," Caroline muttered, smirking as Riley and Alice carted the glass pieces through the Shaddow gate. She turned her attention back to Ben. "Sorry if that was…weird. I wasn't expecting to see you, obviously."

"I can imagine. I wasn't expecting to see you tonight, either. I thought I would have time to adjust, I guess."

"Adjust, right, because you're going to be living here." Caroline blinked at him. "Long-term. Again. Great."

"So, uh, how have you been?" Ben said, rubbing at the back of his neck. He didn't know what else to say. I'm sorry? I know we said we wouldn't talk, but it feels like I failed you by not talking? I missed you? My life hasn't turned out the way I hoped, and I suspect it's the absence of you that was the root of it?

That was a reasonable amount of baggage to lay at someone's feet after twenty years, right?

"Dad, there's no internet!" Josh hollered from upstairs. "Mina, did you kill the internet on purpose?"

Ben's head dropped toward his chest. Of course, his children would decide to pipe up in this exact moment.

"There is internet, Josh, but it's unsecured Wi-Fi meant for the rental guests," Ben called back.

"Ew," Josh yelped. "I'm going to pretend you didn't say that!"

Caroline snorted but managed to cover it with a cough. That was kind of her. He and his spawn probably didn't deserve that.

"I have a technician coming to replace the system on Tuesday," Ben yelled.

"What are we supposed to do until then?" Mina demanded.

"Read a book?" Ben suggested.

"Ew!" Josh cried again, sounding truly offended.

"I accept your suggestion," Mina replied. "Particularly when laundry becomes an issue. You will wash your own smelly socks while I read."

Caroline burst out laughing now. And Ben's whole heart felt like it was going to a gooey caramel mush. He'd missed that sound so much, the music of it, the way she had dozens of different laughs, one for every occasion. Her whole face still lit up when she let any of them loose. That much hadn't changed.

"So." He jammed his hands into his pockets to keep from reaching out to touch her. He didn't have the right to do that. He jerked his head toward the house. "Those are my kids' disembodied voices."

Caroline snickered. "I'm sure they're charming when they've had some sleep and they haven't been hauled across the country."

"It will be an adjustment," he agreed.

"I'm just gonna…follow my friends," she said, jerking her head toward the front door of Shaddow House. He was struck with the bizarre urge to follow her, not to slake his lifelong curiosity about the house next door, but to keep this connection with Caroline. Seeing her again was like a balm to a wound he'd ignored for years: soothing, calm, comforting. He wasn't sure he deserved it, but he wanted it, selfishly, all the same.

But the kids were inside, and responsible parents did not abandon their children in the middle of the night on the same day that they moved into a strange house in a new place. His kids had been through enough.

Despite the frigid temperatures, the door was standing open. Ben could swear he could see the silhouette of a tall, thin man against the lights of Shaddow House, but it didn't look quite right…almost opaque?

Yeah, he needed to get some sleep.

***

Clark Graves's office was all subtle masculine dominance, dignified navy and beige, dark polished wood, classic lines—the office of a covert douche-nozzle.

Ben didn't want to be sitting in the "cozy" environs of Tanner, Moscovitz, and Graves, one of the island's few law firms. He didn't like Clark or his office or his face. The man oozed smarmy self-satisfaction, even in the emails they'd exchanged over the last few months, like he was assured that he was better, smarter, than anyone born on the tiny island. Like he was doing them all a favor by deigning to live there.

If he'd learned anything over his medical career, it was that better education didn't necessarily mean smarter. Look at Caroline. She'd never been able to leave the island for, well, family reasons, so college was never an option for her. And her mind moved with a swiftness that scared the hell out of Ben, even when they were kids.

Caroline.

He'd hoped to slowly reintroduce her into his system, thoughtfully and with great preparation—not that awkward, rushed "hi there" kick to the gut the night before. But what was done was done, what was kicked was kicked. And all Ben could think of was his next opportunity to see her.

