“I’ll give you a head start,” Gemma offered.

“How much?”

“Um … five seconds.”

“Five seconds?” Alex seemed to weigh this. “I guess maybe I could—” Instead of finishing his thought, he dove into the water, swimming fast.

“I’m already giving you a head start!” Gemma called after him, laughing. “You don’t need to cheat!”

Alex swam as furiously as he could, but it wasn’t long before Gemma was flying past him. She was unstoppable in the water, and he’d honestly never seen anything faster than her. In the past, he’d gone with Harper to swim meets at the school, and there had rarely been one where Gemma didn’t win.

“I won!” Gemma declared when she reached the rock.

“As if there was ever any doubt.” Alex swam up next to her and hung on to the rock to support himself. His breath was still short, and he wiped the salty water from his eyes. “That was hardly a fair fight.”

“Sorry.” She smiled. Gemma wasn’t anywhere near as winded as Alex was, but she leaned onto the rock next to him.

“For some reason, I don’t think you really mean that,” Alex said in mock offense.

His hand slipped off the rock, and when he reached out to steady himself again, he accidentally put his hand over Gemma’s. His first instinct was to pull it back in some kind of hasty embarrassment, but the second before he did, he changed his mind.

Alex let his hand linger over hers, both of them cool and wet. Her smile had changed, turning into something fonder, and for a moment neither of them said anything. They hung on to the rock like that for a moment longer, the only sound the water lapping around them.

Gemma would’ve been content to sit with Alex like that, but light exploded in the cove behind him, distracting her. The small cove was at the mouth of the bay, just before it met the ocean, about a quarter mile from where Gemma and Alex floated.

Alex followed her gaze. A moment later, laughter sounded over the water and he pulled his hand away from hers.

A fire flared inside the cove, the light flickering across the three dancing figures that fanned it. From this far away, it was difficult to get a clear view of what they were doing, but it was obvious who they were by the way they moved. Everyone in town knew of them, even if nobody really seemed to know them personally.

“It’s those girls,” Alex said—softly, as if the girls would overhear him from the cove.

The three girls were dancing with elegance and grace. Even their shadows, looming on the rock walls around them, seemed sensual in their movements.

“What are they doing out here?” Alex asked.

“I don’t know.” Gemma shrugged, continuing to stare at them, unabashed. “They’ve been coming out here more and more. They seem to like hanging out in that cove.”

“Huh,” Alex said. She looked back at him and saw his brow furrowed in thought.

“I don’t even know what they’re doing in town.”

“Me neither.” He looked over his shoulder to watch them again. “Somebody told me they were Canadian movie stars.”

“Maybe. But they don’t have accents.”

“You’ve heard them talk?” Alex asked, sounding impressed.

“Yeah, I’ve seen them at Pearl’s Diner across from the library. They always order milk shakes.”

“Didn’t there used to be four of them?”

“Yeah, I think so.” Gemma squinted, trying to be sure she was counting right. “Last time I saw them out here, there were four. But now there’s only three.”

“I wonder where the other one went.”

Gemma and Alex were too far away to understand them clearly, but they were talking and laughing, their voices floating over the bay. One of the girls began singing—her voice as clear as crystal, and so sweet it almost hurt to hear. The melody pulled at Gemma’s heart.

Alex’s jaw dropped, and he gaped at them. He moved away from the rock, floating slowly toward them, but Gemma barely even noticed. Her focus was on the girls. Or, more accurately, on the one girl who wasn’t singing.

Penn. Gemma was sure of it, just by the way Penn moved away from the two girls. Her long black hair hung down behind her, and the wind blew it back. She walked with startling grace and purpose, her eyes straight ahead.

From this distance in the dark, Penn shouldn’t have noticed her, but Gemma could feel her eyes boring straight through her, sending chills down her spine.

“Alex,” Gemma said in a voice that barely sounded like her own. “I think we should go.”

“What?” Alex replied dazedly, and that was when Gemma realized how far he’d swum away from her.

“Alex, come on. I think we’re bothering them. We should go.”

“Go?” He turned back to her, sounding confused by the idea.

“Alex!” Gemma said, nearly shouting now, but at least that seemed to get through to him. “We need to get back. It’s late.”

“Oh, right.” He shook his head, clearing it, and then swam back toward the shore.

When Gemma was convinced he was back to normal, she followed him.

Penn, Thea, Lexi, and Arista had been in town since the weather started warming up, and people assumed they were the first tourists of the season. But nobody really knew exactly who they were or what they were doing here.

All Gemma knew was that she hated it when they came out here. It disrupted her night swims. She didn’t feel comfortable being in the water, not when they were out in the cove, dancing and singing and doing whatever it was they did.