By the time Sally had been working at Castellan's for a month, the first crisp chill of autumn had already begun to bite through the air. It was barely six thirty in the morning when she clocked in, but there was something soothing about the opening shift routine— Beatles playing on the radio, bakery window shutters open, ovens warmed up, coffee brewing in the pot behind the counter. Sally wasn't much good at kneading bread the way Kai and May were, but she could punch down the rising dough and she could spread butter and brown sugar across the plane of a half-made cinnamon roll just fine. Best of all, she liked simmering butter over the stove for brown-butter chocolate chip cookies, studded through with dark chocolate and bits of toffee and sea salt— May's recipe, and a new addition to the menu.

"Luke just goes crazy for them," May told Sally when she taught her how to make them for the first time. "I want to make these a family recipe, you know?"

"The kind of cookie that can cure a bad day, or give you the energy to get through a long day of doing nothing on the beach." Sally popped a morsel of chocolate into her mouth.

"God, I can't wait for winter beach days," Kai said with a grin, dusting flour off of his hands and onto his jeans. "May, how do you feel about teaching Luke how to play beach football this fall? Get him ready for next summer."

May arched an eyebrow. "If he so much as sprains a finger…"

"He'll be fine." Kai hefted a fresh bag of flour above his shoulder, shouting as he went, "Kid's gonna have the best passing record for under-ten-year-olds in the state by the time I'm done with him!"

"Winter beach days?" Sally asked, stirring the butter on the stovetop until a frothy bit of milk fat began to dissipate.

May smiled. "Yeah. Best thing about being a townie instead of summer folk. The beach in the winter is really something else. Having the whole place to yourself, and even though the days are shorter, it's like… the sun shines just for you."

"Sounds wonderful." Sally pulled the butter off the heat. "Where should I set this to cool?"

The cookies were the best Sally had ever had, and she committed the recipe to memory then and there. To no one's surprise, they became a bestselling item within weeks, and soon enough, May had passed the opening shift off to Sally and Kai so that she could stay home in the mornings to get Luke off to school. Sally didn't mind having one fewer person on the opening shift— it was quiet, just her and the music and the smells of coffee and rising dough and melting butter, with Kai or John's occasional footsteps as they came in and out, setting up chairs and making fresh coffee or lifting bags of flour in and out of storage bins.

There was money in Sally's bank account. A warm meal in her belly every day that she worked. More often than not, a boxed-up spaghetti or loaf of bread spread with garlic sent home with her if John or May saw her getting ready to head home alone. Laughter and music in the bakery, even on the quiet days.

The house was still empty and the ghosts of the past year still hurt, but Corinth Beach was beginning to feel like home. A lee in a storm, if nothing else.

And there was, consistently, a storm.

Perhaps she'd just never noticed it about Corinth Beach before, or perhaps it was just what differentiated autumn in Montauk from all of those glorious summers, but every afternoon and most nights, rain pelted the ground in silvery sheets, and the white-capped waves rose high, and lightning forked through the air like spears stabbing down into the waves. And more often than not, the same surfer Sally had noticed that very first week was out there in it— riding the storm, skimming the surface, like a dancer sliding across a waxed floor. And there was almost a glow about him, or maybe it was just that he was backlit by the flashes of light from the storm.

That was a routine in itself, too. Sally would finish a shift, walk home, rinse the flour from her hair, and latch the windows and doors before the rain began to fall. She'd make a cup of tea, nestle into a blanket that smelled a little less like her mother's perfume with every passing day, and sit with her knees to her chest in the little cushioned seat of the bay window, watching the illuminated man surfing the storm-sieged sea until her cup was empty, or until the rain stopped falling and the waves smoothed out— whichever came first.

"It didn't used to rain quite so much," was all Kai really had to say when Sally finally asked. "And it takes an absolute madman to go surfing in it. But stranger things have happened here."

"I miss when there was more sun," May added. "But Corinth Beach is safe. Anyone out there surfing is probably a..."

Kai shot her a glance that Sally struggled to interpret.

"A local," May finished with a shrug. "Curious to know who it is, though. Let us know if you find out who's going out there in the rain."

But Sonny Hedge didn't know either, and John said he was never out in the rain anymore because it made his arthritis flare up too badly. Only little Luke, doing his spelling homework at a table in the back of the bakery, seemed to really think about it when Sally brought the mysterious surfer up.

"Maybe he's a traveler," Luke said, his sandy-blond hair sticking up in about twenty different directions. "Or he's lost and looking for someone. Like my dad, when he came here."

"Now, that's enough of that," John said, smoothing Luke's hair down. "Now let's spell 'apple,' bud. Can you do that? It starts with a…"

And that was the end of that. Sally didn't press further on the issue of Luke's father.

But the man on the surfboard was real, that much had become clear. Not a hallucination that could be blinked away. Kai walked out with her to the beach one day after the morning shift at work just to confirm it, and May sat with Sally in the window seat one afternoon while Luke played with little wooden toy soldiers on the living room rug.

"He's beautiful," May remarked softly as they both watched him arc through the water, a golden slip of light on the horizon.

"He is," Sally agreed. "But…"

"But I've got no idea who he is." May shrugged. "Why are you so invested in figuring it out anyway? It's not like you've ever spoken to him."

"No, but what if." Sally leaned her head against the window frame, the panes of glass cool on her face. "Wonder what stories he's got to tell."

Because I think it's sweet, if a touch sad, that Sally and May both bake chocolate chip cookies for their boys. Also, sorry this took a while to update; I got around to reading The Wrath of the Triple Goddess and it gave me some ideas that required reworking my outline a little bit. Anyway, hope y'all enjoyed reading this chapter— feel free to leave a comment, it makes my day every single time. ~GT