None of these thoughts were helpful, he noted, and would not settle the business that he and Clark were meeting to discuss. And he wanted this meeting to be over as quickly as possible—and not just because of Clark. He was more nervous about leaving his kids unattended on the island than he had been in Arizona—and there had been rattlesnakes in Arizona. And scorpions.

"I'm sorry that we had to meet like this, Ben, but as you said in your last email, interactions between yourself and my client have broken down to the degree that unmediated communication no longer seems productive or advisable," Clark said, smiling that toothy grin meant to put Ben at ease. They were just a couple of guys sitting around, shooting the breeze. "Which is a lot of lawyer-speak for ‘I'm here to make sure everybody plays nice from here on out.'"

Ben gritted his own teeth at Clark's tone, like he was too dumb to understand that "unmediated communication" meant sorting out the total breakdown of Ben's relationship with the property management company that rented out Gray Fern Cottage. Martin Property Management was a sort of cadet branch of Martin & Martin Realtors, run by a nephew the family didn't trust with home sales.

"Your interactions with my client have devolved," Clark admitted. "Because of a series of misunderstandings. Perhaps Mr. Martin was a little…overzealous in his efforts to protect your property, which if you think about it, is a positive trait in someone who is renting your historic family home to strangers. If you would just put yourself in his place—"

"That's the problem. My place. Clifford Martin's not supposed to protect the property from me ," Ben told him. "He doesn't have the right to tell me when I can occupy my own family home. Look, I'm not interested in a prolonged discussion. I just want to sever the relationship with the company as quickly and cleanly as possible."

"Well, you have to admit that will be somewhat complicated by the fact that you have moved into the home in question," Clark noted.

And that was the point of contention between Ben and Clifford Martin. Using Clifford's services had made sense when Ben's parents put the house up for vacation rentals. Clifford collected rent on time, kept the house clean, even arranged for repairs that time a frat bro tried to ride a Jet Ski down the stairs. But over the years, it seemed that Clifford felt more ownership of the house, establishing increasingly stringent usage rules for renters and making them uncomfortable, resulting in poor online reviews. Rentals declined to the point where the house was empty on July Fourth weekend the previous summer. That had never happened in all the years since Ben's parents had moved.

When Ben saw the house sat unused on the island's busiest weekend of the summer, he'd asked himself, what was the point of renting it out? And then he wondered, what was the point of paying a mortgage on an expensive home in Arizona when he had a perfectly comfortable house on Starfall Point? Why not move his kids somewhere they could live a quieter, calmer life, and maybe even thrive? The idea took hold, and Ben started preparations to take his family home.

He had expected his ex-wife to be the one who made the move difficult, but while she barely raised an objection, it was Clifford who responded with a list of reasons why Ben should just stay in Arizona. While Clifford railed about the house's potential profitability and his own longtime dedication to it, Ben realized the objections boiled down to Gray Fern Cottage being the jewel of Martin & Martin's "rental crown." Clifford didn't want to lose bragging rights to that gem, to the point that when Ben informed him of the family's move-in date, Clifford yelled that Ben he had "no claim" to the house and hung up on him. From there, Ben was done.

So why was Clark pushing for Ben to stay in this unhealthy dynamic?

"There's no home ‘in question,'" Ben replied, his voice level. "I own the home, legally, free and clear. There's no question about it."

"A home that you have under contract with Martin Property Management until the end of the month," Clark reminded him.

"I used the company website to book all dates between our move-in and the end of the month, which is allowed by that contract," Ben replied, smiling. Clifford hadn't liked Ben using that particular loophole.

"And there's nothing we can do to persuade you to renew?" Clark asked. "After all, you may need Clifford's services again."

"That's not a consideration for me," Ben said. "Beside the fact that my children and I have become permanent residents of Starfall Point, I make it a policy not to recommit to untenable situations."

"That's funny, that's not what I'd been told." Clark's smile was banal, but there was a curdling edge to it, like he knew he was poking at an emotional bruise.

