Everything looks straightforward in Theo’s contract, so I sign it and leave it on the small table in the foyer on my way out the door. It’s a beautiful day, sunny but with big, puffy clouds floating in the sky like so many giant cotton balls. On a whim, I decide to head into Portland to hunt for furniture.

An hour and a half later, I’m standing on a street corner in the industrial part of the city, contemplating the pile of rubble that used to be Capstone Construction’s headquarters.

Craig was right: it looks like a bomb went off. Or maybe a hurricane blew through and then a bomb went off. The destruction is total. Charred husks of a few brick walls are the only things that remain standing of the large structure. The blackened skeleton of the roof drapes over large piles of metal that I assume were some kind of machinery, but everything has been melted or burned to such a degree, it’s impossible to identify what anything originally was.

One block over, the tall metal telecommunications spire atop a high-rise glints cheerfully in the morning sun.

What I know about lightning, I learned from the annual desert monsoons that came to Phoenix in July like clockwork, many of which featured violent lightning storms. I used to hate the deafening booms of thunder and the brilliant, jagged white bolts of light that split the black sky, but Cass loved it all, the wild majesty of it, the dangerous beauty.

Some artists are moved to depict the ugly and forgotten things in life, but Cass loved beauty in all its forms, the more unpredictable the better. He was an oil painter by trade, successful enough to support us while I finished my graduate degree, but he was also obsessed with photography. He loved to get out with a bunch of his storm-chaser buddies to hunt the perfect shot of a lightning strike, and many of those images decorated the walls of our home. Even the supercell thunderstorms of the Great Plains are no match for the drama found in the southwest desert storms.

So I’m no stranger to lightning. I know its unpredictability. I know its danger.

I also know its purpose.

Lightning wants to ground itself. It wants to terminate its powerful electrical discharge in a physical object, namely the earth. The reason lightning strikes tall objects like cell towers or a skyscraper more often than, say, a person lying down in a field, is because of what storm chasers call the degree of influence. Basically, the taller the object, the more it will attract lightning that’s going to discharge in that area anyway.

For example, a metal spire atop a high-rise building has a far greater degree of influence than the flat roof of a one-story building a block away.

Yet here I am in front of that one-story building, which is utterly destroyed while the nearby high-rise stands untouched.

Kinda makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

“No,” I say aloud to that nagging voice in my head. “It doesn’t.”

Sure. That’s why you’re here. Because you’re not wondering.

I mutter, “Shut up,” and get back into my car.

Portland is a beautiful city, but the traffic sucks. I circle a trendy shopping area for twenty minutes, looking for a parking spot, until one opens up. Then I wander aimlessly through crowded streets lined with shops, hoping something of interest will jump out at me.

The only thing that jumps out at me is the growing list of odd happenings and strange coincidences that have occurred since I moved to Seaside.

I’m a list maker by long habit. My brain enjoys order, planning, and the sense of satisfaction that comes from checking things off a to-do list. But the series of events my mind stacks up one after another as evidence of a strange power at work leading me straight to Theo Valentine is anything but satisfying.

It’s ridiculous. A total waste of time and energy.

And yet.

And yet you want to believe there’s something more than the nothingness that swallowed you whole five years ago.

“Don’t be a fool,” I whisper, standing stock-still in front of a small art gallery.

In the window hangs a large, beautiful oil painting. It’s a landscape, done in bold colors. Slashes of purple and indigo depict a mountain range in the background, its tips as serrated as the edge of a hunting knife. In the foreground, a dry riverbed is a stripe of dusty yellow meandering through an arroyo of shadowed green. Red flowers crown giant saguaros on a brown desert mesa that stretches far into the distance, leading the viewer’s eye to the brilliant bursts of white cutting across the canvas from the thunderclouds over the mountains to the ground in a spiderweb of jagged, forked lines.

The piece is titled Lucky Strike, by an artist with the initials T.V.

I tell myself the title means nothing, the initials mean nothing, the painting itself means nothing, but the flesh of my arms has pimpled with goose bumps and my heart is up in my throat.

My phone chimes with an incoming text.

It’s Theo. I laugh, breathless, because of course it’s him.

My laugh dies in my throat. I have to lean against the window of the gallery because my knees have suddenly gone weak.

Craters and Freighters is the company I hired to ship Cass’s paintings from Phoenix. Part of the collection was in an art storage facility, but a few pieces were on display in the lobby of a local resort hotel. I’d made an agreement with the hotel that they could keep them through the end of the year, and then Craters and Freighters would pack up the whole collection and ship them to me in Seaside in January. By that time, the renovations on the Buttercup would be close to completion.

But now the paintings have arrived.

Three months early.

On the morning I’ve visited Capstone’s headquarters, destroyed by an unusual lightning strike. At the exact moment I’m standing outside an art gallery, looking at a desert storm landscape exactly like the ones my late husband used to photograph, created by an artist with the initials T. fucking V.

At what point does a string of coincidences gather significance and add up to something more than chance?

I stuff my phone into my handbag and head back to my car. Suddenly, I can’t wait to get home.

* * *

When I arrive, the guys are out on the back patio, eating their lunch. In addition to Coop and the ginger-haired Toby, Theo’s brought two burly Latino guys who look like brothers, and one tall, wiry fellow with tattoos all the way up both arms. They all stop and look at me when I appear in the open doorway.

“Hi, guys.”

Coop and Toby grin, the Latino guys nod respectfully, and the wiry guy waves, then immediately goes back to eating his sandwich.

Theo looks at me with slightly narrowed eyes. Like the others, he’s sitting on an ancient Adirondack, but somehow, he manages to make it look like a throne.

Coop introduces the men I don’t know, then asks, “You want a baloney sandwich? I’ve got an extra.”

