Village life really is parochial, Carolyn reflected as she tossed and turned in bed that evening.
The whole thing was inane, from the come-hither looks of the fire commissioner to Claymore's goofy rescue of Scruffy. Ordinarily, he dog could scamper the cliff face like a little goat. Was he smart enough, really, to pull one over on Claymore's laughable if endearing group of firefighters? Aggravating, when added to the silliness of some of her other encounters with the locals in Schooner Bay.
They still perceived her as a snob, part of Schooner Bay life yet aloof at the same time. They feared the Captain but appreciated the sudden decrease in supernatural "hijinks," as Martha once whispered. "Thank goodness for Carolyn Muir, she's so pretty even the old goat won't cross her." Code, she knew, for "are they or aren't they?"
Pretty. Where had that ever gotten her? Widowed and co-habitating with a ghost who couldn't touch her. She raised her head, punched her pillow, and rolled angrily over in bed. That time of the month? Carolyn didn't care. Tears filled her eyes, as they always did whenever she thought about her relationship with the 160-year-old sea captain. Yet her sadness was tinged with dread of what might have happened if Gull Cottage had burned. Would the Captain be forced to recuse himself to wherever it is ghosts go when their haunted homes burn? Daniel, as she sometimes called him, worried about that possibility, too. Could he stay if there was no longer the possibility of turning Gull Cottage into a home for retired seamen, or was there something greater that kept him tied to the stormy cliffs of rural Maine?
"You're not going anywhere," she'd assured him. "You're staying right here with us." Was her love enough to tether him to the kids? To her? Her desire – lust even?
Those flames, she knew, were inextinguishable.