One of the better things about moving away from Starfall had been the anonymity. If Ben so much as sneezed at the grocery store as a kid, his mother asked about him having a cold by the time he walked home. Out in the world, no one knew anything about his life that he didn't want them to know, and that included the slow, painful disintegration of his marriage.

Ben should have seen it, the way Isabelle talked about him and his med-school plans, the way she'd planned his career path for him. The way the kids seemed more like accessories than children, accessories meant to cement their marriage when he'd started to wonder if they'd made a mistake. He'd never had reason to doubt her story about "accidentally" conceiving far before they'd originally planned to have their first child, but then she'd insisted on naming their daughter "Benjamina," just in case he had any inclination to leave. Things tilted toward the absurd years later when Josh was born. Isabella had actually suggested changing Mina's name to Belinda, after Ben's mother, so they might make their son a "junior."

That was how she saw the kids, and Ben himself. Impassive art pieces in the gallery of her life, without their own feelings about how she placed them.

Also, Ben was pretty sure that had been a joke on The Office , and he wasn't about to "Nard-Dog" his own child.

In the end, Isabelle had loved being a polished, presentable doctor's wife a lot more than she loved the not-quite-polished doctor himself. It was what kept their marriage on its legs long after the kids couldn't do it anymore, after the comfortable life they enjoyed couldn't do it. He might have attributed these thoughts—which he only uttered to himself alone, in the dark of night, with a bellyful of scotch—as the mental meanderings of a bitter divorcé, if not for the fact that she'd left him for the chief of surgery at another hospital, who also happened to be the heir to an old-school timber empire.

Ben supposed Isabelle had done him a favor, leaving him, and not dragging the kids along with her to her new life in Denver—giving him the excuse to move the family back to his hometown. Apparently, her new doctor didn't like the idea of having teenagers around that he wasn't directly obligated to like. It hurt the kids, at first, but Ben supposed that his ex had done them a favor, too, making her allegiances clear. It wasn't easy for a woman in her forties to catch a man like Tom Winthrop the Third, after all. Isabelle wasn't going to do anything to jeopardize this chance at "real happiness." She'd told Ben so multiple times when she'd signed primary custody over to him.

Did Clark actually know about any of this, or was he simply inferring? As an officer of the court, he would have access to records detailing Ben's divorce, but why would he bother digging them up? It seemed like overkill for what was supposed to be a routine business meeting. Maybe Clark was just plain nosy?

Given the way Clark was smirking at him…yeah, he knew something.

"It's easy to say you're moving back in the spring," Clark said. "You'll be back in Arizona when your kids have decided they don't want to live through a second winter here. They'd miss their mother, I would think. Kids need their mother, after all. And single fatherhood… I don't know if that's something someone with your low stress tolerance is cut out for."

Ben's left hand flexed at his side.

Nope, nope. Punching a lawyer was the very essence of stupid, and he was trying to serve as a non-stupid example to his children.

In the next room, Ben heard Norma Oviette gasp in indignation. Good. Her employer had said something shitty, and Ben hoped it got reported to the Nana Grapevine. There was no justice swifter than justice imposed by the Nana Grapevine.

"If it's a question of buying myself out of the remaining three weeks, I'm willing to do that," Ben said calmly. "But since we're being a stickler about contracts, I can't help but notice there's no provision for that, if there are no rentals pending."

Clark's smile faltered a bit. "No, there's not."

"So, I'll just present you with this letter, written by my own attorney at Wendlin, Archer, and Smith, officially severing my relationship with Martin Property Management and asking that any final deposits of funds be delivered within sixty days. After that, any contact should be directed through my attorney, even contact from you." Never mind that Ben's attorney was a former college roommate he'd called "Smitty," who'd been known for setting his own farts aflame. Smitty had grown quite a bit since then.

"So, you're requesting that I don't contact you, either?" Clark asked.

