Okay, she admitted, she was a coward.

It wasn’t the easiest thing for her to own up to the fact that she’d run away, but hey, she wasn’t exactly thinking clearly these past couple of days, and she could forgive herself for not being perfect. The truth was, if she had stayed around, things would have become even more complicated. It didn’t matter that she liked him and that he liked her; she woke up this morning knowing that she had to end things before they went too far, and when she pulled in the sandy driveway out front, she knew she’d done the right thing by coming here.

The place wasn’t much to look at. The old cottage was weathered and blended into the sea oats that surrounded it. The small, rectangular white-curtained windows were coated with salted mist, and the siding had streaks of gray, remnants from the fury of a dozen hurricanes. In some ways, she’d always considered the cottage a time capsule of sorts; most of the furniture was over twenty years old, the pipes groaned when she turned on the shower, and she had to light the stove burners with a match. But the memories of spending parts of her youth here never ceased to calm her, and after storing her bags and the groceries she’d picked up for the weekend, she’d opened the windows to air out the place. Then, grabbing a blanket, she settled into a rocker on the back porch, wanting nothing more than to watch the ocean. The steady roar of the waves was soothing, almost hypnotic, and when the sun broke through the clouds and beams of light stretched toward the water like individual fingers from above, she found herself holding her breath.

She did that every time she came here. The first time she’d seen the light breaking through this way was soon after her visit to the cemetery with Doris, when she was still a little girl, and she remembered thinking that her parents had found another way to make their presence known in her life. Like heaven-sent angels, she believed they were watching out for her, always present but never intervening, as if they felt that she would always make the right decisions.

For a long time, she’d needed to believe in such things, simply because she’d often felt alone. Her grandparents had been kind and wonderful, but as much as she loved them for their care and sacrifice, she’d never quite gotten used to the feeling of being different from her peers. Her friends’ parents played softball on the weekends and looked youthful even in the soft morning light of church, an observation that made her wonder what, if anything, she was missing.

She couldn’t talk to Doris about these things. Nor could she talk to Doris about the guilt she felt as a result. No matter how she phrased it, Doris’s feelings would have been hurt, and even as a young girl, she’d known that.

But still, that feeling of being different had left its mark. Not only on her but on Doris as well, and it began to manifest itself during her teenage years. When Lexie would push the limits, Doris would frequently give in to avoid an argument, leaving Lexie with the belief that she could establish her own rules. She’d been a bit on the wild side when she was young, made mistakes and had too many regrets, but somehow turned serious during college. In her new, more mature incarnation, she embraced the idea that maturity meant thinking about risk long before you pondered the reward, and that success and happiness in life were as much about avoiding mistakes as making your mark in the world.

Last night, she knew, she’d almost made a mistake. She’d expected him to try to kiss her, and she was pleased by how resolute she’d been when he wanted to come inside.

She knew she’d hurt his feelings, and she was sorry for that. But what he probably didn’t realize was that it wasn’t until after he’d driven off that her heart had stopped pounding, because part of her had wanted to let him inside, no matter what it might have led to. She knew better, but she couldn’t help it. Even worse, as she tossed and turned in her bed last night, she realized she might not have the strength to do the right thing again.

In all honesty, she should have seen it coming. As the evening had worn on, she found herself comparing Jeremy to both Avery and Mr. Renaissance, and to her surprise, Jeremy more than held his own. He had Avery’s wit and sense of humor and Mr. Renaissance’s intelligence and charm, but Jeremy seemed more comfortable with himself than either of them. Perhaps she should just chalk it up to the wonderful day she’d had, something that hadn’t happened in a long time. When was the last time she’d had a spontaneous lunch? Or sat up on Riker’s Hill? Or visited the cemetery after a party, when normally she would have gone straight to bed? No doubt the excitement and unpredictability had reminded her of how happy she’d been when she still believed that Avery and Mr. Renaissance were the men of her dreams.

But she’d been wrong then, just as she was wrong now. She knew Jeremy would solve the mystery today—okay, maybe it was just a feeling, but she was sure of it, since the answer was in one of the diaries and all he had to do was find it—and she had no doubt that he would have asked her to celebrate the solution with him. Had she been in town, the two of them would have spent most of the day together, and she didn’t want that. Then again, deep down, it was exactly what she wanted, leaving her feeling more confused than she’d been in years.

