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      MILLS & BOON

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      And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

      And death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

      —Revelation 21:4

      To my parents, James and Dorothy Hannon

      …traveling companions extraordinaire…

      who brighten all of my journeys

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter Eighteen

      Epilogue

      Letter to Reader

      Questions for Discussion

      Chapter One

      The little boy was watching her.

      Startled, Jill Whelan froze. She had no idea how long her young visitor had been crouched in the shadows of the large boulders that separated her sunny meadow from the dark woods beyond, but she sensed that he’d been there quite a while. If he hadn’t shifted position to keep her in sight as she moved across the field, she doubted whether his presence would ever have registered in her peripheral vision. Now that it had, however, the tense lines of his body warned her that he was poised to run at the slightest hint of detection.

      Instead of making eye contact she resumed gathering wildflowers, salvaging as many of the profuse July blooms as her large basket would hold before the angry clouds sweeping across the sea battered the island with a flattening torrent of rain and wind. So far, she’d gone about her task with the same singular focus and intensity she brought to her painting, which also helped explain why the solemn-eyed, brown-haired little boy hadn’t caught her attention before. Now, she was acutely conscious of his scrutiny.

      As she bent, reached and clipped, savoring the vivid colors of the perfect blossoms, he continued to stare. That didn’t surprise her. She was used to people gawking. She was also used to people keeping their distance. Her appearance made adults uncomfortable and, on a couple of occasions, had even frightened small children.

      This little boy, however, seemed more cautious than scared. As if he wanted to communicate with her. Yet something was holding him back. And for once she didn’t think it was the disfiguring scars that covered most of the right side of her face.

      But then, what did she know? After two years of self-imposed isolation on this outcrop of rock in the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington State, her once-keen people skills were rusty, at best. Still, she knew all about loneliness. And she could feel it emanating from the little boy in an almost tangible way that tugged at her heart.

      With slow, deliberate steps, she eased closer to him. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted the grimy, oversize T-shirt that hung on his thin frame. His unkempt hair didn’t look as if it had seen a comb in weeks. And a large smudge of dirt on his face obscured the sprinkling of freckles that spilled across the bridge of his nose and onto his cheeks. He was about six, maybe seven, she estimated.

      Odd that she’d never seen him before. The adjacent property, which abutted Moran State Park on the less-populated eastern wing of butterfly-shaped Orcas Island, had never shown any sign of habitation. Unless, of course, you counted the occasional black-tailed deer that wandered onto her property to see if she’d replaced any of her deer-resistant plants with something more suited to their tastes, or the raccoons that came to forage in her trash bin. But Mary Lynn, at the tiny grocery store a few miles down the road, had mentioned once that an old hermit lived there. If so, he’d earned that label, because Jill had never seen any evidence of his existence. So who was the little boy? Could he be lost? Hungry? Injured? Did he need help?

      Her nurturing instincts kicked in, and she set the basket on the ground, then slid her clippers into the back pocket of her jeans. After dropping to one knee, she adjusted the brim of her hat to better shade her face, then turned toward the boy.

      His eyes, blue as the summer sky, widened in alarm when they met hers. For a second he froze, much like the deer she often startled on her twilight walks to the shore, a quarter of a mile away. Then he half rose from his crouched

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