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particularly down. He told her he was at the coffee shop around the corner and was coming by to pick her up and take her up to Blueberry Acres for the weekend. Five minutes later he knocked on her front door. She tried to put on a brave face but quickly fell into his arms, sobbing, and let him take her home.
    Doc had discovered Blueberry Acres, a twenty-five-acre farm off the Coastal Loop just outside of Cape Willington, during one of his long drives along the coast a few weeks after Holly died. He and Holly had looked for a place just like this for years, and he knew as soon as he saw it that this was exactly what he had sought for so long. At first he had hesitated in making such a big change, which involved leaving teaching and taking up a career as a gentleman farmer. He questioned whether it was wise to make a decision of that magnitude when he was in such an emotional state. But in the end Candy had convinced him that it was the right way to go. He loved the farming life immensely—but he realized only after he moved in just how much work the place needed, and had been picking at it as best he could ever since. Still, at times it seemed to overwhelm him.
    Candy had visited the farm many times before, but during that weekend stay after Doc had come down and rescued her, she began to see the place in a new light, and the idea of a permanent change for her as well took shape quickly in her mind. She knew Doc could use her help. She knew she could use a change. It hadn’t been a difficult decision.
    So Doc drove her back to Boston, they cleaned out her apartment, and without looking back, she moved to a blueberry farm in Downeast Maine.
    Now they had just over fifteen acres of the lowbush wild blueberries that were native only to this farnortheastern corner of the country, and they were planning, in the next year or so, to push back the thin piney woods that edged their property even farther to open up a few more acres. They also had half an acre of vegetables, a small herb garden, and various flower beds around the property, as well as the chicken coop behind the barn. They had talked about adding more—a few farm animals, a larger vegetable garden—but decided to keep things manageable, at least for the time being.
    It was a good life, a simple life, and it had been her salvation, Candy thought as she headed back to the barn to check on Ray. She and Doc had been through a lot, but the farm had healed them both. Right now, she couldn’t imagine living any other place on earth than right here, on Blueberry Acres in Cape Willington in Downeast Maine, just a mile or so from the sea.

FIVE

    When she walked back into the barn, Ray was cursing.
    “What’s wrong?” Candy asked.
    But he didn’t have to answer. She saw the problem instantly—he had put the hinges on backwards, so the sides of the booth folded the wrong way.
    “I’m sorry, Miss Candy,” he said, his eyes bright with held-back tears and his hands trembling. “I just got ahead of myself and wasn’t thinking.”
    Candy sighed and set the basket of eggs on a sideboard. “It’s okay, Ray. Come on, I’ll help you fix it.”
    Working together, they unscrewed the hinges and got the sides on the right way. Then, while Ray set to work on the shelves on the back of the front piece, Candy took up Ray’s hammer to nail brackets onto the ends of the crossbeams, so they could be easily attached to the tops of the side pieces.
    Candy wasn’t the handiest person on the planet, and she swung the hammer wildly at the nails, missing the flat heads more than a few times and swearing under her breath as she pounded away. But she got the damned nails down into the damned wood without hitting herself on the thumb or fingers, which was good enough for her.
    She had two of the brackets on and was reaching for a third when she realized Ray wasn’t doing anything. Looking up, she saw that he was frozen, staring at her.
    Her brows knitted together in annoyance. “What’s