Afterward she felt better. Her periods were irregular but not greatly so. She only had hot flashes when she stepped from air-conditioning into Florida’s violent sunshine. She might occasionally have mood swings, sure, but those were always due to PMS. She slept like a rock at night, still craved sex, and wasn’t losing hair or growing more in places she didn’t want it. Nope, there was nothing physical happening to her, nothing premature. Wanda had been trying to get a response, and she had succeeded.
Still, she lay awake too long thinking about Friday. She had half expected Marsh to call over the weekend, but her phone had been silent. She was pretty sure she had hurt his feelings. And why wouldn’t they be hurt? She’d been as jumpy as a virgin. He had come for a good meal—okay, the meal had been the least of it. He had come to spend the night, and instead, she had been thinking about CJ, a man who, without remorse, had dropped her into the worst mess of her life.
Tracy had made a mistake by not telling Marsh what she thought she had seen. At least then they could have talked. She could have admitted she was spooked by her past. Marsh was divorced. He would have understood. Comfort would have turned to something far more interesting.
On Monday morning she woke even earlier than usual and dressed casually for a day at the rec center. Spring vacation was over. Marsh would be busy getting himself to work and his son to school, but she thought he might spare her a few minutes. She would stop by to explain and ask his forgiveness. She would tell him that any time he could get away again, he had a standing invitation to come to her place. She gave herself an extra half hour to get to work and took off.
Marsh lived on the other end of Palmetto Grove Key, near the bridge to the mainland, in a house his family had owned for four generations. She passed both the island’s Indian mound and an abandoned fish camp; then she wound her way through forest scrub that reminded her of her unfortunate search and destroy mission yesterday.
Someday soon she would have to find her way back to that spot and look for her golf umbrella, which she had abandoned after nearly clubbing earth-tone man over the head.
Marsh called his rambling home a Cracker house. It sat on brick pilings, high enough that when storms blew through and flooding ensued, the house usually withstood both. The tin roof jutted over screened porches for shade, and windows had been placed for maximum ventilation. Once in the fall, she, Marsh and Bay had camped out in mosquito-net-draped hammocks on one of the porches, listening to insects and the remnants of a faraway thunderstorm. She had fallen asleep, drugged by the fragrance of citrus blossoms and the faint sulfur of distant mangroves. The unlikely combination had been intoxicating.
Gratified when she saw that Marsh had not yet left, she pulled her vintage BMW convertible to a halt beside his pickup. A Chevrolet sedan with Florida plates sat on the other side. She remembered that Marsh’s cleaning lady came on Mondays.
She climbed the steps and opened the screen door to the porch where they had camped that night. She crossed and rapped on the front door. About to pound a little harder and call through the open windows, she was surprised when the door opened.
Tracy took a step back. The woman in the doorway was about her own age. She had pale blond hair and a porcelain complexion that proclaimed the hair color—or at least some version of it—was natural. Her features were narrow and perfectly aligned, and her eyes were almost violet. Tracy examined her quickly, hoping for something that wasn’t perfect, to pump up her diminishing confidence, and decided the lovely eyes were spaced too close together.
That did not, of course, offset the fact that she was dressed in a bathrobe the same shade of violet.
“May I help you?” she asked sleepily, tying the belt of her robe around a Scarlett O’Hara waist.
Tracy was at a complete loss for words. Obviously this woman, whoever she was, had spent the night here.
In whose bed?
She was expected to say something. She settled for the perfunctory. “I was looking for Marsh.”
“Well, he’s a popular guy. I’m sure you aren’t the first woman who’s come looking for him.”