When we were finished with our late-night dinner, I excused myself to the kitchen to clean off our plates. Drifter took the hint and joined me after a minute.

“There’s got to be a good story there, mate,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Where on earth did you find her?”

“You won’t believe me,” I said.

“In this town, I’ll believe anything,” he said.

“I was just securing the package at the docks when these headlights appeared down the road,” I said. I told him the whole story of how she crashed into the tree and nearly passed out in my arms.

“And she refused to let you call a doctor?” he asked, leaning against the wall while I washed the dishes.

“Keep your voice down,” I said. “She can probably hear every word we’re saying.”

“But she just walked away from a crash, like it was nothing?” Drifter asked. “That’s a bit unusual, wouldn’t you say?”

“There’s a lot about this whole thing that’s unusual,” I said. “You know as well as I do that strangers don’t just happen upon Willow Harbor out of the blue. She’s either hiding something, or she’s meant to be here for one reason or another. I tried to get more information from her on how she even found this place, but she doesn’t exactly seem to want to talk about it. At least not willingly.”

“Well, she’s not going anywhere soon with her car still wrapped around a tree,” Drifter said.

“I guess I’ll need to help her find a place to stay tonight,” I said. “But it’s already after one in the morning. If I go waking up Mrs. Finnygood this late to open the Willow Harbor Inn, she’ll chew me a new one.”

“Well, other than driving her halfway to Charleston, you might not have any other option.”

“I guess you’re right,” I said, frowning. There weren’t a lot of options in our little town.

“And don’t think you’re going to get out of telling me what happened with Jennings,” Drifter said. “Surely he didn’t have another shipment for you so soon?”

“He did,” I said with a sigh. “They’re getting more and more frequent these days. People are going to start asking questions.”

“They’ll gladly let you take the fall for them, too,” Drifter said. “You’ve got to get out from under this thing, Nik. You’ve got to find a way out.”

I shook my head. I didn’t have the energy for this conversation again tonight.

“There is no way out, Drifter. You’ve been around long enough to know that.” I fingered the coiled silver bracelet around my wrist. “This is who I am now, like it or not. It’s what I deserve after what I did. I just have to live with it.”

“You deserve a hell of a lot more than this life, Nik,” Drifter said, clapping a hand on my shoulder. “A hell of a lot more.”

“Come on, we need to get back out there before she disappears on us,” I said, happy to change the subject. “I wouldn’t put it past her to be halfway to town by now. She’s feisty and independent.”

“She is a redhead,” he said with a smile. “What did you expect?”

I pushed through the door into the main part of the bar and stopped. Eva wasn’t gone. She was asleep.

She had stretched her legs out across the booth’s bench seat and laid her head against the wall. She had my jacket wrapped around her shoulders, and her long red hair covered most of her pretty face.

“Well, that complicates things a bit, now doesn’t it?” Drifter said with a chuckle.

“We can’t just let her sleep on a wooden bench all night,” I said. “But I don’t want to wake her up, either.”

“So, be a gentleman about it,” he said, gently pushing me forward. “I’m going to head out for the night. Hilda will be wondering what kept me out so late. Lock up for me, will ya?”

I laughed and nodded. Hilda was Drifter’s cat, a pretty little calico he treated more like a person than a pet sometimes.

I waited for Drifter to leave and then locked all the doors and checked the windows. I cleaned what was left of the dishes and glasses from the night and then went to check on Eva.

She was still sound asleep, and I couldn’t bring myself to wake her.

She said she’d been driving for days without stopping to eat. She had to be exhausted, and no matter how much she tried to pretend the accident hadn’t shaken her up, I had recognized the fear in her eyes when she’d looked at me for the first time.

Whoever she was, she’d been running from something, and judging by the dried blood on her arm, it was something bad. I couldn’t just send her back out into the night, half-asleep with no car and no place to go.

Instead, I gently gathered her up in my arms and carried her up the back steps to the small room I rented on the top floor. It wasn’t much, but my bed was warm, and it was bound to be a hell of a lot better than that bench.

I carefully laid her down on the mattress and removed her shoes. I pulled the covers up around her. She moaned and turned over, pulling the sheets tighter around her body.

As she turned, the gemstone in her bracelet caught my eye, and I leaned closer. It was a large stone. An emerald. But there was an energy to it that seemed to hum.

It looked old, possibly a family heirloom of some kind. Definitely infused with magic. I was sure of it. This girl got more interesting by the minute.

I watched her for a second, then closed the door and made my way downstairs to sleep on an old cot in the storeroom.

I tossed and turned for an hour, unable to get the beautiful woman upstairs out of my mind. I couldn’t help but wonder what had really brought her here to Willow Harbor.

What had she been running from? And what had guided her here?

I sighed and turned again. It was none of my business, and I had other things to worry about tonight. Like how the heck I was going to keep up with these deliveries without getting caught.

Unable to sleep, I finally got up and walked outside. I stood at the edge of the surf, and each time a wave came in, the cool water beckoned me home.

And each time it went back out, it reminded me that no matter how much I longed for it, I could never go home again.