“This is it, all right. You can tell by the sailboards if nothing else.”

They were greeted at the door by a German shepherd on three legs.

“This is Tripod,” Nola said.

Paul patted the dog’s head. A dog and two cats, Annie had told him. Not much for a vet.

The personality the house exuded on the outside spilled over into the living room. Annie’s touch was everywhere. The furniture was not the usual sturdy beach variety of the Outer Banks, but rather an overstuffed and eclectic collection of chairs and sofas upholstered in bold floral prints. The floor was nearly covered by patterned rugs, haphazardly layered on top of one another to form a comforting patchwork. Paul felt as if he’d walked into Annie’s arms.

“Don’t they have a wonderful view?” Nola was still at his elbow, pointing toward the huge window that looked out over the sound. The sunset was beginning to paint the sky, but Paul’s attention was drawn to the adjacent wall where ten small, oval windows were scattered from floor to ceiling, each filled with an intricately detailed scene of a woman in a flowing dress. One held a parasol, another walked a greyhound, a third held a bloodred rose to her nose.

“Oh, my God,” he said. He had not known, she had never told him, that these windows existed. “These are extraordinary.”

“Mmm,” Nola agreed. “She was a very talented lady.”

He could have spent the rest of the evening in front of those ovals of glass, but Nola took his arm and steered him toward the kitchen.

“Let’s say hello to Alec,” she said.

The kitchen was again pure Annie. The floor and cabinets and countertops were white, but the walls were nearly entirely made up of windows, and the windows were filled with stained glass, so that even in the muted evening light, the room was awash in soft pastels.

Alec leaned against the counter by the sink, uncorking a bottle of wine. He smiled when he saw them. “Hi, Nola, Paul.” He rested his hand briefly on Paul’s shoulder.

“The bluefish was divine,” Nola said. She kissed Alec on the cheek, touching his chest lightly with her hand in a way that gave Paul gooseflesh. Was there something between them? How could Alec have lost Annie such a short time ago and even let another woman near him? Nola, though, was looking at Alec with clear adoration that Alec seemed not to notice. Paul supposed he was the type of man some women would find attractive, with his piercing blue eyes and dark hair, and the smile that came as a surprise just when you thought he was incapable of any levity whatsoever.

He’s so sexy, Annie had said during the first interview. Paul had taken her words as a warning, an indication that he didn’t stand a chance with her this time around. He wondered later if she had only been trying to warn herself.

Alec arranged some wineglasses on a tray and handed the bottle to Paul. “Want to pour for me?”

“Sure.” Paul tried to get the same level of energy into his voice that Alec had in his, but failed. He took the bottle from Alec’s hand and began to pour, but his eyes were drawn to the decorative white shelves between the counter top and the cabinets. There, directly in front of him, was the small blue cloisonné horse he had bought Annie in New Hope. He spilled some of the wine on the tray and set the bottle down until he could pour it without his hand shaking.

Baby Blue. She had kept it all these years.

“Can you bring the tray out?” Alec asked, as he and Nola carried corn chips and salsa into the living room.

“Sure,” Paul said again. He separated the glasses on the tray so they wouldn’t rattle against each other when he lifted them.

He took a seat facing the wall of oval windows, but the light outside was quickly fading and from this distance he could not make out the scenes. Besides, he had to pay attention to what the others were saying. He had suddenly become the topic of their conversation.

Alec took a swallow of wine and lifted the file of material Paul had put together on the history of the lighthouse.

“Great work, Paul,” he said. “You’ve more than earned your keep on this committee.”

The others agreed, Brian Cass adding that they just needed a bit more information on Mary Poor to make it complete.

“I have a few things I need to get done for the Gazette,” Paul said. “But I’m hoping to get over to Manteo one day in the next week or so.”

“No rush,” Alec said. He took a deep breath and set down his glass. “Well, maybe I’d better wait till you’ve all had a bit more to drink before I move on to the next topic.” He picked up another file. “I’m afraid this is it, folks. The Park Service has made their final decision.”

“Oh, God,” said Sondra. “They’re going to move it.”

Alec nodded, and Walter Liscott groaned and buried his head in his hands.

“Read it, Alec,” Nola said.

