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Tilly arrived home, angry that Landon Lockwood had not only found her cove earlier that day, but he’d somehow circled back to her, suggesting he wanted her property for himself, for some business venture with Maxwell Abbott.
It didn’t quite make sense, but Landon Lockwood hadn’t really explained his plan, avoiding any important details other than he’d pay her a lot of money. She didn’t need his money. She was perfectly happy alone, in her wood, near her cove and her precious mussels. She tramped past her cottage to the barn where she gathered a few apples in her skirt and fed them to her horse, Marigold. “No one will take our land, old girl.” She leaned her head against the mare’s shoulder, the night so quiet she could hear her horse’s heartbeat, feel the blood pulsing through her grand, hulking body.
After giving Marigold water and a final pat, Tilly led her chickens into the coop, closing it tight. She turned and a flash of light made her squint, stopping her. Mabel’s dog collar, hanging near the coop door, the weathered buckle reflecting the moonlight. Mabel died six months before and Tilly had managed to look past the collar every time she went to the coop until that moment. She resisted getting a new dog, not ready to let Mabel go. Now she removed the collar from the hook and ran her thumb over the stitching, the faded blue and brown threads her mother had designed—a row of dogs circling it. Perhaps she was finally ready to bring it into the house, to tuck it away with her memories. Or, with all the men creeping into her cove, maybe it was time for a dog to help keep watch.
She entered the cottage, the scent of rosemary, basil, eucalyptus, and honeysuckle welcoming her. This sanctuary—the home her grandparents built when they arrived in America—was small, but served as Tilly’s castle. Sided in oak planking, the outside was sturdy, but only boasted three windows, so it could be dark inside. But the front door had two parts and in good weather, the bottom was closed but the top swung open to allow air and light to flood in.
Until recently she considered the cottage cozy, not dingy. It helped that she and her mother had covered the walls on one side with mother-of-pearl blanks, setting the pieces in a herringbone pattern that caught the light and caused the milky, pink and blue luster to shimmer, looking liquid. She exhaled, relieved to be safely ensconced in the one place she felt her parents’ presence most.
Their deaths from the grippe two winters before had shaken her, left her more isolated than ever, suddenly too busy to venture out for much more than the occasional barn dance. But she had too many good memories of school, of her friends and their families who folded around her when her parents died to ignore the call to raise money for the next generation’s schooling.
She undressed, noticing that the hem on her mama’s dress that she stitched had half-fallen sometime that night. Tilly should have worked harder at learning her mother’s needlecrafts, become an artist like the women before her. Tilly thought of Alice’s compliments at the dance. She was generous in spirit, always looking past Tilly’s domestic shortcomings. Alice. She’d be gone soon. Tilly was happy for her friend, relieved that not only had she found a man with dreams and the means to make them happen, but that the couple adored each other. Their first bedding being so lovely was just another bit of evidence that true love did exist in the world. At least for some people.
Tilly wiggled out of her dress and hung it in a slim closet her daddy had built into the bedroom. She leaned inside, inhaling the scent of her parents’ clothing. Thoughts of Alice pulling foot for the West Coast hit her again, deep sadness swelling inside her. She collapsed into the closet, sitting among the scent of lost family. Tears streamed down her face. What was happening? This home was the place that lifted her, embraced her, steeled her. She could not allow it to become somewhere she courted sadness, where she allowed sorrow to sink bone-deep.
She got up and closed the closet door, hoping to seal the essence of her parents inside, for just a little longer, knowing that at some point she’d open it and there’d be no trace of them remaining. She ran her finger along the bookshelves, selecting stories that would comfort her if she lit a candle and snuggled into the big bed, luring her to another world where all would end up right.
But she couldn’t settle, reading and rereading the same ten words, comprehending nothing. She stripped out of her chemise and drawers and went to the water. She slipped into the cove, the chill cooling her skin. She stroked toward the center and floated naked under August’s full Sturgeon Moon, basking. Thoughts of Landon Lockwood came back, making her sit up, sculling gently. The sound of a branch snapping made her sink underneath to her chin, scanning the land surrounding the cove. Just two deer nibbling at the brush. She honed in on each sense, trying to get a feel for whether someone was watching her. Too many chance visitors lately. But no. She was alone. Just the way she liked it. No sounds but the crickets, no jarring sights but the flicker of fireflies. Not a human soul to be seen. Landon may have stumbled onto her cove in the late morning light, but surely he couldn’t find his way there at night, even under a full moon and pincushion stars.
No, this was her place and she would not let anyone make her feel unsafe there. She would simply be as clear as possible. She would write a letter and have Mr. Darling, a lawyer, look it over, and send it to Mr. Lockwood, clearly drawing boundaries around her property for him, and at the same time drawing solid boundaries around her life, herself. No one was permitted in. No one.
She sculled, moving toward shore, basking in her contentment. She thought of what Alice had said to her, scolding her for being too self-protective, too unwilling to find a husband. But Tilly couldn’t bear the thought of loving and losing someone like she had her parents. That was enough pain for a lifetime. And she couldn’t fathom sharing her life, the cove, her work, the cottage with anyone, not even men she’d known her whole life.
And this new man? Landon Lockwood... he dripped with privilege, he reeked of arrogance, and she knew he would take advantage of her if possible. Even if he didn’t want to. It was simply the nature of people like him. They just can’t imagine the world where some things meant more than money. For Tilly, most things meant more.
