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paved pathways leading out from it like rays of light from a star. Miles hustled them up the steps and into the hexagonal, open-sided building just as the sky opened up and poured rain down on the island.
    Gasping, Greta leaned on the white wooden railing and stuck her hand out to feel the cooling sting of fat raindrops on her bare skin. “How did you know it was about to start raining?”
    “I didn’t.”
    He sounded genuinely aggravated, as if he hated admitting that he didn’t have perfect foreknowledge of everything that would happen.
    Greta laughed over her shoulder at him, then turned to prop her hips on the low railing and stretch her legs out in front of her. “Well, we’re stuck here now until the rain lets up. Shouldn’t be too long. These summer storms blow over in a heartbeat.”
    Another sheet of rain fountained over the gazebo’s roof, loud enough to drown out her last few words. The rain formed an impenetrable veil around the pavilion, enclosing Greta and Miles in their own private world made of white noise and fine mist.
    Absently wringing water from the sodden hem of her tank top, Greta felt her breath catch at the soft, rough sound that rumbled from deep in Miles’s chest. She dropped her hands, tugging the shirt down self-consciously, but it was too late.
    Miles had already seen it.
    Without even meaning to, Greta pressed her hand defensively over the short scar that curved over her left hip. No longer than three inches, pale with age, she knew intellectually that it wasn’t a hideous, deforming mark.
    But try telling that to the weak, scared, seventeen-year-old who still lived somewhere inside Greta.
    She tensed against the inevitable question. All through high school, and after, if she ever encountered the rare person on Sanctuary Island who didn’t already know everything that happened to Greta Hackley when she was a kid, one look at her scar was all it took for that person to feel they had a right to ask.
    Sometimes people would reach out and touch it, almost unconsciously, as if the fact that there was visible proof of her past pain made it public property.
    But Miles didn’t move one inch closer to her. Instead, he lowered himself to sit on the bench that ran along the back of the gazebo, hooking his elbows over the railing. He said not a word, asked no questions, didn’t imply in any way that she was obligated to spill her entire life history to explain the scar on her abdomen.
    The very fact that he didn’t push made her want to tell him. And why not? It wasn’t some horrible secret. Everyone on the island already knew, anyway. What was one more person who looked at her and saw an invalid, a victim, a weakling to protect?
    If Miles Harrington was going to look at her that way, with that horrid, soft pity she hated so much … better to find out now.
    “I was sick a lot, as a kid.” Greta pitched her voice to be heard over the rain, but it still came out low and private. Clearing her throat, she pressed on. “In and out of the hospital, lots of different doctors. They finally figured out it was chronic kidney disease, which would have meant lifelong dialysis just to manage the symptoms—but my mom gave me one of her kidneys when I was seventeen. And now we’re both fine.”
    For a long moment, there was no sound but the incessant roar of raindrops hitting the gazebo roof. Greta searched Miles’s expression for any change, any hint of pity, but other than a slight tightening of his jaw, he didn’t react at all.
    “I see. Thank you for telling me. It explains a lot.”
    Greta bristled, straightening up from her slouch against the railing. “What do you mean? What does it explain?”
    Apparently oblivious to Greta’s rising tension, Miles tipped his head back until droplets of rain misted his hairline. “That disagreement with your mother, about how careful you need to be.”
    Even though he hadn’t actually criticized her mother, Greta found herself leaping to Esther’s