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  He shook his head and Hayley had to admit that, no, Patsy probably would not.

  "You see, according to the schedule, the train's arrival time was supposed to be five p.m. But we always heard its whistle blow, day after day, year after year, at five forty-five. On the dot."

  "How amusing," Richard commented flatly, his tone suggesting it was anything but.

  "Not really, I suppose." Hayley's gaze met his and her shrug held no apology. "But it seemed hilarious enough when we were twelve, fifteen, seventeen years old. Nostalgia alone tends to lend it amusement value now."

  "Save your breath, darlin'," Jon-Michael advised. "He will never in a million years get it. Dad fails to see the humor in anything not equipped with a dollar sign. Right Pop?"

  Richard neatly folded his cloth napkin and set it on the table, then rose and stalked out of the room.

  Picking up her butter knife, Kurstin slapped her free hand to her forehead and tipped her head back in one smooth motion, exposing her throat. She drew the knife across her bared neck from ear to ear.

  Jon-Michael laughed. "Sorry, Kurst. I'll be good from now on, I promise."

  “Sure you will,” she muttered. "Observe me holding my breath."

  Hayley shot her friend a knowing gaze across the table and Kurstin shrugged.

  “Okay, so I should have seen it coming,” she said. “Just shoot me if I ever suggest holding one of these damn family dinners again.”

  “You got it.” But she watched Kurstin resolutely stiffen her spine, set down the knife and apply herself to smoothing over the rifts.

  And pitched in to help salvage the rest of the meal.

  Five

  The following Tuesday Hayley’s gaze lingered in dazed admiration on the changes wrought in Lucy's appearance as the cocktail waitress set her tray on the bar. Sometime since last night's shift, the other woman had turned the blonde portion of her two-tone hair pink. She had coordinated with matching hose and satin push-up bra beneath her turquoise vest, pairing all that rose-pink with a long black skirt that flirted with her Doc Martens. Her nose stud tonight was a garnet.

  "You know how to make a Pink Lady?" the waitress inquired over the moody licks of a blues guitar and the soft wail of a saxophone.

  "Yes. It’s old school but I do."

  "Good, 'cause that's a new one for me. Give me one of those, a Beefeater martini straight up with two olives, a Diet Coke, and two non-alcoholic St. Paulie Girls."

  "Coming up—provided Bluey keeps any eggs in here." Hayley stooped to open the small fridge under the bar and breathed an appreciative “thank you,” when she found a half dozen. She pulled out one and popped a martini glass in to chill. Setting the egg aside, she assembled the rest of Lucy’s order, then measured the liquor and grenadine for the Pink Lady into a shaker and squeezed in the juice from half a lemon. After separating the yolk from the egg white, she added half of the latter to the rest of the mixture. She gave the shaker a good long, hard shake to emulsify the egg white. Adding ice, she shook it hard again, then retrieved the chilled glass from the fridge. As she strained the mixture into the glass, she said, "Have you met my friend Kurstin, Lucy?" With a small gesture of her little finger, she indicated the woman sitting across the bar from her. "Lucy, Kurstin McAlvey. Kurstin, meet Lucy."

  "Hey," Lucy said around the gum she was chewing, looking up from straightening her cash drawer.

  "Hello," Kurstin replied with a smile. “Nice to meet you."

  "I like your brother's music," Lucy told her. A tiny smile curved up one corner of her mouth. "Not to mention his abs."

  Kurstin blinked. "His abs? Jon-Michael’s?"

  Assembling the rest of the order, Hayley slid the tray back to Lucy. "Here you go."

  Lucy cracked her gum. "Thanks. You're a doll." She picked up the tray and walked away.

  Kurstin swiveled around on her stool to watch her go. Turning back to Hayley, she grinned. "I must say, things are much more interesting around your work place than they are in the stodgy old HR department at Olivet's. What did she mean about Jon-Michael's abs, though?"

  "She claims they’re ripped." Hayley glanced toward the bandstand and felt her mouth go dry at the sight scorching her eyes. Reaching over, she nudged Kurstin to direct her attention. As if he had been privy to the conversation, Jon-Michael dropped his sax to hang from the strap around his neck and swiped the sweat off his face with the tails of his shirt. "Jeez-Marie," she breathed. "She wasn’t kidding."

