“Is your electricity from a generator?”

Anahera shook her head. “My mother had the lines put in when she was living here.” Her smile faded. “I asked the electricity company to turn the lights back on and everything seems to work. But I’m not chancing using the stove or oven yet.”

She’d lifted the pot of pasta and taken it to the table before he realized her intent. “Come on, let’s eat.”

Will picked up the wine bottle and his mug of coffee, then walked over to join her. After putting both on the table, he went and removed his sodden shirt from the back of the chair, leaving the garment spread out on the floor in front of the fire.

As he moved the chair back to the table, Anahera picked up a loaf of French bread from the counter. “Courtesy of Josie again.” The smile was in her voice. “She says she didn’t sell it at the café today, had Tom pass it to me at the volunteer meeting. I think she’s afraid I’ll starve myself out of grief if she doesn’t make sure I’m fed.”

Tearing the long loaf in half, she placed one half on the cutting board she’d put on the table beside the pot of pasta, then broke the other half into quarters. She took one quarter and bit into it, as if in silent repudiation of her friend’s assessment.

Will had seen grief manifested a hundred different ways: in the movies, they liked to show people weeping and wailing or going numb and collapsing. But the truth wasn’t always so simple. Some people got angry.

Like Anahera.

The cop ate quietly, Anahera thought. Methodically. As if it was a task that had to be completed, as if the taste of the food meant nothing to him. Anahera might’ve been insulted except that she knew she was a good cook even when limited to packet sauce and the basic spices she’d picked up at the Lees’ supermarket.

However, she had the feeling she could’ve put a cordon bleu meal in front of the cop and he’d have eaten it the same way. This wasn’t a man who took time to enjoy the small pleasures of life.

Had he been born like that, or had life changed him, made him into this?

If she had to guess, she’d say the latter. No one was born without the capacity for joy in the soul. Life leached it out of them, drop by drop.

Lifting up her glass, she took a deliberate sip of the wine. The smell of alcohol used to make her throw up, but she’d refused to be held hostage to the past and to her father’s addictions. So she’d taught herself to enjoy it as it was meant to be -enjoyed—-in small doses.

Edward had helped; he’d introduced her to a whole new world of fine wines and decadent cocktails. Before that, all she’d known was the cheap plonk you could get down at the local supermarket. But no matter how good the wine, Anahera had never felt the desire to overindulge. To do so would be to spit on her mother’s ashes and that was the one thing Anahera would never do.

“This is really good.” Will’s voice was steady, his eyes watchful.

Anahera was -near--certain he was trying to make the kind of conversation he thought he should make. “You eat like it’s fuel,” she said, her tolerance for bullshit at an -all--time low. “Are you sure you even tasted it?”

The face that looked back at her wasn’t expressionless as much as opaque. Controlled. Probably a good skill to cultivate when you were in a line of work that involved interrogating suspects. “I tasted it,” he said evenly.

But Anahera was no longer thinking about the food. “Am I a suspect?” It wasn’t something she’d considered, given how recently she’d returned to Golden Cove, but by that same token, Will didn’t know her, had no reason to rule her out. “Is that why you asked me to watch people and report back? So you could compare my report with someone else’s and see if I lied?”

He held her gaze with the flinty, unforgiving gray of his. His eyes reminded her of the ocean on a perfectly still day before a -storm—-it might appear calm, but turbulent currents dragged underneath. “You have a good imagination,” he said mildly.

Anahera narrowed her eyes. “Don’t try that tone of voice on me.” It came out cold, flat. “I was married to a man who grew up in the British -public--school system.” It had taken her time to get her head around -that—-that what the English called public schools were actually exclusive private schools. “If you want to play the -unemotional--tone game, I can do it as well as you.” She demonstrated with her last sentence, saw his eyes wrinkle slightly at the corners in response.

He took his time answering. “Kyle Baker is of the opinion that you ran back to Golden Cove with your tail between your legs because you couldn’t hack life in the outside world.”

That, Anahera hadn’t been expecting. Eyebrows drawing together, she did what he’d done and took a drink before answering. “He was very respectful at the meeting this afternoon,” she said. “Even made a special effort to welcome me back to Golden Cove.” Anahera thought back, recalling his apparent discomfort with the situation, the way he’d shrugged and moved his feet.

“Kyle is a little psychopath.” This time the flatness of the words was hard, the edge of a blade. “It took me this long to see it and I’ve had experience with the personality type. He does a very good job of covering it up with charm, and with his perfect, shining golden boy act.”

Putting down her wine, Anahera leaned forward with her arms braced on the table her mother had found on the side of the road and polished back up by hand. “You sound sure.”