Page 1 of Sometimes You Stay

One

Lucretia Martin wasn’t willing to call a single corner of the world home. At least not for more than a few days.

And she would know. She’d seen nearly every tourist trap and secret alley of every city worth visiting. She’d eaten croissants at the coziest Paris café and sipped tea from vendors in a bustling Turkish bazaar. She’d seen the Colosseum lit up at night and Machu Picchu on an unusually sunny day.

She’d seen the most amazing things the world had to offer, and none of them had tempted her to stay put.

But the view of North Rustico Harbour on her phone’s screen as she panned across the landscape was almost enough to change her mind.

Almost, but only that.

She had to admit the quaint and colorful buildings on the far side of the bay held a certain appeal, beautiful and soothing. The rich green pine trees overlooking the water surrounded her with their spicy scent as the whisper of the waves lulled her into a sense of calm. Maybe it was a false feeling of peace, but she leaned into it anyway.

She had no problem understanding how someone might decide to settle here. For a time.

Cretia inhaled from deep in her chest, dragging in the salt-tinged air as the sun caressed her face. The late spring breeze off the harbor cut through her sweater and whipped her hair in front of her eyes, far too much for a good selfie. But the weather was perfect for capturing the swaying branches of the trees that lined the sun-bleached boardwalk, which wrapped around the rolling blue water.

Her phone on a stabilizing arm, she panned across the weather-beaten businesses. Bright yellow and blue paint chipped off the wooden walls, evident even at this distance. Turning slowly, she caught the row of houses beyond the bluff across from where she stood. With a quick spin, she captured the embankment dotted with pink and purple wildflowers. They bobbed and danced and stretched toward the water.

Feeling that same tug, Cretia hopped off the gray boards onto a short dirt path. It couldn’t even be ten feet long and ended at a cement bench. When she peered over the edge, she paused. She’d never seen purple water. Perfect emerald green? Stunning blue? Yes. She’d seen the shorelines that made the postcards on almost every continent.

But purple?

She checked her screen to make sure it captured the way the blue water mixed with the red earth beneath it.

Suddenly the wind gave her a shove, and she nearly took a step forward to catch her balance. A step that would have taken her right over the edge and five feet down into the water.

Scrambling back, she chided herself. “Careful there, Cretia.”

She didn’t have time to waste cleaning up after a spill likethat. She knew from experience that a clothed dip in the ocean would take up far too much of her limited time on Prince Edward Island. She needed to spend her days exploring and recording the island’s beauty, not searching out a laundromat and waiting for her clothes to be cleaned.

After her first accidental dive into the French Riviera, she’d decided to let her clothes just dry and then packed them with the rest of her clean clothes before moving on. Big mistake. Everything in her suitcase had taken on a decidedly fishy smell.

After that fiasco, she’d discovered the joys of hotels that offered laundry service. But her trip to PEI was short enough that she hadn’t bothered to book a hotel with that particular amenity.

Better to stay on dry land.

Stepping back from the edge, she lowered her phone and spent a moment just enjoying the breeze on her face. Temps back in Arizona would be pushing a hundred already, but the late April weather on PEI was barely warm, still a hint in the wind of the cold the island had survived that winter.

She had some good footage of the area now. When she returned to her hotel room in Charlottetown that night, she’d put it together with a voice-over. Not that she’d think too much about that yet.

She tended to do better without a script anyway, describing the way this place made her feel, explaining how the woman in the seat next to her on the flight into Charlottetown had been from North Rustico. Ginger had gone on and on about how lovely the area was. Though it hadn’t been on her original itinerary, Cretia quickly added this section of the north shore—part of an island that a lot of people thought was merely fictional.

She couldn’t have been the only child who’d thought Anne’s world of Prince Edward Island was too idyllic to be real. And with a little searching, she might just find out she’d been right. No place could be that perfect.

She wasn’t looking for the island’s seedy underbelly or anything. Her followers weren’t interested in dark and depressing. They wanted a real-life look at places they hadn’t heard of or considered visiting. They wanted unexpected experiences and gorgeous views.

And so far, PEI was shaping up to offer a lot of gorgeous views.

It all seemed ... well, like when she’d read Anne’s story as a child and dreamed that she’d be sent to live with Marilla and Matthew. It was just that. A dream. Too good to be true.

She would only be on the island for two days, so she’d have to get moving if she was going to find the unexpected. Opening her carry-on, she tucked her stabilizing arm into it beside her tripod and other equipment. While she’d parked about half a mile away, she’d wanted to have easy access to her gear. Toting her lightweight rolling bag made that easy.

After shoving her phone into her backpack and slinging it over one shoulder, she grabbed her bag’s extended handle and strode toward the boardwalk. It was only a few feet of dirt between the bench and the even gray planks, but the toe of her shoe managed to catch a tree root, and she hissed as her ankle twisted.

She tried to put some weight on her foot, but fire shot up her leg, and she jerked her knee up. Taking a few deep breaths, she rubbed at the bare skin between her slip-on sneaker and the cropped hem of her jeans.

It didn’t seem swollen, but even a little pressure felt like a hammer to her ankle.

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