Page 3 of The Lightkeeper

A low noise rumbled from my chest. The Christmas painting wasn’t my usual subject; most of my works were shorelines and seascapes. But a year ago at Christmas, I’d watched my brother fall in love.

Jamie, who always took care of everyone to the point where he never thought of himself, had fallen in love with Violet, and it changed everything. Seeing their whirlwind romance sparked something in my chest—something I’d be tempted to describe as hope the way it drove me to paint the lighthouse all wrapped in twinkle lights for the holiday.

Whatever it was, hope or not, it was gone now.

“What’s new with you?”

Lou sighed, arranging the pastries in the display. “Mom’s trying out a new flavor for spring?—”

“I don’t want to hear about Stonebar,” I broke in. “I want to hear about you.”

Stonebar Farms was Mom’s company. Homemade jams, preserves, and jellies from only the finest, locally sourced ingredients. At first, her concoctions were only a local delicacy, but it didn’t take long for their goodness to spread. Now, she had a storefront, a commercial kitchen, and shipped nationwide.

The only thing more famous around here than Mom’s jams was my grandmother’s fortune telling.Yeah. Fortune telling. And not via crystal ball or Tarot, no. Gigi’s prophecies came via handwritten labels on specialty batches of preserves.

We’d laughed about it when we were younger. Until we were old enough to see how each and every one she’d written had come true in one way or another.

Her latest victim was Jamie.Purple Princess,she’d written on a label for blueberry jam, and a few weeks later, Jamie had fallen in love with Violet Royale.

Lou bit her lip and then came over to me and lowered her voice like this was some big secret. “Rumor has it, the real owner of the inn is planning to sell.”

“Oh?” I lifted my brow.

Everyone in my family had their thing—their passion. Mom and Gigi had Stonebar Farms. Jamie had his woodworking and furniture business. Frankie had her candles. I had my art and my lighthouse. And Lou… Lou’s thing was getting the old Lamplight Inn back.

Yeah… back.

God knew I was the poster child for unbelievablelife circumstances, but what happened earlier this year with my family and the inn certainly made them a respectable contender for the title.

Up until the middle of January, Mom and my uncle George were the owners of the Lamplight Inn.Or so they thought.Years ago, when the original owner passed away, Mom and Uncle George bought the inn from his son, planning on one day restoring it to its former glory.

But life and Stonebar got busy, so it continued to sit and decay until Violet came into Jamie’s life and took an interest in renovating it. For the last six months of last year, Violet and Lou had been working on plans and proposals and ideas, the new year signaling the start of the new business venture.

Until they went to apply for permits and were denied.

Apparently, Mom and George didn’t own the inn. In a fucked-up twist of fate—or a random ancestry test—the original owner had another son—an older son—with a woman whowasn’t his wife. The will specified the inn was to go to his oldest son… which was now this prodigal son and not the man who’d sold it to Mom.

It was fucked up. It took a whole month of legal back and forth before Mom and George got their money back after all these years. Violet… as excited as she was for the venture, the months she’d spent working with Jamie in his business gave her a different passion to focus on. Really, the only one to feel the magnitude of the loss was Lou—the one who’d just found her passion in the prospect of restoring the inn only to lose it.

Honestly, I didn’t really care who owned the inn, the only reason it was important to me was because it was important to Lou. She’d been adrift in what she wanted to do in life until working on plans for the inn had brought a spark to her I hadn’t seen before.

“Ginny told Marla who told Tess that the new owner sent someone up to take a look at the inn last week. She saw them going in when she was opening up her store.” Ginny owned a chocolate shop on Maine Street.

“You really think he’s going to sell?” I didn’t want her to get her hopes up. He hadn’t been interested in letting Mom and George keep the inn they thought they’d bought.

Her lips firmed. “Of course,” she declared. “Frankie and I looked him up. Matthew Collins. He’s a real estate mogul from New York. There’s no way he has an interest in restoring a small-town inn. He probably just knew he could get more for it with his commercial contacts than Mom and Uncle George paid.”

I made a low sound. I already didn’t like this guy, and hearing Lou’s objective assessment only made me dislike him more—especially because it meant she’d need even more money to offer a competitive bid on the building.

“Don’t worry,” she assured me. “I won’t let it go without afight.”

A shadow of a smile crossed my face.

When Lou first told me her dream of owning her own business—whatever it ended up being, I promised to invest in it the second the opportunity was available. But she wanted to do it on her own, so that was when I decided to have her sell my art. Based on my own profits, I knew she had a sizable nest egg by now, but compared to what a big-city development corporation could offer…

“Well, whatever happens, we’ll figure it out.” Everyone saw the change in Lou when she’d started helping with plans for the inn. It was like she’d finally found her missing piece, and I’d do anything I could to help her keep it; the rest of our family would, too.

The bell at the door sounded, and two policemen walked in, bringing with them the chill of reality. The uniforms. Their guns.

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