I hesitated, wondering if June had noticed him sitting alone earlier in the cruise and asked him to keep me company so I wouldn’t have to eat by myself.

The man smiled politely, though his eyes stayed serious and remarkably sharp.

“Mrs.

Whitman?” he asked in a low, deliberate voice that carried over the noise of the dining room.

I looked up from June’s handwritten note into the face of the gray-haired stranger in the navy blazer.

“Excuse me,” he said, taking a small step closer to the edge of the white tablecloth.

“Are you Claire Whitman from Oak Ridge?”