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“I’ll be there in all the ways that matter,” he added softly. “What do you say?”

“After a walk,” I countered.

“Agreed. I’ll meet you outside.” Wolfe slipped from the table and I went upstairs to change.

Marissa sent a handful of texts asking how it was going, if I had anything to share, to maybe show a sign of life on my social media. I shoved my phone into my pocket and slipped into my boots. I’d take a few pictures of the cliff and share them. That would have to do for now.

It hit me halfway down the steps that I hadn’t taken a single photo while I’d been here. Three weeks of Bracken Bay and not one…not one photo. Maybe…maybe this was a parallel universe. Maybe Wolfe was the one that was alive and I was dead.

I certainly felt like it.

I picked at the thought our entire walk, pausing long enough to take my photos and send them to Marissa. Wolfe let me work through it, a silent but steadying presence. Fog rolled up over the cliffs and across the rolling hills to my left, painting everything in pale gray and white.

We headed to the tavern after lunch. The clouds parted long enough to let in a few faint rays of sunshine. The wind coming off the ocean was cold and I tucked my chilled fingers into my pocket. Wolfe strode beside me, gaze bouncing over the town.

“Look the same?” I asked quietly.

“Yes and no,” he said, tone hard to decipher. “I don’t—I don’t remember all of it.”

I nodded, heart tangling in my throat. He seemed distraught, plowing his fingers through his hair over and over again. I wished that I could reach out and touch him, hug him, offer some level of comfort. Instead, I bumped my elbow into his.

It was all I could do.

“I’m sorry.”

He exhaled roughly. “I’m glad you’re here,” he murmured. His fingers brushed mine and I felt it like a zap against my skin.

I chanced a glance at him, noticing how he was thinner around the hips and legs than he usually was.

“I’m glad I’m here too.”

He remained silent after that and I watched him take in his town in a different light—a different age.

“There used to be fishing boats dotting the horizon.” He waved toward the line where sea met sky. “They’d bob up and down the coast hauling in fish. Sometimes merchant vessels would stop by and trade. Sloops would come and go with fish and cargo. It looks so different now.”

The world slipped and slid, painting the glossy white exteriors of the fishing boats docked there now into warm wooden slats and singular masts. The gulls and stench of fish were the same, but the horizon line looked different.

We stopped outside the pub, the sign hanging from the door sun-stained and weathered with age. The gold paint on the letters was beginning to flake off, but I read it clear as day:

PATTY’S PUB.

I reminded myself that I was in public, that I couldn’t whirl to Wolfe and point to it.

“Your brother?” I whispered, aware of the people walking around me.

“Aye. His son, Liam, ended up buying it out from the previous owner and changed the name shortly after my brother died. It’s nice to know that a part of him lingers here still.” Wolfe braced a hand on the window frame, eyes closed as if he were in pain.

“If this is too much…”

“No,” he said quickly. “No. We’re not alone anymore. We face it together.”

“Together,” I repeated, struck stupid that a ghost could be the one to lead me back into my life.

Chapter 15

Wolfe

The inside of the pub was almost exactly as he remembered it.