Homeport

her vision blurred, she waved in return, then stopped, bending over, hands on knees, while her breath screamed out of her laboring lungs.
    She hadn’t run far, she thought, but she’d run too fast. She hadn’t paced herself. Everything was happening too fast. She couldn’t quite keep up, yet she didn’t dare slow down.

    And sweet God, she didn’t even know where she was going.
    There was a man in her house, a man she’d known for only a matter of weeks. A man who was a thief, likely a liar, and undoubtedly dangerous. Yet she’d put a part of her life in his hands. She’d become intimate with him, more intimate than she’d ever allowed herself to become with anyone.
    She looked back and up and studied the moon-white spear of the lighthouse. She’d fallen in love with him inside that tower. It didn’t matter if she’d been sliding toward it all along, it was there she’d fallen. And she had yet to be certain she would land on her feet.
    He’d walk away when he finished what he had come to do. He’d be charming about it, and clever. Not cruel. But he would go back to his life. Hers, she realized, would still be in shambles.
    They could find the bronzes, shore up their reputations, solve the puzzle, and even catch a killer. But her life would remain in shambles.
    And with no precedent, no formula, no data, she couldn’t make an educated guess on how long it would take her to rebuild it.
    At the tips of her feet was the edge of a tidepool, the water calm and clear. Life scurried under it, in otherworldly colors and shapes.
    When she was a child her grandmother had walked this beach with her—or with both her and Andrew. They’d studied the tidepools together, but it hadn’t been like a lesson, some sneaky education ploy of adult to child.
    No, she remembered, they had crouched down and looked for the pleasure of it. Had laughed when what appeared to be a rock squirted at them in annoyance.
    Little worlds, her grandmother had called them. Ripe with passion, sex, violence, and politics—and often more sensible than the life that’s led on the dry part of the planet.
    “I wish you were here,” Miranda murmured. “I wish I still had you to talk to.”
    She looked away from the busy world at her feet, out to sea again, let the wind rage through her hair, over her face. What was she to do now? she wondered. Now that she knew what it was to love someone until it hurt, to prefer the pain to the emptiness that had been so familiar it was rarely noticed?
    She sat on the smooth dome of a rock, brought her knees up to rest her head on them. This, she supposed, was what happened when the heart was allowed to control the mind, the actions, the decisions. With everything else in tatters around her, she was sitting on a rock, looking out to sea and brooding over a love affair that was destined to end.
    An oystercatcher landed near the shoreline, then stalked up and down the verge looking important. It made her smile a little. Apparently even birds worry about appearances. Look at me, he seemed to say, I’m very cool.
    “We’d see how cool you are if I’d brought some bread crumbs,” she told him. “You’d be scrambling to gulp them all down before your buddies got wind of it and swooped down to fight you for them.”
    “I’ve heard that people who drink too much start believing in talking birds.” Andrew saw her shoulders stiffen, but kept walking toward her. “You dropped this.” He laid her jacket in her lap.
    “I got too warm.”
    “You sit here without it after a run, you’ll get chilled.”
    “I’m fine.”
    “Suit yourself.” It took a great deal of courage for him to sit on the rock beside her. “Miranda, I’m sorry.”
    “I believe we’ve covered that ground.”
    “Miranda.” He knew just how far he’d pushed her away when she wouldn’t let him take her hand.
    “I came down here to be alone for a while.”
    And he knew just how stubborn she could be when she’d been crossed. “I’ve got a few things to say. When I’m done, you can hit me again if you want. I was way over the line this morning. There’s no excuse for what I said to you. I didn’t want to hear what you were saying to me, so I hit hard and low.”

    “Understood. We’ll agree that we’re better off staying out of each other’s personal choices.”
    “No.” This time he ignored her jerk away and clamped her hand. “No, we’re not. We’ve always been able to depend on each other.”
    “Well, I