Coastal Shadows (Starlight Shores #3)

Chapter 1

Light pooled along the eastern horizon in soft bands of coral and gold while the Gulf remained dark and restless beneath.

The Lockhart Lighthouse stood sharp against the watercolor sky, its white cylindrical tower catching the first warmth of morning.

Melissa adjusted her aperture and waited for the precise moment when dawn would paint the keeper’s quarters in that particular shade of rose that happened only in the few minutes before full sunrise.

She’d learned this light. Memorized its rhythms the way she’d once memorized the cadence of breaking news stories and the exact second to press the shutter during chaos. The lighthouse stood still, and it certainly didn’t look at her with betrayal in its eyes.

Click.

The image appeared on her viewscreen. Clean lines and perfect exposure. The weathered wood of the lightkeeper’s house provided texture against the smooth tower. A composition any architectural magazine would accept without revision.

She felt nothing.

She shifted her tripod three feet to the left and reframed.

The semicircle of cottages came into view beyond the lighthouse.

Starfish Cottage at the far end, its windows still dark at this hour.

Heron Cottage next to it, then Captain’s Watch, where she lived, then Sea Glass, Compass Rose, and finally Driftwood Cottage, where Clint Lockhart was probably already awake and finding something to fix.

Click.

She picked up her tripod and moved to the courtyard to catch the lighthouse from a different angle. A slight movement caught her peripheral vision.

She didn’t turn, and didn’t acknowledge the figure emerging from Driftwood Cottage with his usual thermos and tool belt. Instead, she made a minute adjustment to her focus and held her breath as he crossed behind her frame.

She heard the scuff of work boots on stone and the clink of tools. The smell of coffee drifted past her, cutting through the salt air.

She kept her finger away from the shutter and waited. People ruined photography. They wanted to see themselves. They wanted context. Buildings just stood there and let the light hit them.

Clint’s footsteps paused somewhere to her right.

“You’re in my shot.” She didn’t look away from her viewscreen.

“I’m twenty feet behind you.”

“Wide angle.”

A beat of silence. Then the footsteps resumed, and she heard him veer toward the maintenance shed at the edge of the property. Only when the shed door creaked open did she allow herself a slow exhale.

Click. Click. Click.

Three more versions of the same lighthouse in the same light with the same careful framing that left exactly zero room for anything unexpected.

She checked the results. The photos were technically excellent but emotionally vacant.

They looked exactly like the ones she had taken yesterday, the day before, and all the days stretching back to when she’d first arrived at Starlight Shores looking for a place to disappear.

The sky brightened another shade, and she decided she was done.

Collapsing her tripod, she gathered her equipment and started toward Captain’s Watch Cottage.

The courtyard garden was coming alive with early morning sounds.

Birds called from the palm trees. The distant rhythm of waves splashed against the shoreline.

Somewhere in Starfish Cottage, Emily Shaw was probably already awake and painting in that north-facing studio.

Melissa walked past without looking at the windows.

The cottage community had grown closer over the past months.

She’d watched it happen from a careful distance.

Emily and Grant finding each other. Cassidy Wren arriving and somehow ending up tangled with Bryan Lucas despite their obvious incompatibility.

Winnie presided over it all from the keeper’s quarters, dispensing tea and the kind of gentle meddling that forced people together.

She attended the weekly sunset gatherings because Winnie expected it. She answered questions about her work with vague references to architectural clients and magazine assignments. She smiled at the right moments and then returned to her cottage.

The screen door of Captain’s Watch swung shut behind her, and she stood for a moment in the dim interior.

The cottage smelled like coffee from yesterday’s pot and the faint chemical undertone of her portable printer.

Equipment cases lined one wall. Camera bodies and lenses were carefully organized.

A stack of architecture magazines sat on the kitchen counter next to an unopened box of granola bars.

She’d lived here for a few months now. She stopped and thought for a moment. Okay, closer to four months. The space still looked temporary.

The laptop on her desk had gone to sleep. She touched the trackpad and watched the screen brighten, then immediately wished she hadn’t.

Her calendar application displayed today’s date in a small, neat square.

She’d known. Of course, she’d known. She’d woken at 4:30 a.m. already tight with tension.

She’d pulled on yesterday’s clothes, grabbed her camera gear, and fled to the lighthouse like she did every morning.