  “No fooling,” Kurstin agreed, blinking. "How have I never noticed that before?"

  "You're his sister." Hayley tried her damnedest to look away in order to meet her friend's gaze, but her eyes refused to obey until the shirt fluttered back into place and he had raised the sax back to his lips. "There is no, um, reason you should have." Holy Mary, Mother of God. She felt flushed all over and had to concentrate like the devil to bring her focus back to Kurstin.

  "I'm glad you came by tonight," she finally said. "I've missed you."

  "Yeah, I have missed you, too. It's the main reason I decided to stop by. Between the demands of our schedules, we’ve seen darn little of each other and I wondered if on Sunday you would like to go—"

  "Could I have a rum and coke please?"

  Both women looked up. Joe Beal was standing there, smiling at Hayley. "Hi," he said softly when she turned her attention to him.

  "Hi, yourself," she said briskly. "One rum and coke, coming up." She reached for a glass.

  Kurstin leaned back to contemplate Joe as he watched Hayley assemble his drink. "So where is Patsy tonight?"

  "Oh, hi, Kurstin." He spared her a brief glance. "Home."

  "Attending to all those last minute details for the big Fourth of July dance, huh?"

  "Yeah, I guess. She gets off on all that stuff."

  "Here you go, Joe." Hayley handed him his drink.

  He tried to engage her in small talk while she made change from the twenty he had handed her, but she kept her replies polite, brief and impersonal. After a few moments spent hanging around the end of the bar watching her fill orders, he stuffed a dollar in the tip snifter and walked away.

  Picking up Kurstin's drink to wipe away a tiny pool of condensation from beneath it, Hayley glanced up to watch him go, her eyebrows pleated. Then she looked at her friend. "What’s the story with his and Patsy's marriage?"

  Kurstin swiveled to watch him as well then turned back to the bar. "Beat’s me," she admitted. "I would have said it’s solid, but there was something on Sunday I could not put my finger on. Perhaps because he hardly ever looked directly at her." Her gaze nailed Hayley’s feet to the floor. "He certainly seems to think you’re cuter 'n a button, though."

  Hayley whispered a curse. "He's been here without his wife twice this week already, kind of hanging around trying to chat me up while I work. I realize I have become a bit cynical these days, so I was sort of hoping it was just a case of my suspicious little mind overreacting."

  "Wasn't he one of the guys who asked you out in our senior year?"

  A derisive noise detonated softly in her throat. "Can you think of anyone who did not? Jon-Michael's public relations job made me sound extremely talented." She indicated her friend's glass. "You care for a refill on that?"

  "Please."

  "To be fair," she continued as she freshened Kurstin's drink, "Joe was kind of shy back then and I suspected he might be one of the few who was actually more interested in me than in my red-hot reputation."

  "But you never dated him."

  "No. I was beyond gun-shy by the time he got around to asking me out and unwilling to risk being wrong." She wanted to change the subject and did not bother to be subtle about it. "What did you start to ask me earlier?"

  "Hmmm?"

  “Just before Joe showed up and interrupted? You were asking if on Sunday I wanted to go—" She leaned into the bar, twirling a hand to encourage her friend to complete the sentence. "Fill in the blanks here, Kurst."

  "Oh, exploring!" K
urstin laughed. "I wanted to know if you'd like to take a little trip down Memory Lane on Sunday to go check out some of our old haunts."

  "Just the two of us?"

  "Ab-so-tootly. Just you and me. Like the old days."

  "I would so like that." And foregoing involved plans, they agreed to meet in the kitchen, at noon, on Sunday.

  At closing time, instead of promptly packing up his saxophone and leaving the minute his last set was through as he usually did, Jon-Michael hung around, watching Hayley cash out the till. Hips propped against a stool, legs sprawled out and his upper body draped over the bar, he rested his chin on his stacked fists and observed silently as, one by one, the waitresses finished their drinks and said good night.

  The smell of snuffed candles hung heavily in the air for a few moments before the ever efficient ventilation system pulled it up through the ceiling vents. The neon lights’ timers turned off one by one, making the room grow dimmer and dimmer until the only illumination was the mirrored wall of liquor bottles behind the bar.

