Anya's desk (a hastily constructed platform of two sawhorses and a plywood sheet in the Seafoam Cottage's sunroom) had become her command center. It was the only room with intact glass and decent internet signal. For two days, she had been drowning in the digital archives of coastal Maine, fueled by instant coffee and the desperate energy of a woman who felt she had a deadline from the dead.
The problem wasn't a lack of records; it was a maddening surplus.
The name Eleanor was attached to the original deed of the Seafoam Cottage, purchased in 1941 by a naval commander named Arthur Lathrop. Eleanor was his wife. That confirmed the husband's oppressive, authoritative presence mentioned in the letters. She also discovered Eleanor Lathrop lived well into her nineties, passing away five years ago in a private nursing facility thirty miles inland. Eleanor had lived a long, apparently respectable life, leaving the mystery of the unsent letters even more profound. Why keep the secret if the husband was long dead and the war was over?
The real stumbling block, however, was James O'Connell.
"O'Connell," she muttered, rubbing the bridge of her nose as the search engine returned 1,400 results from the area. "It's like looking for 'Smith' in London."
She knew James had been in the service (hinted at a naval rating) and that the conspiracy involved protecting the O'Connell name. Her attempts to link a 'James O'Connell' born between 1918 and 1925, serving in the Navy, and connected to the Lathrops were yielding nothing but dead ends – a James O'Connell who ran the local cannery, a James O'Connell who was lost at sea in 1943, and three others who moved inland after the war. None of them had any clear link to Commander Lathrop or the cottage.
She opened the final, angular letter from "The Keeper" again, scrutinizing the word "O'Connell." It felt like a ticking clock. Every time she saw the name, she saw Liam's face (that chiseled jaw, those deep, sea-glass eyes) and the profound, internal guilt of her secrecy deepened. Liam was the only living O'Connell she knew, and she was terrified he was the final piece of the historical tragedy she was trying to solve.
A sudden, sharp series of raps on the glass startled her. Liam stood outside the sunroom, looking in, his silhouette framed by the late-afternoon sun. He was wearing his work gear (the dusty canvas pants and a fresh, dark blue t-shirt) and he carried a heavy-duty, commercial dehumidifier under one arm.
Anya opened the latch and stepped outside into the cool, salty air. "Liam. What's that?"
"The structural integrity of your precious attic is fine now that the lintel's out, but the moisture readings are spiking," he explained, setting the heavy machine down without effort. "We need to stabilize the environment before we get the insurance assessment next week, or you'll have mold growing on your cursed correspondence."
He was still dry, pragmatic, and focused on the physical requirements of the house, but there was a shift in his demeanor since they shared the letters. The professional friction was still there (a low, humming static) but it was now charged with an undercurrent of mutual respect, and something hotter.
"I appreciate that," Anya said, crossing her arms. "But I need that partition wall fully down. I can't risk exposing the documents to any more heat or humidity cycles. Have you cut the second stud yet?"
"I have not," he said, leaning against the doorframe, deliberately blocking her path back to the desk. He didn't seem to be in a hurry. "I spent the afternoon fixing the gutters on the west wing. They were diverting water right into the foundation, which, by the way, is a much bigger threat to the Lathrop's legacy than a few hidden letters."
"I'm aware of the foundation, Liam," she sighed, running a hand through her hair. "But the owner's family is more concerned about the historical report right now, and the historical report needs the names."
He looked past her, into the bright sunroom, where her laptop screen glowed with a confusing tangle of census records and newspaper clippings. "You look like you haven't eaten anything but caffeine and despair since Tuesday."
"I'm fine. I'm just hitting the wall with the genealogy. Too many O'Connells, too many Jameses, and zero proof of a conspiracy," Anya confessed, letting her guard down slightly.
Liam studied her for a moment, his expression softening subtly. "We need to talk about that roof membrane replacement tomorrow. It's a full day of shingling and tear-off. You need sleep." He paused, then pushed himself off the doorframe. "I know a place down the road that serves a lobster roll that might actually force you to forget about the 1940s for an hour."
The Invitation was so simple, so direct, and so perfectly timed that it short-circuited Anya's defenses. A professional dinner was one thing, but a lobster roll and a reprieve felt entirely different.
"A lobster roll?" she asked, a genuine smile cracking the historian's serious façade. "Is that an official contractor bribe?"
"No bribe," Liam replied, returning the smile (a flash of white against the dust-tanned skin of his face). "Just a distraction. No clipboards, no bore-scopes, and absolutely no discussion of the Lathrops, the war, or curses. Just food. You deserve a break, Anya."
His use of her first name, combined with the gentle authority of his tone, made it impossible to refuse. "Alright, O'Connell. But if the lobster roll isn't perfect, I'm sending you back to that rotted lintel."
