Free The Wishing Tide by Barbara Davis Page B

closing in on eighty, and no family worth their salt would allow a woman that age to roam the dunes while a tropical storm moved onshore. No, everything about the poor woman screamed
alone
.
    Lane made up her mind in an instant. She couldn’t just keep pretending the woman’s presence on the dunes was normal. Instead of heading for the lighthouse, she turned and marched back into the kitchen. It took several minutes to find the old green thermos in the cabinet over the fridge, a few more to rinse it out, then fill it from the fresh pot of coffee she’d just made for Michael. Three muffins still warm from the oven went into a white paper bag, and a pair of paper cups went into her jacket pocket.
    She let the gate clang noisily as she stepped out onto the narrow boardwalk but received not the slightest reaction. There was no greeting, no recognition of any kind as she came to stand beside the woman, but neither did she make a move to flee. That was progress at least. After a few minutes Lane dropped down beside her on the chilly sand and fixed her eyes on the horizon, waiting. She couldn’t say how many waves washed in and then out again before the woman’s gaze finally shifted, settling on her.
    Lane kept very still, pretending not to notice that she was being studied, and hoping she didn’t look like a big old do-gooder here to hand out charity muffins to a bag lady—which was exactly what she was.
    “What is it you want with me?”
    Her voice was a surprise, quiet and almost melodic, not at all what Lane had expected. “I brought muffins and coffee,” she said, holding up the thermos.
    “Why?”
    “I thought it would be neighborly.”
    “I’m not your neighbor. I’m no one’s neighbor.”
    “Okay, then, to be friendly. I thought you might be cold.”
    Eyes the color of a storm-tossed sea regarded her from a face that on closer inspection appeared more weary than weathered. She had been beautiful once, Lane realized with a start, but the years had been hard on her. The bone structure was still visible, though, high cheekbones and a straight, almost patrician nose. But a web of fine lines fanned out now from those strange, almost translucent eyes, and a deep V had embossed itself between her brows. Her hair, probably blond at one time, was now the color of old ivory, brutally cropped just below her ears. There was no way to guess her age, but it was obvious now that she was nowhere near as old as Lane had originally thought, just worn down by a life that had clearly not been easy.
    “My name is Lane Kramer,” she offered tentatively. “I own the inn.”
    The woman barely nodded, her eyes on the thermos.
    Lane fished the paper cups from her pocket and carefully filled one. “There’s cream and sugar in it,” she said as she handed it over. “I wasn’t sure how you took it.”
    A mute nod was the woman’s only reply.
    After sipping from her own cup, Lane handed her a muffin. “I made these this morning. They might still be warm.”
    With something resembling a nod of thanks, the woman took the muffin, peeling back the fluted paper cup before pinching off a biteand popping it into her mouth. Lane couldn’t help staring at her hands, smooth and strangely beautiful for a woman her age, long tapered fingers that moved with a delicacy that seemed at odds with her huddled posture and lumpy clothes.
    “Mary.”
    It had come out as little more than a grunt, delivered without so much as a turn of the head, but for now it was enough.
    They ate their muffins slowly, and in silence. Lane pretended to watch a pair of gulls play tag along the shoreline while secretly stealing glimpses of the woman beside her. What was it she saw beyond the breaking waves? Lane followed the pale wide-eyed gaze out to sea, to the place where the water turned a flat shade of navy, then melted into a cold, cloudless sky, but there was nothing.
    It caught her off guard when Mary popped the last of her muffin into her mouth and