Cricket—Evie—faced him but remained at the door. Her hands hung straight at her sides, balled up into fists. Her eyes darted around the motel courtyard, almost as if she expected someone to jump from the bushes.
“Please come sit.” Clancy patted the concrete bench under a loblolly pine, just outside of the range of the security light.
She had changed from the revealing pajama shorts and was now covered head to toe. Despite the humidity, she wore a baggy pair of jeans and a too-big—brand-new—Indiana University hoodie sweatshirt. Clancy didn’t know what the hell she was up to, but he had to give her points for choosing a story and sticking to it.
“How’s your nephew?”
She frowned, pulling her mouth tight. She tried not to look at him but kept returning her gaze to his, expecting the worst. She was afraid of him, for some reason.
“He’s fine.”
Evelyn glanced down at the ground and Clancy did the same. She’d ditched the sport sandals for a pair of top-of-the-line Asics running shoes, a model he’d seen on many women athletes. It was difficult to be sure in the limited light, but they certainly didn’t appear as new as the sweatshirt.
“I should probably go.”
“Who was harassing you?”
“What?” Her head snapped up.
“At the door. You were about to call the police, remember?”
“Oh!” She brightened up. “You know, uh, it was just the Mormons.”
Clancy couldn’t hold back his laugh. “Yeah, they’re a rough crowd. Our jail is pretty much wall-to-wall Mormons as we speak.”
She burst out laughing, then turned her face away to hide the one honest thing she’d shared with him in the last eighteen years. Score. Clancy made her laugh! And, oh, did he remember that laugh.
She faced him again, embarrassed. She was adorable. How could he have not known her the second she stepped off the ferry? Those eyes—such a pale, ethereal green curtained with dark lashes. As a clueless adolescent, he’d been mesmerized by those eyes. And as a grown-ass cop, he was still mesmerized, still defenseless when it came to her.
As a reflex, he let his eyes travel down to her mouth, pink and full. He wanted to kiss her. Just one more time.
“I need to go.”
He smiled at her. “Do you still wear sundresses?”
Her eyes widened.
“You looked so beautiful in that yellow dress, but those shoes . . . I never liked those plastic shoes.” With that, Clancy reached into his pocket and pulled out the photograph.
She arched away from him, holding on to the edge of the bench. He could see her chest rise and fall.
“It’s good to see you again, Evie.” He kept his voice gentle, not wanting to cause her to freak out any more than she already was. But why was she? “Please tell me what’s going on, okay? I just want to understand why you took all the trouble to come back to Bayberry Island, and then didn’t want me to know it was you. You are literally hiding from me.”
Her body tightened, but she responded as casually as if he’d just asked her to pass the salt. “Sorry, but I’m not following you.”
Clancy laughed softly at her stubbornness. “Okay. I’ll make it real easy. You were here the summer we were both fourteen. I fell in love with you.”
She blinked. Evie leaned in, took the photograph, and studied it, the faintest tremble visible in her hand. “That’s pretty interesting. I mean, the girl does kind of look like me, doesn’t she? A little bit, anyway. Her eyebrows are completely different, though.”