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beach.
    â€œWhat could we have done differently?”
    â€œTalked, maybe. Instead of always assuming we already knew what the other was thinking or feeling and proceeding from there.”
    â€œTalked,” Joanna mused. “Tell me about your boat, Teague. The one you want to build.”
    â€œYou hate boats. They make you claustrophobic and seasick,” Teague reminded her.
    She smiled. “True,” she said. “But talking about them is not the same thing as spending weeks at sea.”
    â€œWeeks at sea?” Teague echoed, confused.
    â€œAren’t you planning to sail around the Horn or something?”
    He chuckled, though whether it was because her question had amused him or because Sammy was nudging him in the knees with the stick, wanting him to toss it again, Joanna had no way of knowing.
    So she waited, strangely breathless.
    â€œNo,” Teague finally said after throwing the stick, a little farther this time, and watching as Sammy raced after it. “I just want to go fishing.”
    â€œThen why not simply buy a boat?” Joanna asked. “Why go to all the trouble of building one?”
    â€œFor the experience, Joanna,” Teague answered. “I’m used to building things. Caitlin’s backyard playhouse. The dog steps in there by the window seat. The company.”
    â€œOh,” Joanna said. “I guess I pictured you sailing the high seas.”
    Sammy came back with the stick, but he was tiring. He wasn’t used to running along beaches anymore.
    Teague spotted a fallen log a little way down the beach and led Joanna there to sit. Sammy lay down gratefully in the sand, panting but still holding on to his treasured stick.
    â€œYou pictured me sailing the high seas,” Teague said, gazing out over the waters of the sound, so tranquil now, so dangerously stormy the night before. He looked sadly amused. “No doubt with a long-legged blonde for a first mate?”
    Joanna hesitated, then let her head rest against the side of Teague’s shoulder for a long moment. “And the whole time, you were imagining a dinghy a hundred yards from shore?”
    â€œPretty much,” Teague said.
    â€œI should have asked you.”
    â€œI should have told you, whether you asked or not.” Teague slipped an arm around Joanna and held her close for a moment. “Are we still pretending right now, Joanna,” he asked, “or is this real?”
    â€œI’m not sure,” Joanna said softly.
    â€œMe, either,” Teague admitted. He leaned to stroke Sammy’s mist-dampened back. “I’m not sure of much of anything right now.”
    â€œNeither am I.”
    â€œTell me about the novel.”
    â€œIt would be about a marriage. A young couple falling in love, having a child, building a wonderful life together—and growing apart in ordinary ways. Becoming strangers to each other.”
    â€œYou forgot about the golden retriever they adopted at the pound,” Teague said, with an attempt at a grin that pierced Joanna’s heart again.
    â€œOh, I didn’t forget that,” Joanna answered.
    â€œWill they break up, these people in your book? Or will they work things out?” He was looking deep into her eyes now, peeling back the layers of her very soul. “Stay together for the sake of the dog, maybe?”
    Joanna chuckled, but it came out sounding more like a sob. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe it’s too late for them. Maybe it would be better—kinder—to just cut their losses and run.”
    Sammy had recovered after his brief rest and got to his feet, eager to chase the stick again.
    Teague let his arm fall slowly from around Joanna’s shoulders and stood, Sammy’s stick in his hand. “Time to head back,” he told the dog. “You don’t want to overdo it, boy.”
    Joanna rose, too, reluctantly. She’d wanted so much to hold on to the