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go bad for her.
    Her phone buzzed. It was Leah Sullivan, pastry chef and Ali’s closest friend in town. “Hey,” Ali said, going for chipper.
    “You okay?” Leah asked.
    “Yep,” Ali said. “Totally okay.”
    Leah, a wanderlust soul, was friendly and curious and funny as hell. She seemed to have a knack for recognizing bullshit. “You’re lying.”
    “A little,” Ali admitted.
    Leah sighed. They hadn’t been friends that long, Leah was only in town to run her grandma’s bakery while the older woman recovered from knee surgery, but some things didn’t take any time at all.
    “Men are scum,” Leah said. “Even cute Ted Marshall apparently.”
    “How is this already news?”
    “There was a sighting of Ted carrying boxes into a rental duplex. So you’re still at the house?”
    “Yes,” Ali said, not mentioning that she was only staying for one more night. She didn’t want to worry or burden Leah, who’d just recently come back to Lucky Harbor after a long stretch away. She worked in the bakery in the same building as Ali, which was how they’d become friends. But Leah was only here to help her grandma, and was staying in her grandma’s tiny place. Leah would insist Ali join them, but Ali wouldn’t impose.
    “I’ve got fresh éclairs,” Leah said. “Excellent breakup food.”
    “Definitely. I’ll come by later,” Ali said and clicked off. She could go to her mom’s and sister’s. White Center wasn’t that far, a couple of hours, and Mimi and Harper would welcome her with open arms. But she’d left them and come here for a new start, to make something of herself, dammit.
    She had other friends, but no one close enough to barge in on. Pensive over the realization that her life wasn’t exactly going in the carefree, fun direction she’d hoped, she finished watering the plants. It was quiet in the house in spite of the big, brooding guy in it. Eerily quiet. She put the watering pitcher back under the kitchen sink and then sagged a little in the silence.
    She didn’t have to leave right now, but the fact remained that this was his home now.
    Not hers.
    She had no real home. This wasn’t exactly a new feeling, but she hated that unsettled spot in her gut, and her fingers itched for a clump of cool, wet clay, which always soothed her. She might have gone out to the garage, where she’d set up a little workstation for herself, but the house phone rang again. She answered to another reporter and gave the same spiel that she’d given the first, but more firmly.
    She’d seen something in Luke’s eyes, a hollowness that she understood. Clearly he’d escaped to Lucky Harbor for some peace and quiet, and she was willing to fight for it for him. It was the least she could do to earn her keep.
      
    Ali woke up on Sunday morning to a silent house. Luke’s truck was still out front, so she assumed he was still sleeping.
    She didn’t have that luxury. She had a class to teach at the senior center and a life to figure out.
    First up: breakfast. If her life was going to hell in a handbasket, well then she was going on a full stomach. In the kitchen, she pulled out the makings for two omelets. She cooked and then inhaled one while standing on the back deck. From here, she could see down the steep stairs to the house’s private dock below, which jutted out into the water. She stared at the churning swells, lost in thought.
    And worry.
    And anxiety.
    And lingering temper.
    A movement caught her eye. There was a wiry-looking guy trying to get into the bushes along the side of the house. He had a camera in one hand and a cell phone in the other, which he was waving wildly about, trying to shoo something.
    Narrowing her eyes, Ali moved closer. “Who are you?” she demanded.
    He’d disturbed a few bees, and they were on him. The guy dropped to the ground, losing both his camera and his phone. “You have kamikaze bees!”
    Clearly not a local. “Where are you from?” she asked.
    He came up to his