Page 46

I was sitting on the edge of the pool with my feet in the water, admiring my coral toes, and trying very hard not to think about almost kissing Dean, which wasn’t going especially well.

Evening had settled around the lake, the worst of the heat finally lifting from the brick patio and the freshly cut grass beyond it. The pool held the reflection of the sky, blue fading toward gold, while the underwater lights cast pale ribbons across the bottom. My hair was still wet from swimming, and I’d worn my black bikini today, because I’d given up bikinis when I turned forty and hadn’t realized how much I missed having a tan stomach, not to mention, a perfectly flat stomach.

I’d never understood the expression, youth is wasted on the young, until I’d turned forty-nine and spotted my first gray hairs and crows feet.

Everyone had told me twenty-nine would bother me… it didn’t. Thirty-nine and fifty were the ones that hit me hardest. Thirty-nine because I no longer felt like I was in my twenties anymore, and fifty, because now I was on the other side, looking at the back half of life.

Somewhere inside the main house, my mother was on the phone, probably making plans for her bridge club or next tennis time at the club.

Paul held up a small brown paper bag.

“Should I be worried?” I turned and sat cross-legged, smiling up at him.

He glanced behind him, as if some kind of danger might have followed him up the drive. “About what?”

“You’re here without calling first.”

“That’s why I parked quickly. Your mother may call my mother to find out if I’m coming down with something since we all know I’m never spontaneous.”

It was true and I laughed before I could stop myself.

He crossed the patio, his shoes quiet against the brick. He looked less like the man who’d taken me to dinner the night before and more like the boy he must have been before his parents decided his future for him. Pale gray eyes, sun-browned forearms, and that all-American boy next door look.

“What’s in the bag?” I asked.

“Bribery.”

“You came prepared.”

“I know your weaknesses.”

He handed it to me, and when I opened the top, the smell of almond and sugar rose warm and sweet into the evening.

“I love almond cookies.”

“I know, you ate mine, too.”

I smiled. “My mother ate one.”

“Your mother said she didn’t.”

I looked toward the house. “She lied.”

Paul followed my gaze and shook his head, a smile on his face. “I’m not getting involved.”

This was the easy rhythm between us, easy enough to make me forget, for one careless second, that easy wasn’t the same as right. I’d spent most of the week taking Paul apart in my mind, separating the man from the money, the family, Cleveland, the club dinner, and the life that had closed around me one polite yes at a time. In doing that, I’d nearly forgotten that Paul could make me laugh.

He took off his shoes and socks, and rolled up his pants before sitting beside me on the edge of the pool. “It’s cooler out here.”

“The breeze off the lake helps.”

He smiled and handed me two cookies before taking one for himself.

For a few minutes, we sat quietly with our feet in the pool, eating cookies like children who had escaped a grown-up party. From the main house came the faint murmur of my mother’s voice through the kitchen window, and somewhere down the street someone was cooking out.

The pool smelled of chlorine and sun-warmed concrete. Paul’s shoulder brushed mine once, lightly, and he shifted as if to give me more room.

I kept hearing Dean’s voice from the day before.