I haven’t eaten yet, but I’m not hungry. My stomach is too twisted in ropes to handle food. “No, thanks. How’s it going with the rewire?”

Coop shrugs. “Piece of cake. For us. Because we’re awesome. Obviously.”

That tugs a smile from my pinched lips. I glance at Theo. He’s still staring at me with that assessing look, as if he knows there’s something wrong. “Where’s the delivery from Craters and Freighters?”

“Oh,” says Coop, “we had ’em put it in the garage. We thought since it was empty in there, and the house was gonna be pretty jacked up with all the work—”

“The garage is perfect, thank you.” I leave before he can say anything else, and hurry out to the garage, ignoring his startled look and Theo’s relentless, studied observation of my face.

The garage is detached from the main part of the house. It’s a newer structure, built within the last few decades to accommodate three cars. I enter through the side door and hit the light switch, and there it is, alone on the cement pad, a big pine crate about five feet tall and eight feet long, stamped with the words “Fragile” and “Handle with Care” on the sides.

I walk over to it and rest my shaking hands on the top edge.

Then I haul myself on top of it, lie down on my back, and close my eyes.

I’ll call the company later to find out what the hell happened, but I need a moment to compose my thoughts. I need a moment to reconnect with these relics from my past.

It was a clerical error. Someone made a mistake, that’s all. The schedules were switched, the hotel found other art they wanted to hang on their walls, there’s a reasonable explanation for all of it. These coincidences don’t mean anything, Megan. You’re not thinking straight.

Nothing has anything to do with Theo.

I sense him there before I even open my eyes. He’s a presence in the doorway, silent, but palpable nonetheless.

“Don’t mind me. I’m just having a little nap.”

Footsteps slowly approach. I turn my head and meet Theo’s eyes. He’s a foot above me, his expression bemused. He glances at the words on the side of the crate, then his dark eyes slash back to mine. His brows lift in inquiry.

I sigh and hide from his penetrating gaze by staring at the exposed wood beams on the ceiling. “It’s stuff from my old house. I wasn’t expecting it yet.” My chuckle is low in my throat, full of dark humor. “The list of things I wasn’t expecting is growing by leaps and bounds lately.”

After a moment, Theo strokes a finger along the edge of the crate. From my peripheral vision, I can see that his expression has turned thoughtful. He wants to know what’s inside.

I’m not going to tell him what’s inside.

I’m being ridiculously superstitious, and I hate myself for it, but I can’t handle any more weird coincidences. If I tell him the crate is full of oil paintings and he sends me a chipper text that reads, “Hey, I’m a painter too!” I’ll have a heart attack and die on the spot.

“It’s…um. Pottery.”

Silence. Without moving my head, I slide my eyes sideways and look at Theo.

With exaggerated slowness, he mouths the word Liar.

I huff out a breath, sit up, cross my legs beneath me, and drag my hands through my hair. Propping my elbows on my knees, I drop my head into my hands and close my eyes again.

“Okay. Here’s the truth: it’s stuff I don’t want to talk about. It’s stuff that hurts me to think about, and it’s gonna hurt even worse to look at.” I swallow. My voice comes out thick. “It’s my husband’s things.”

I hear him softly exhale. Then I hear the scratching noise of pen on paper, then a tearing sound. Then Theo gently nudges my elbow. I crack open an eye and see a small piece of notebook paper resting on my knee, with the words I’m sorry written on it.

“You don’t have to be sorry. Not your circus. Not your monkeys. Don’t worry about it.”

He takes back the paper, scribbles something else on it, and sets it back on my knee. It reads, Can I get you anything?

When I look at him, he’s visibly worried, his dark brows drawn together, his full lips turned down.

“A lobotomy? A nice case of amnesia? Some brainwashing, perhaps?”

He knows what I mean, but he shakes his head sharply in disagreement. I get a new note, this one scribbled furiously fast.

I read it, twice, then crush the piece of paper in my fist. Blinking back tears, I whisper, “I don’t want to forget him. I want to forget who I am without him.”

Then—impossibly, horribly—I’m crying.

Ugly crying, because I’m not one of those lucky women who can weep into a handkerchief and make it look dainty. When I cry, it involves unattractive noises and great gasps of air like I’m drowning. It involves full-body shaking and snot.

A big, warm hand presses against the space between my shoulder blades. A steady, reassuring pressure, it stays until my tears slow and I’m glowing with embarrassment for breaking down in front of him. Then Theo takes his hand back, and I wipe my eyes with my fingertips and my nose with my sleeve.

Avoiding his eyes, I hop off the crate and look at my feet. My voice comes out sounding small and strangled. “Sorry about that. Anyway. I’m gonna go inside now.”

Neither one of us moves. At his sides, Theo’s hands are clenched. When I glance up at his face, it’s strained. I think he’s trying to hold himself back from taking me into his arms to comfort me, and I’m swamped by another wave of sadness.

My loneliness pounds so hard inside me, I’d probably have a total mental breakdown if he did.

A lone tear crests my lower lid and slides down my cheek. Watching it fall, Theo looks like he’s been stabbed in the gut. I lift my hand to dash it away, but Theo reaches out and gently swipes his thumb over my cheekbone.

My entire body goes electric at his touch. I freeze, inhaling sharply. From one breath to the next, I become aware of his heat, how erratically his chest is rising and falling, the faint scent of soap on his skin. We stare at each other in crackling silence, my heart like a wild animal trying to claw its way out of my chest.

His hand trembles against my face. His eyes blaze with emotion. Lips parted, he leans toward me.

Off in the distance, one of the men calls his name, and the spell is broken as abruptly as it was cast.

Theo snatches his hand away, reddens, then spins on his heel, his jaw tight and his brows lowered. He stalks out of the garage, letting the door slam shut behind him.