Alec opened the file. A track would be built, he read, the work to begin in late August and completed next spring. The lighthouse would be lifted up and onto the track and moved a quarter mile inland. Paul could not picture it. He could not imagine the spit of land at Kiss River in unrelenting darkness.

Walter stood up. “It’s insanity!” he said. “It’s a godawful jackass scheme!”

“It does sound impossible,” Sondra said.

Brian Cass shook his head. “As far as I’m concerned, the historical significance of the lighthouse is down the tubes if they move it.”

“What about the sea wall?” Walter gestured wildly. “Why the hell…”

“Walter.” Alec’s voice was calm, reasonable. “That argument’s moot. This is what we have to live with.”

Walter stared at Alec for a moment. “I’m sorry, Alec. I’m going to have to take myself off this committee. I can’t be a party to that lunatic idea.”

He started toward the door, but Nola stood up and grabbed his arm. “The engineers have been working on this for years, now, Walter. You know that. You know they wouldn’t recommend moving it if they had the slightest doubt it would…”

“A bunch of little boys with a great big erector set,” Walter said. “They’re just playing. They’re experimenting with something they have no right to tamper with.” He turned to leave.

“Walter,” Alec said. “We don’t want to lose you. If you have a change of heart, please don’t let pride get in the way of coming back.”

Walter muttered something to himself and walked out the door.

The room was suddenly very still. An outboard motor started up somewhere on the sound, and the three-legged shepherd yawned and rolled over at Alec’s feet.

“Well,” Alec said finally. “Anybody else want to leave?”

Sondra Carter folded her arms across her chest. “I want to, but I won’t.”

Alec continued the meeting, talking about a few speaking engagements he had lined up. Then the committee went over a couple of fund-raising ideas, but energy lagged as the reality of the Park Service report settled over them like a lead blanket.

The meeting ended abruptly at nine, and Paul found himself reluctant to leave. He hung back from the rest of the group, cleaning up a salsa spill from the coffee table, carrying the wineglasses into the kitchen. He set them carefully in the sink, his eyes fastened on the blue horse, as he listened to Alec bidding good-night to his other guests. Paul walked back into the living room, getting as close as he could to the oval windows, but it was too dark outside. It was nearly impossible to make out the designs.

“Annie finished them even before the house was built.”

Paul turned to see Alec in the doorway. “It must have taken her forever,” he said.

“Not really. Once she got a design down, she was pretty fast. Come outside. You can see them much better from there this time of night.”

Paul followed Alec out the front door and around to the side of the house. They stood next to each other in the sand, Paul shaking his head in spellbound wonder. The windows were breathtaking.

“The thing that strikes me about her work is the realism,” he said. “You’d swear these women were real, that their dresses would feel soft and silky if you touched them.”

“That was her specialty,” Alec said. “I don’t think that even Tom, the guy she worked with, ever mastered the technique she used.”

Paul looked over at Alec, whose cheeks were splashed violet and gold from the window closest to his face. “Does it bother you to talk about her?” he asked.

“Not at all. She’s one of my favorite topics.”

Paul ran his fingertips over one of the windows, watching the color bleed onto his skin. “The night Olivia came home and told me Annie O’Neill was dead…I just couldn’t believe it. She was so alive. She was wonderful to interview.” He thought of the tapes he could not bring himself to listen to.

“It was unbelievable all right,” Alec said.

“I guess you know Olivia and I are separated.”

“Yes, she told me.” He glanced at Paul. “Do you know that’s not what she wants?”

“I know.” Paul stared at the image of a white-gowned, raven-haired woman about to take a bite from an apple. “It was completely my fault, what went wrong. Completely my doing. I felt certain when I left that it was the right thing to do, but now…I miss her sometimes, although I still have my doubts we could ever make it work again.”

“At least you have the choice. I envy you for that.” Alec gazed down at the sand for a few seconds. Then he chuckled and looked up at Paul. “I have this almost uncontrollable urge to lecture you,” he said. “You have a wife who’s pretty and smart and alive and I get the feeling you don’t realize how lucky you are and how quickly you could lose her…and I’m sorry. I don’t have any right to tell you your business.”

“Its okay,” Paul said. “I guess I’d feel the same way in your shoes.”