Dinner at The Clam Shell
The Clam Shell restaurant was exactly the kind of unpretentious, seaside establishment Anya hadn't realized she missed. It was all worn linoleum, fishing nets hung as decor, and the pervasive, comforting smell of melted butter and salt. They sat at a worn wooden booth in the back, the late evening sun throwing long shadows across the water outside the window.
Anya had changed into a clean, simple black shirt and jeans, but Liam still carried the undeniable aura of hard work. The faint lines of dust around his neckline only served to emphasize the rugged definition of his features.
They talked easily, but carefully. Liam, it turned out, wasn't just a contractor; he was a trained boat-builder who started his career restoring classic wooden sailboats before realizing that coastal homes paid better. He loved the integrity of old construction (the craftsmanship and the materials) which directly contradicted the sledgehammer approach she first witnessed.
"It's the efficiency that gets me," Liam explained, drinking a dark beer. "Everyone assumes the old way is slow, but a good shipwright could make a joint that outlasts any modern fastener. You just have to know how to read the grain."
"Reading the grain," Anya repeated, suddenly seeing his work differently. "Like reading the scrawl on a brittle letter."
Liam's eyes met hers, and the spark was undeniable. "Exactly. It's all patterns, isn't it? The past never changes, but we change how we look at it."
Anya found herself relaxing completely, sharing stories about her early career restoring a 19th century lighthouse keeper's cottage – a story that involved a terrifying encounter with a nesting colony of gulls. Liam listened with genuine, focused attention, never interrupting, and offering sharp, practical commentary when she was finished.
The conversation flowed effortlessly from historic architecture to the worst coastal weather, to their favorite old movies. They didn't have to strain for common ground; they seemed to share a fundamental perspective on the importance of things that endure.
"So, no family? No giant construction empire waiting for the great O'Connell to take over?" Anya asked lightly, sipping her ginger ale. She kept the tone casual, deliberately steering the conversation into his personal history without being obvious.
Liam laughed, a rich, genuine sound that crinkled the corners of his eyes. "Nah. Just me. I'm the last of my line around here, professionally speaking. My dad was a fisherman, my grandfather was a builder, but mostly boats. I inherited the tools and the stubbornness, not the empire."
The last of my line. The phrase struck Anya with the cold force of a rogue wave. He said it so casually, so dismissively, but in the context of the Lathrop letters (the curse, the cover-up, the final note left by "The Keeper" specifically to protect the O'Connell name) it sounded like a final, devastating clue.
She suddenly saw James O'Connell's ghost in Liam's profile, in the way he held his shoulders, in the pride he took in his local heritage. The resemblance was too strong, too fated to be a coincidence.
A wave of internal panic washed over her. She knew, definitively, that she could not tell him. Not yet. The initial search was vague, but this specific information was a smoking gun. She had promised him a distraction, and now she was weaponizing his genealogy.
"That's…that's a lot of legacy to carry, the last of the line," she managed, forcing her voice to remain steady.
Liam shrugged, focusing on tearing off a piece of his perfectly toasted roll. "It's just a name, Anya. We live, we die, we leave behind dry rot and some old timber. Sometimes people like you come along and try to put the pieces back together." He looked up, his eyes direct and intense. "But you shouldn't get too obsessed with the dead. The living deserve your attention, too."
The statement felt like a direct, if accidental, challenge. It was a clear invitation to move past the professional boundaries and the shared secrets of the house. Liam wasn't just handsome; he was perceptive, deeply rooted, and entirely focused on the immediate, tangible reality of the present.
The chemistry between them, which had been a low simmer of annoyance and attraction at the Seafoam Cottage, now boiled over in the warm, noisy safety of the restaurant.
"I won't," Anya promised, her heart thumping an uneasy rhythm against her ribs. She was lying, and she hated the deception, but she knew the consequences of telling him now (shock and betrayal) would destroy everything they were building, both professionally and personally. She had to solve the mystery first. She had to break the curse before she could tell him he was living under its shadow.
She deliberately changed the subject, talking about the next phase of the project, focusing on the future of the house instead of its doomed past. Liam followed her lead, and the tension eased, but the shadow of the O'Connell name remained.
Later, after Liam walked her back to her car and they exchanged a lingering handshake (far too charged for a professional acquaintance) Anya drove away from The Clam Shell, feeling full, rested, and utterly compromised.
She didn't go straight to her AirBnB. She drove back to the Seafoam Cottage, the bright glow of her laptop pulling her in. She sat back down at her desk in the sunroom, pulled up the genealogy software, and typed a new, highly specific query: "James O'Connell, 1945, missing persons, Lathrop."
The dinner had solidified one thing: she was falling for Liam. The curse of the unsent letters had led her directly to the man who was both the key to the mystery and the living embodiment of the tragedy. She had to finish the story of James before she could start the story of Liam.