“See you tomorrow,” he called after her.

She waved without looking back. She didn’t want to know that he was watching her, studying her slow steps, probably wondering what was wrong with her. She made it to her car without incident and sank onto the firm seat. With him still looking on, she backed out of the parking lot.

As she drove away, she was both desperate to know what he’d thought of her and grateful she couldn’t begin to guess. She was nothing like the woman he remembered as Josie Fitzgerald Scott. On the one hand, he’d divorced that Josie, so he couldn’t have cared about her too much. Of course he’d also married her, so there had been some kind of attraction and affection between them.

Josie turned left at the stop sign, then headed for the real estate office. If she was going to have her ex-husband restore the Miller Victorian house, then she’d better see about buying it. At least the old place had been vacant for years. That, combined with her ability to pay cash for the place, would mean that she could have a quick escrow.

Had she done the right thing, she wondered as she drove, or was she crazy? Pretending to be someone else sure wasn’t smart. Maybe she should have just told Del the truth about herself. But she hated the thought of seeing the pity and shock in his eyes. Better for him to think of her as a stranger. All she needed was a little time to get to know him again. Once they were friends, she would confess all and then convince him to talk about their marriage enough to give her closure. After that, she would be free to get on with her life. Free to figure out who she was and what she was going to do, now that everything she’d loved about herself was gone.

Chapter Two

Del Scott climbed the front steps of the old Miller place. It was nearly eleven in the morning on the kind of day designed to make every person not living in Beachside Bay want to sell their house, pack up their belongings and move to the oceanside town. The sky was a perfect California blue, the temperatures promised to reach into the mid-seventies and a faint tang of salt scented the sweet breeze.