But standing here in the gray light of her cottage with the date staring back at her, she couldn’t pretend anymore.

Two years.

Two years since a photograph changed everything.

She sank into her desk chair and opened her portfolio folder. It wasn’t the folder with the architectural work that paid her bills and allowed her to claim she was still a working photographer. The other folder. The one buried three levels deep in a directory labeled ARCHIVE_OLD.

The thumbnails loaded slowly. Faces she hadn’t seen in years.

A refugee camp in Greece. Hurricane aftermath in Puerto Rico.

The face of a woman in Louisiana who’d just learned her son survived a factory explosion.

Image after image of human beings caught in their most raw and desperate moments, their pain transformed into art that won awards, sold prints, and launched careers.

Her career.

She’d been good at this. Better than good.

She’d had an instinct for finding the frame that contained truth.

Editors called her relentless, and subjects called her invisible.

She moved through crisis zones like a ghost, present and absent simultaneously, capturing images that made audiences weep from the safety of their breakfast tables.

She scrolled past the thumbnails without clicking on any of them. Her finger hesitated over a subfolder labeled COASTAL STORM.

Don’t.

She double-clicked anyway.

She stared at the image. The air in the cottage suddenly felt too thin, too hot. She closed her eyes, trying to force the memories away. Then she opened them, closed the folder, and snapped the laptop closed.

She pushed back from her desk. Two years of architectural photography. Two years of buildings, bridges, and interiors that couldn’t look at her with reproach. Two years of being good at something that required no courage and cost her nothing.

She was safe here. The lighthouse never changed. The cottages never accused her. She could photograph the same angles in the same light until she was eighty years old and never have to feel the enormity of another person’s worst moment in her viewfinder.

She startled at the sound of a knock on her door.

Through the window, she could see Clint standing on her small porch, thermos still in hand. He must have finished whatever critical sunrise maintenance had required his attention. His expression held its usual blend of mild irritation and forced patience.

She considered not answering. But he’d seen her come in, and Clint was nothing if not persistent when he decided someone needed something. Usually something they hadn’t asked for.

She opened the door halfway. “Shed crisis resolved?”

“Shed’s fine.” He looked past her into the cottage, his gaze cataloging the equipment cases and general disarray. “Aunt Winnie wanted me to tell you something.”

“Winnie has my number.”

“She’s old-fashioned.” He shrugged. “Also, she knew there was a good chance you wouldn’t answer.”

Fair point. She leaned against the doorframe. “What does Winnie want?”

“Festival committee meeting tonight.”

“We just had the Harbor Festival.”

Clint shook his head slowly. “Yes, well, we have a festival for just about everything here in Starlight Shores. They need someone to document the planning process for the tourism board.”

“I’m not an events photographer.”

“Winnie figured you wouldn’t mind helping her out.”

She kept her expression neutral. “I do architectural work.”

“So take pictures of the festival architecture.”

“There is no festival architecture. It’s tents, booths, and people.”

He shifted his weight. “Winnie’s asking. I’m just the messenger.”

“Then message her back that I’m not available.”

A look flickered across his face. Irritation. Maybe disappointment. She couldn’t tell and didn’t want to examine why she cared.

“You’ve been here months. Aunt Winnie treats you like family, and you walk through the courtyard every day like you’re a tourist.” He said it like a statement that was actually an accusation.

The words hit home. She kept her hand on the door. “Are we done?”

He looked at her for a long moment. Then he shook his head and turned away, boots heavy on the porch steps. She watched him cross the courtyard toward the lighthouse, his broad shoulders rigid with whatever judgment he was keeping to himself.

She closed the door and stood alone in her temporary life.

On the desk, her laptop mocked her, even closed. Though it mercifully hid the calendar, the photograph, and the anniversary of the day she’d learned exactly what kind of person she was.

Through the window, the Lockhart Lighthouse caught the full light of morning, its white tower gleaming against a perfect blue sky. She had photographed it hundreds of times—no, thousands—from every possible angle. She knew its shadows and textures better than she knew her own face.

The lighthouse never changed. That was the whole point.

She looked at the lighthouse one last time. It stood rigid against the blue sky, a perfect white column that hid nothing. She reached out and pulled the curtains shut.