There was a time when no one did not know Isaac Kane. It moved easily from mouth to mouth—poet, writer, professor of literature—wrapped in admiration and envy alike.

Fame had settled comfortably upon him, and wealth followed like a faithful shadow. Even now, in his fifties, his name showed no sign of fading. And yet, for all that abundance, he lived alone. Not lonely—he had long outgrown that ache—but solitary in a way that success could neither mend nor disturb.

It was during the long, languid days of summer that he chose to step away from the world that knew him so well, and travel into the quiet arms of the countryside.

He had been there a week now. The days passed unannounced, folding quietly into one another. No one came to disturb him, save for the occasional milkman rattling bottles at the gate, the soft arrival of grocery deliveries, and the maid who entered at dawn and departed with the evening light—six in the morning, seven at night—leaving the house to its silence once more.

One afternoon, returning from the local library with a thin stack of borrowed books under his arm, he saw her. A girl—curled in the hammock in his yard, asleep as though the place had quietly agreed to keep her.

Isaac stopped short. His brows drew together as he studied the improbable scene. She was young—too young to belong to his carefully ordered solitude, perhaps still in high school. Sunlight filtered through the leaves above her, dappling her skin, rising and falling with her breath. Sweat caught at her throat, a simple sign of heat and sleep, nothing more.

His fingers twitched, not with want, but with uncertainty. This house, this land, had been chosen for its absence of surprises. And yet here was one, breathing softly in the shade.