Doris had intuited every bit of it this morning when Lexie stopped by, but that wasn’t surprising. Lexie could feel the exhaustion around her own eyes and knew she looked like a wreck when she showed up out of the blue. After throwing a few days’ worth of clothes into the suitcase, she’d left her house without showering; she didn’t even attempt to explain what she was feeling. Even so, Doris had simply nodded when Lexie told her she had to go. Doris, tired though she was, seemed to understand that while she’d set the whole thing in motion, she hadn’t anticipated what might happen as a result. That was the thing about premonitions; while they might be accurate in the short term, anything beyond that was impossible to know.

So she’d come here because she had to, if only to preserve her sanity, and she’d return to Boone Creek when things were back to normal. It wouldn’t take long. In a couple of days, people would have stopped talking about the ghosts and the historic homes and the stranger in town, and the visiting tourists would be nothing but a memory. The mayor would be back on the golf course, Rachel would date the wrong sorts of men, and Rodney would probably find a way to accidentally bump into Lexie near the library, no doubt breathing a sigh of relief when he realized their relationship could go back to the way it once was.

Maybe it wasn’t an exciting life, but it was her life, and she wasn’t about to let anyone or anything upset the balance. In another place and time, she might have felt differently, but thinking along those lines was pointless now. As she continued to stare out over the water, she forced herself not to imagine what might have been.

On the porch, Lexie tugged the blanket tighter around her shoulders. She was a big girl and she’d get over him, just as she’d gotten over the others. She was certain about it. But even with the comfort of that realization, the roiling sea reminded her again of her feelings for Jeremy, and it took everything she had to keep her tears in check.

It had seemed relatively simple when Jeremy set out, and he’d rushed through his room at Greenleaf, making the necessary plans as he did so. Grab the map and his wallet, just in case. Leave the computer because he didn’t need it. Ditto his notes. Put Doris’s book in his leather satchel and bring it along. Write a note for Alvin and leave it at the front desk, despite the fact that Jed didn’t seem too pleased about it. Make sure he had the recharger for his phone—and go.

He was in and out in less than ten minutes, on his way to Swan Quarter, where the ferry would take him to Ocracoke, a village in the Outer Banks. From there, he’d head north on Highway 12 to Buxton. He figured it was the route she would have taken, and all he had to do was follow the same path and he’d reach the place in just a couple of hours.

But while the drive to Swan Quarter had been an easy one on straight and empty roads, he’d found himself thinking about Lexie and pressed the accelerator harder, trying to ward off the jitters. But jitters were just another word for panic, and he didn’t panic. He prided himself on that. Nonetheless, whenever he was forced to slow the car—in places like Belhaven and Leechville— he found himself tapping the wheel with his fingers and muttering under his breath.

It was an odd feeling for him, one that only grew stronger as he drew nearer to his destination. He couldn’t explain it, but somehow he didn’t want to analyze it. For one of the few times in his life, he was moving on autopilot, doing exactly the opposite of what logic demanded, thinking only about how she’d react when she saw him.

Just when he thought he was beginning to understand the reason for his odd behavior, Jeremy found himself at the ferry station staring at a thin, uniformed man who barely looked up from the magazine he was reading. The ferry to Ocracoke, he learned, didn’t run with the same regularity as the one from Staten Island to Manhattan, and he’d missed the last departure of the day, which meant he could either come back tomorrow or cancel his plan altogether, neither of which he was willing to consider.

“Are you sure there’s no other way that I can get to Hatteras Lighthouse?” he asked, feeling his heart pick up speed. “This is important.”

“You could drive it, I suppose.”

“How long would that take?”

“Depends on how fast you drive.”

Obviously, Jeremy thought. “Let’s say I drove fast.”

The man shrugged, as if the whole topic bored him. “Five or six hours maybe. You’d have to head north till you get to Plymouth, then take 64 over Roanoke Island, then into Whalebone. From there, you head south into Buxton. The lighthouse is right there.”

Jeremy checked his watch; it was already coming up on one o’clock; by the time he got there, Alvin would probably be pulling into Boone Creek. No good.

“Is there another place to catch the ferry?”

“There’s one out of Cedar Island.”

“Great. Where’s that?”

“It’s about three hours in the other direction. But again, you’d have to wait until tomorrow morning.”

Over the man’s shoulder, he saw a poster displaying the various lighthouses of North Carolina. Hatteras, the grandest of them all, was in the center.

“What if I told you this was an emergency?” he asked.

For the first time, the man looked up.

“Is it an emergency?”

“Let’s just say that it is.”

“Then I’d call the Coast Guard. Or maybe the sheriff.”

“Ah,” Jeremy said, trying to remain patient. “But what you’re telling me is that there’s no way for me to get out there right now? From here, I mean.&rdq............