  Jon-Michael watched its reflected light filter through Hayley’s flyaway curls, picking highlights from the rich brown and turning them into a red-streaked nimbus around her head.

  "So, hey," he inquired lazily, "what time are we goin' exploring on Sunday?"

  "Excuse me?" She stiffened a moment and he could practically see the wheels turning in her head. Then she relaxed. "What we, Jon-Michael? There is no we…get that through your pointy little head. Kurstie and I are going exploring. You are not invited."

  He gave her his best imitation of hurt bafflement. "But I have such nice, muscular abs. That equates to a strong back. I can carry lunch."

  "So Lucy claims," Hayley responded, thinking Kurstin had been mighty damn chatty tonight. But she shrugged a shoulder and even managed to look Jon-Michael squarely in the eye as she lied through her teeth. "Personally, I've seen better."

  Okay, challenging a man's ego was never wise. Sometimes the temptation proved irresistible, but it was not smart; she knew that.

  She may have remembered it too late in this instance, but she did know it.

  Jon-Michael could move like the wind when he wanted. He was around the bar in seconds flat, crowding her. Yanking his shirt out of his waistband, he grasped her hand and, ignoring her resistance, pushed it up under the cloth to splay against the warm, hard muscles of his stomach. "Seen better, huh? And whose might that have been, petunia? Your husband's maybe?"

  "Among others."

  He rubbed her hand in little circles. She told herself it was merely friction that so promptly heated her skin--that made it tingle. She tugged against his grip. "Let go, Jon-Michael."

  "Not...just...yet." His shirt bunched over the bend of her elbow as he moved her captured hand up his diaphragm to his chest. Rubbing it in slow circles over the hair roughened muscles there, he exhaled a quiet sigh and closed his eyes.

  Hayley's eyes closed as well and she groped behind her with her free hand for support. Her fingers curled over the lip of the counter beneath the bar, and the heel of her palm brushed against the sawed-off oar handle.

  Eyes popping back open, her palm stroked the smooth wooden spindle as she stared up at him…And considered using it.

  "So." He pressed her hand hard against his chest and took a deep, uneven breath. Heavy-lidded dark eyes opened and he gazed down at her. "Have you slept with a lot of guys then?"

  "Oh, dozens," she lied without compunction. "Every one of whom was better than—"

  "Don’t say it, Hayley," he warned and for an instant his habitual lazy humor was nowhere to be seen. Then he relaxed, giving her the patented Olivet grin. "Come on, admit it," he coaxed. "I'm the best you’ve ever had."

  "Sure, Jon-Michael, whatever you say. I surrendered my virginity to an eighteen-year-old drunk on a lumpy blanket in the woods." She shrugged. "It was a memory to treasure."

  "Did I hurt you that night?" he demanded. “Jesus, I wish I could remember.”

  Everything inside her stilled at the flash of anguish in his voice and her expression must have changed because his grew bitter. "Stupid question. As you said, you were a virgin and I was drunk. Of course I hurt you."

  Actually, there had not been much physical pain. He had been slow and inventive even back then. Hayley saw no reason to let him off the hook by telling him so, however. Because emotionally he had devastated her. Not to mention humiliated her in front of what had felt at the time like the entire town. And it had taken her a long, long time to get over it.

  He slid her hand back down to his stomach and Hayley exhaled a silent breath of relief, thinking he was going to release her. He did not. Slipping his free hand beneath the thick fall of hair at her nape, he used his thumb to tilt her chin up. "I don't drink any more, Hayley," he informed her in a deep, hoarse voice. "And I am no longer eighteen. I would take my time now, make it real good for you."

  Holy cannoli. The man could probably convince the devil to take up saving souls. Hayley had known him at his worst and still she had her work cut out simply dredging up enough moisture to swallow.

  "Um hmm," she agreed. "You probably could." She felt him startle against her, felt his fingers clench at her neck and over her hand. Watching his eyelids grow heavier yet and his head descend, knowing he believed she was going to allow him to kiss her, she took a savage satisfaction in bursting his bubble. "Of course then," she said coolly, "every night before I left Bluey’s to go home, I would have to check the men's room walls to be sure my name and number are not up there under the recommendation For a good time, call..."

