Page 24 of The Candlemaker

I smiled, the wordsalmonon the tip of my tongue.

“After you,” Chandler murmured, and his voice put a chink in my charade.

“I’ll have the filet.” I shoved my menu back in Marty’s direction and reached for my wine. As Chandler ordered, I smelled the deep red again and took a sip, sneaking a glance at him over the rim of my glass.

What was his game? His plan? Why invite Lou to dinner if he knew who she was—and what she wanted from him?

“What do you think?” he asked, and I stared, my mind suddenly blank. “Of the wine.” He nodded his chin toward my glass.

“Oh, it’s good,” I rushed to assure him, locking my gaze on my glass as I returned it to the table. “Very good.” I slid my tongue over my lips to get the last of the taste, and I swore I heard a low noise from his side of the table, but when I looked, he was adjusting his napkin on his lap.

“This is a nice spot. A nice ambiance.”

Even though most of the tables were filled, the hum of the conversation was quiet, making it easy to ignore—to forget there was anyone else in the room except us.

“Yeah,” I agreed, and then latched onto the opportunity. “Pete and Carole did a really nice job with the renovation.”

“You know the owners?”

“Of course.” I started to smile wide, but quickly curtailed it with a sip of wine. Lou’s glasses were already making me feel tipsy, but it was the only sure way to not look too long at him. Every time our eyes connected, I felt a spark, and I knew enough about fire to know that too many sparks led to a flame. “Charlotte, the girl who seated us, is their niece. Their daughter, Jenny, works as a waitress here, and her husband is in the kitchen.”

“Oh?” He seemed genuinely surprised—as though the only kind of mom-and-pop restaurant was a hole-in-the-wall tavern or tacky diner.

I pointed across the room to the painting on the wall nearthe hostess stand. “That’s Carole’s great-great-grandparents. The way she tells it, her great-great-grandmother was the daughter of a farmer, and her great-great-grandfather was the son of a butcher, and that was how they met.”

“Over a love of red meat.”

I nodded, a small smile bursting on my lips that I couldn’t stop.This is why I didn’t pretend to be Lou.“That painting is of their original farm, a few miles outside town. And that one there is of their first restaurant before it burned down.” One by one, I walked him through the artwork on the walls; what came off as fine art to the unknowing eye of a stranger was really a history—a legacy nailed to the very walls. “And there is one of the first paintings of the Friendship Lighthouse. Unsigned, but legend has it that it was painted by John Trumbull.”

“Wow,” he said with a low tone, his gaze rising and sinking from one painting to another, staring like it was more than the paintings he saw.

Because it was more.

“Friendship might look like just one more of those iconic coastal towns dotting the shore, but there’s a lot of history here. Community. Family,” I went on quietly, adding, “Memories.”

He listened and continued to look around, the expression on his face shifting to something I couldn’t immediately decipher. Was it sadness?No, not quite.I bit into my bottom lip. Was it hope?No, it wasn’t that either.Regret?That didn’t even make sense—not for the man trying to sell out and sell off a piece of that community to a condo developer.

“And it’s something that all of us who live here try…and fight…to preserve.”

As soon as I said the word “fight,” his gaze snapped back to mine. I reached for my wine glass—a dangerous crutch in this game—but I didn’t have a choice. When his smoked whiskeyeyes settled on me, it was as though he saw right behind the mask. Except there was no mask. It was my face. My sister’s face.We were identical.

Chandler cleared his throat. “Your sister mentioned this place had a history, but I had no idea.”

I stilled.Me.He was talking about me.Was it because he realized who I was?No, that couldn’t be it. He’d known us for a collective couple of hours; there was no possible way for him to think I was…me. In the back of my mind, the little voice in my head said that if Lou and I had attempted switches like this before, I wouldn’t be so nervous about this now.

And I definitely should move on. Change topics. I shouldn’t probe—I shouldn’t risk.

Don’tdoit. Don’tdoit.

“You talked to Frankie?” This wasn’t what I was here to discuss—Iwasn’t supposed to be part of this night at all. But Lou would be curious—she would do anything to avoid talking about herself.

Marty returned then with our meals, the table suddenly filled with perfectly cooked steak, asparagus, and three different kinds of potato sides. I couldn’t help as I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, every scent stitching this scene to my memory. And then Marty asked if I’d like my wine glass refilled, and I answered yes before I could think better of it.I’d already had a full glass on a mostly empty stomach.

As soon as he left, I cut into my steak, fearing the conversation he’d interrupted wouldn’t pick up again; it was probably better that way?—

“I stopped by her candle store yesterday to pick up a gift.”

My heart thudded, and it was a miracle I didn’t choke on my food.

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