Alegra's Homecoming. Mary Anne Wilson

on the ferry lost hers and I told her I thought Earl might be able to help her.” Joe hesitated, then, “Have you ever heard of Alegra Reynolds?”

      “Can’t say as I have, Joe. That’s the lady?”

      “Yeah. She’s the founder of the Alegra’s Closet boutiques.”

      That brought an instant smile to Boyd’s face. “She’s on the island? What’s she doing? Going to start one of those stores of hers around these parts?”

      “She said she’s here for the festival and buying art.”

      “Shoot, too bad. This place could use a little spicing up. Do you suppose she wears those little nothings that pass for clothes?” He leaned closer. “Is she hot?”

      Something in Joe recoiled at the idea of someone talking about Alegra this way, and it didn’t help that Boyd’s words brought images to his mind that made his body start to tighten. “She’s not ugly.” A true understatement.

      He went around the reception desk and across to his open office door, then entered his cluttered cubicle. He took his seat behind a desk almost hidden by stacks of paperwork. His old swivel chair protested when he turned in it toward the computer on the left. He booted the thing up and went straight to the Internet. He typed in Alegra Reynolds, then hit the enter key.

      ALEGRA GOT TO Earl Money’s store just as he was closing, and thankfully, he’d been more than happy to stay open a bit longer to set her up with a cell phone that turned out to be an upgrade from her old unit. By the time she got back to her cottage at Snug Harbor, it was past dinner and she decided to just eat one of the energy bars she brought. She used the Internet access in her room, got in touch with Roz, and in a few hours, had all of the data from her old phone downloaded into her new one.

      After that, she worked on her laptop, going over reports until just around midnight. When she was about to close down the computer, she reconsidered. She went to a search engine and put in the name of the high school on the island. She was a bit surprised to find that the Grace High School had its own Web page. Nothing fancy, just a picture of the school as it was when it started fifty years ago and one of how it looked now.

      She saw the links on the left, tapped on the alumni link and entered the year she graduated. The screen flashed with an image of the yearbook, and she entered her old name, Peterson. Suddenly, there she was ten years ago, a head-and-shoulders shot of her with long, pale hair pulled back from her face with a headband. Anyone would have called her expression sober, but they’d have been wrong. It was desperation, the same desperation that drove her to leave a week later.

      Under the photo with her name was the heading Predictions For Al’s Future, followed by a blank space, because she’d never given the editor anything to put there.

      She clicked on an earlier year, then another, and on her third try, she found Joe Lawrence.

      The man as a boy looked so young and thin, with a shock of dark hair falling over a smooth, earnest face. He was smiling, and it was the same boyish smile she’d seen on the ferry, though his adult face had a decided sexiness his young face hadn’t. She didn’t really remember him from the past, except once, at the lighthouse, she’d gone there to hide out and three boys had been there before her. She glared at them until they’d gone.

      She glanced at the predictions for his future: Pulitzer Prize winner by 30, a millionaire by 40, living in the south of France forever. He’d known what he wanted and hadn’t been afraid to see it in print. But as far as she knew there’d been no Pulitzer Prize, no millions—look at the old truck he drove—and Shelter Island was a long way from the south of France.

      She closed her computer, then sat back in the chair and sighed. So much for a trip down memory lane.

      She stood and crossed to the dresser to get ready for bed. In half an hour she was in the comfortable canopy bed, staring up at the shadows. Her yearbook picture flitted through her mind, then was replaced by Joe’s. As sleep tugged at her, the face changed to the man of the present….