  "Damn it, Hayley, I’ve changed." He stared at her mouth, slicking his tongue over his lower lip.

  "Well, good for you. Go tell it to the mountain."

  "I would rather tell you. Or better yet, show you. Kiss me."

  "No."

  “C’mon. You know how bad I wanna kiss you.”

  She forced a rude noise through lips gone dry.

  "Kiss me, Hayley." Without waiting to see if she would decline a third time, he lowered his head and rocked his mouth over hers.

  And Holy effing—all thought shut down and she could only feel.

  Strong lips.

  Hot tongue.

  Supple moves.

  Damn him! He still had that old magic in spades. He wrapped her in the warmth of his body, the scent of his skin, and to her shame, she immediately grew wet. It left her with only one recourse.

  Fingers curling around the oar handle, she slid it off the shelf, brought it up, and rapped him upside his head.

  Six

  Our family car suddenly swerves onto the scenic overlook at Devil's Outcrop and I grab for the dashboard. “What the—?”

  My spouse, in the driver’s seat, is not ordinarily given to impulse so this is way out of character. And I admit it kind of shakes me up. It is not until the car comes to a full stop and the gear shift is shoved into Park that I suck in a breath. My fingers nearly leave prints as I unclench them from the dash and I have to bite my tongue to keep from saying something I might regret. Sitting back in my seat, I follow the spouse's intent stare to its source.

  And almost lose my breath all over again.

  The train trestle above Big Bear Gap, suspended between two points of land a hundred and sixty feet above the lake, has the spouse's attention. Or rather the two women strolling across it as casually as they might the streets of Gravers Bend.

  One is a blonde and the other has an abundance of deep brown hair. The distance is too great to see individual features but who needs to? "Isn't that—?"

  The spouse nods before I can say more and continues to stare. There are only two females in all of Gravers Bend who used to take on the trestle with regularity.

  Well, actually, once there had been three. I shoot another glance at the driver. Not that the third really counted, because she had done so timidly, reluctantly. I would have discounted her as one of the two up there now even if I didn't know exactly where she was at the moment. He
aven knew, she had never possessed the guts these women displayed.

  I appreciate their daring for a few silent moments, but begin to grow disturbed. This transmutes into anger, which I just as quickly suppress. Anger is never an acceptable solution. "Come on, we have to get going. We still have a lot to do today."

  But for God’s sake. Hayley and Kurstin are no longer high school girls. They have responsibilities now, to themselves, to others. Dangerous stunts like this are juvenile and it is past time they are left behind. Anger threatens to surface once again and the effort to keep it buried leaves me with a sense of pressure almost too large to contain. Accidents happen in a matter of seconds. A tragedy could so easily befall them.

  And if something happens to Hayley--I glance back one last time as the spouse pulls onto the lake road once again--what the hell am I supposed to do then?

  When Hayley and Kurstin were down on the lake earlier in the day it had had a slight chop to it. The breeze had since died, however, as it did most evenings around this time. The surface far below, which Hayley eyed now between the slats of the trestle, was mirror-flat. Enjoying the heat of the sun on her hair and shoulders, she glanced up at Kurstin, picking her way across the trestle in front of her. "You have anything left to eat?"

  Her friend glanced at her over her shoulder. "An apple and a box of raisins."

  "Oh yummy," she said glumly. "Good-for-you food. I was thinking more along the lines of a chocolate bar."

  "You ate that an hour ago."

  "Fine, toss me the apple. The raisins are all yours."

  "You mind if we get off the trestle first? It's getting close to five forty."

  "What a chicken! Don't you want to see me do my famous death-defying Granger hand-stand?"

  "Tomorrow, okay? Feel the vibrations? The five o'clock is right on schedule." Kurstin reached the end of the trestle and followed the tracks a few feet further onto solid ground, where she jumped off into the woods.

  "Well, okay," Hayley said in a her best you-don't-know-what-you're-missing tone as she trailed behind, "but Patsy would have waited around to watch me do my trick." The vibrations underfoot had grown stronger by the time she, too, leaped clear of the tracks and she stood without unblinking until her eyes had a chance to adjust to the sudden gloom of the forest.