"Not in connection to anything to do with Martin Property Management or Clifford," Ben replied.

The unspoken "I'm OK with you not contacting me at all" hung between them like a fog of gingivitis breath.

"Have a nice day," Ben told him, before getting up from the chair and walking out.

"I was really sorry to hear you and your wife split up," Norma said quietly as he passed her desk. Norma had always been a kind lady, who pickled cucumbers she planted in her own yard, then shared them all winter. "But I think your youngsters are going to be happy here. Belinda always wanted them to come see her at the cottage."

"Thanks, Mrs. Oviette," Ben said, swallowing heavily at the mention of his mother.

"Oh, I think you can call me ‘Norma,'" she assured him.

He thought of Belinda Hoult, and what she would have thought of him calling a woman in her early sixties by her first name. "No, I don't think can."

Norma snorted, her deep-brown skin crinkling at the corners of her eyes. "You're a good boy."

Ben laughed, and as he moved toward the door, he glanced back into Clark's office. The fa?ade of the casually confident attorney about town was gone, and there was a reptilian anger glittering in Clark's eyes—icy and calculating. For a moment, Ben wondered whether he'd just made a mistake, provoking Clark Graves.

Opening the front door, Ben sucked in a breath as the frigid air enveloped him. And then he lost it all over again when he realized that Caroline was only a few feet away, walking toward the Main Square. She had a dark-blue knit hat pulled over her ears, and her cheeks were pinked by the wind, making her eyes sparkle like amber. His heart gave a little lurch of nostalgia mixed with longing. He was really going to have to get that under control.

Maybe he should just stay still? Like she wouldn't see him if he just didn't move.

It was really a bad sign when you started treating an ex-girlfriend like a T. rex, particularly when she'd done little to deserve dinosaur treatment.

Oh, no, she'd noticed him. And he was just standing still like an idiot involved in his own personal mannequin challenge.

And she was still looking at him.

"Um, Caroline, hi," he said.

She gave him a smile that was sort of shaky, like she wasn't sure how it was supposed to fit across her face. "Hey, Ben."

"Sorry about the awkward reintroduction last night, with the screaming kids and the confused friends and the…again, the screaming kids. That's just not how I thought that moment would go, seeing you after all these years. I always pictured me being alone with you…" He paused, his head dropping almost to his chest. "And when this moment played out in my head, I thought it would sound a lot less creepy."

She snorted, but she didn't say anything. And that wasn't good because the cruel part of his brain that felt the compulsion to fill awkward silence made him continue babbling. "I guess we're going to have to get used to this again, bumping into each other."

Her dark brows quirked up. "It's a small island, Ben. I can handle it if you can."

He held up his gloved hands. "Of course, of course. It's just that I got used to…not seeing you."

Her bowed mouth quirked downward. Because that was an incredibly stupid way for him to put it. Why would he want to not see her? He wanted to see her as much as possible. He wanted to talk to her, to find out what had happened in her life over the last two decades because the life he'd built hadn't allowed him that sort of indulgence.

"Not that it's a bad thing, to see you. It's a good thing," he insisted. "I'm just getting used to the idea that I could run into you at any moment."

Her expression shifted into vaguely offended. "Because you think I'm going to be following you around or something?"

Ben shook his head. "No, no, I just meant…"

The phone in his pocket rang. Mina's number was scrolling across the screen when he took it out. "It's my daughter. Hold on just one second."

"That's fine. I need to get to work," she said, giving him a discomfited little wave.

As his phone continued to ring, he watched her carefully walk the icy sidewalk toward the public library. He swiped a hand over his face. He had faced down actual medical inquisitions and hadn't been this shaken up.

Across the street, he saw a dark shadowy figure in a long cloak step behind the Starfall Community Theater building. As cold as it got in the winter here, he'd never seen someone wear an actual cloak. Maybe it was part of some production at the theater?

But the theater only did summer shows.

Weird.