she could manage. She wished Lizzie could have been here to say something, but Lizzie wouldn’t have understood. Lizzie would have asked a million questions her mother could never answer. And Lizzie, who was just a little girl, might mention this night to somebody else, who would then ask even more.
Theirs was a life of secrets, and this was simply one too many to expect her daughter to keep.
“I wish you could have known Lizzie, that it had been safe to let you know her,” Dana said softly. “I think she might have touched your heart.”
The sky darkened quickly into the purple-black of twilight, and the lights of the town across the bay twinkled in response. Dana turned and saw that the path she had trampled, the web-draped branches she had snapped and twisted to get here, were growing dim. For a moment she imagined a better time, and perhaps those memories were a final gift to her. She felt the heaviness in her heart lift a little, and the air that filled her lungs seemed the lighter, sweeter air they had breathed together, all those years ago.
“I love you,” she whispered. “No matter what you did, I hope you know that never changed.”
When she finally realized that soon she might not be able to find her way back along dry ground, she left him to the bay he had loved and the little harbor where they had once believed the world was theirs to conquer.
chapter one
So much time had passed since Tracy Deloche had gotten it on with a man that last night she’d actually made a list of things she needed to do, just so she wouldn’t make an embarrassing mistake.
“Shave everything that needs it.” Now she paused beside her dresser to check that one off. An hour ago she had taken a long scented bath and made sure that not one hair, one patch of stubble, remained where it shouldn’t.
“Insert diaphragm.” She wasn’t fond of number two. She’d been on the pill most of her adult life, but at her last checkup, the doctor had asked a series of questions, then recommended she take a break for at least a year. The woman, who was even younger than Tracy’s thirty-five, had fitted her for a diaphragm, explained how to use it, then given her the prescription to fill.
Sadly, Tracy hadn’t needed it until now. She’d taken care of those preparations, too. So what if thinking about sex this far ahead of time lacked a certain spontaneity? She was sure Marsh knew what she had in mind for their rendezvous. He was the one who’d called to say that Bay, his nine-year-old son, was staying overnight with a friend, so he could come to her house as soon as he dropped Bay off.
Most likely her chicken Caesar salad, even if she had learned to make a wicked delicious dressing last week, was not the lure. In fact, she doubted they would actually get to the salad.
“Change sheets. Uh-huh. Buy new underwear.” Too late for that, but she had a zebra-stripe push-up bra and thong that would serve, although these days, most likely due to frequent laundering, both were snugger than they should be.
“Sexier that way.” The minute the words passed her lips, she realized the excuse sounded like something Wanda, her fifty-something neighbor, would say. The thought that Florida Cracker Wanda might be rubbing off on her was sobering.
She crumpled the list and tossed it in the wastebasket. She had cleaned her house, bought wine for herself and a six pack of Dos Equis for Marsh. She’d selected the most seductive music in her collection and loaded it to an iPod playlist titled Seduction. She had turned on just the right number of lamps to enhance the deepening twilight. A wheel of Brie was baking in the oven, and hummus and chips sat on the kitchen table under plastic to protect them from the inevitable Florida bugs and humidity. Her skimpiest sundress clung to her hips and thighs, and bared a significant portion of her back, even though it was April and evenings could still be cool.
She was threading a sandal strap through a buckle when the telephone rang. Not her cell phone, the number Marsh and most of her friends used, but the landline in her kitchen. She considered abandoning the shoe, but she waited for her new answering machine to pick up first. When it did, a woman began to whine, then picked up steam and