Page 82 of Sirens
Maggie’s soft red sweater peeked from beneath her black wool peacoat, teasing the strawberry notes in her hair and advertising her scarlet quilted leather Gold Coast Kate Spade bag. Trent had taken the fact that his crimson pocket square sort of matched as some kind of cosmic sign the night would go well.
Thattheywould go well…
Together.
Slow your roll, McGarvey.
“Know what I learned last year?” he began, his eyes flicking toward the distant lighthouse with its scarlet light shining like a beacon. “That the first Ethan Townsend bought the red lighthouse Fresnel lens from a special glassmaker in Antwerp. It’s written in the town bylaws that it be used every year on Valentine’s Day to light the Love Fest.” He glanced at Maggie for her reaction, curious to see if this little tidbit of local history would pique her interest.
“Really?” she asked, her voice lacking its usual spark. She looked at the lighthouse too, but her gaze seemed unfocused, distant.
“Yep,” Trent continued, trying to engage her. “He wanted it to be seen all the way from the Canadian fort on Victoria Island, especially from Lonely Cove. He wrote that it was his way of sending friendship and fealty across the sound.”
“Interesting,” she said quietly, but her distant look remained.
A pang of concern lanced Trent through the guts.
The aroma of fried donuts and kettle corn twisted his stomach, and he tucked Maggie under his arm. “I’m hungry. Want anything?”
She hummed noncommittally beside him, her usually vibrant eyes dulled, as if the crimson pall of light from the lighthouse cast a shadow rather than its intended warm glow. She was there, but not quite present, her mind meandering through some internal maze.
He gave her shoulders a squeeze. “You’ve been quiet all night. What’s going on in that beautiful mind of yours?”
“Just thinking.” She rubbed her arms. “It’s nothing.”
Liar.Maggie couldn’t hide from him any more than he could mask the concern gnawing his gut. “Come on. I’m not buying it.”
She sighed, tearing her gaze from the lighthouse to meet his eyes. “Or maybe I’m thinking about everything? I don’t know.”
“Like what?” he asked cautiously, trying to understand her internal struggle. They had been moving fast since their initial attraction to each other; maybe she was starting to doubt their compatibility. Maybe she was worried about her job. Her performance on the podcast.
What happenedafter?
That was where his thoughts kept snagging. What happened to them when her show was finished?
“It’s hard to… I haven’t figured out how to put words to it just yet. Is that okay?” Maggie’s voice was a whisper lost to the wind.
Trent grimaced. He supposed theywerean odd pair—she a tornado of curiosity and defiance, whisking through life’s conventions; he a man who ironed his socks and arranged his books by color. Then subcategories like alphabet, chronology, and, of course, series.
It was hard not to notice how Maggie’s attention drifted back to the lighthouse, how her fingers fiddled with the hem of her vintage coat instead of tapping along to the beat of the music.
“Imagine being so sure about something, you’d want it to outlast you,” she mused, her gaze unfocused. “To know thatthisisn’t a part of your life, but you are a part oftheirlife. That’s something…”
Trent watched as she absent-mindedly twirled a lock of hair around her finger. He knew he had to do something to lift her spirits, and fast.
A mischievous grin spread across his face as an idea struck him. “You know, Ethan Townsend used to be the sheriff before— Uh—well, anyways…” Now didn’t seem like the time to bring up his boss. “His full name is some ridiculously olde-world white-boy shit like Ethan Reginald Haverford Aristocratic Butthole Townsend the Fourth.”
That seemed to pull her from the deep lake of her thoughts to the surface.
“That’s not his real name.” She chuckled wryly.
“No, but the fact that he was thefourthEthan Townsend is exactly the point. The first Ethan Townsend being ofthislighthouse fame. Ethan Townsend, thefirst, was more than a man who owned half this town once upon a time. He was a romantic. Why else would he install the red lens into the lighthouse and father this February festival in the winter off-season?”
“A shameless grab for tourist dollars during the most dismal month on the coast?”
Who was the cynical one now? Trent frowned. He didn’t like this change in their dynamic one bit.
“Hey,” he said, nudging her gently with his shoulder, “you’re not already plotting your escape to Boston after this investigation, are you?”
