I smirked at his intuitive and candid question. “It was the eyes. I’ve never seen eyes that shade of blue.”

Then this man, who, I would learn over the following months, had a soul as old as the ocean was deep, shared his theory behind the color. “When I’m in turmoil, they become darker.”

To confirm my assumption about the cause of said turmoil, I asked, looking up toward Beachy Bride and the cottages next door, “Is Dee meeting you here?”

“My dove flies alone, my friend.”

I dropped my head with a solemn, sympathetic smile. I knew that feeling, one that most people experience whether they want to or not, usually more than once. And still, you’re never prepared when it happens.

“What’s in the basket?” he asked.

“My mother has a small business in Temecula. She sells lemonade, candied citrus fruits, jams. I just grabbed a few things I thought we could sell at Bear Claw, but decided they’d be good gifts for Victoria and Cameron. People always bring wine. I didn’t want to be that guy.”

“Excellent gesture,” he said and led the way through the gate and up the stairs.

The evening was somewhat subdued, for myself anyway. I decided my best course of action with Katherine was to let her make the next move. There were only a few short weeks until we opened for business. However, that idea was completely forgotten when I watched Drew with her, leaning against a doorjamb, sipping a beer, and speaking quietly so no one could hear. She didn’t appear to be beating him away, sarcastically telling him to “fuck off” as was something I knew her to do…and frequently. She almost seemed resigned to the idea that Drew was making a clear play, letting his intentions be known. He was a decent guy, and no matter his Mount Everest stature, I had the sudden urge to rip his arms off of his body and beat him with them.

Instead, I focused on the beer I was nursing when I was joined by Frodo and Zack, another artist at Coastal Ink. Zack was a loud man, a good man, a naïve man, but, in all that seemed to be outwardly obnoxious about him, he was devoted to his wife, Teensy, in a way that was wonderful to behold, if not disturbing at the same time.

Teensy, Ruby, Dee, and Victoria stood on the porch together. They pulled Katherine from her mountain-man retreat, and there before us stood five women, all incredible beauties, so much so, Zack made the comment, “If I could be the star in my own porno, those five chicks right there would all be in it—together.”

Frodo, who I also learned took great pleasure in the telling of tall tales at Zack’s expense, added to the conversation. “I was a porn actor for a while. It’s not as glamourous as you’d think, Zack.” Then he casually drank from a can of root beer.

“Fuck, really?” Zack had stopped looking at the porch, while Frodo continued to speak, his eyes clearly set on Dee.

“You’re surrounded by a camera crew, like any film set, it’s choreographed, where to put your hand, when to suck her tit, when to fuck her in the ass, and when to come. Every director’s different, and most will let you just go for it. But, add another woman to the mix, let alone four, it gets more complicated.”

Zack had no response to that. He stared at Frodo as if he was a God amongst men, then turned and walked away.

I had to ask and smiled when I did. “Were you really in a porno?”

“I tell a lot of stories, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. When Zack is in audience, I make shit up. However, that story actually happens to be true, though no one would know if I was telling the truth or not.”

I had to shake myself to stop the images of Frodo that suddenly appeared in my head. Then I looked at him, myself at six-foot-two, and he couldn’t have been more than five-foot-six, maybe seven. “I’m not putting you down, but I would’ve thought that, with your stature…”

“I’m short, but I carry a big fuckin’ stick.” He grinned, and I knew it was with great pride.

We heard the combined giggle of the women on the porch. Frodo turned his attention to me and asked, “And what of you and our Katherine?”

“I have no idea,” I told him honestly.

“She carries a secret,” he stated.

I shot him a look, one that wondered if he knew exactly what that secret was.

He answered my silent query. “I’m not privy to the secrets of Katherine, and I’m quite sure even her closest and dearest friends aren’t either.”

Just then, what looked to be random conversation at a party turned into something else as Victoria said, “Brawny?” Her nickname for Cameron. “Can you come up here a sec?”

Cameron joined her as she bent down and opened the hat of a ceramic garden gnome. It was unlike any garden gnome I’d ever seen. Actually, that wasn’t true. In a flash, I recalled Katherine’s similar gnome and realized this was its partner, Zuul.

“Close your eyes and hold out your hands,” she commanded, and did so with a smile so bright, you could feel the pure joy that radiated off of her.

Frodo leaned close to me and whispered, “She’s pregnant.”

“Those girls certainly keep you in the loop,” I commented with a light chuckle.

“No, you can tell. Her face has softened. She’s about to give the man she loves more than anything else in the world the news he most wants to hear.”

And then she did, by way of saying, “Open your eyes,” and placing what appeared to be a pair of baby shoes in his hands.

He closed them tight, gripping the small objects in what I thought was an attempt to control his emotions in front of their sizable audience.

“I know you’re supposed to wait for a few months, but, whatever happens, every single person here is gonna be there right along with us. So, people?” she said, turning toward the crowd. “We’re having a baby.”

“You called it.” I grinned.

“I’ve been through this with Nico and Zack. Teensy is due late January, I think.”

“Zack as a father,” I mused.

“He will raise the bar on father-of-the-year criteria,” he said confidently, and somehow, I did not doubt that. “Do you want kids?” he asked.

I thought this was an odd question for one man to ask another, but seeing as how it was Frodo, I didn’t hesitate in my response. “I could go either way.”

“You’re lying,” he stated.

Yes. I was lying.

He turned his body to me and took a drink from his soda. “Your business will fail if you do not sort out the lies between you and dear Katherine. Not because it won’t be a success, for I believe that it will. But the feelings you both deny for each other will be trampled by the secrets you keep.”

And then he was gone.

Like an apparition.

I moved amongst strangers whom I hoped would become more over time. I was now closer to Katherine and watched as her smile faltered. She caught herself, and once again, her face lit in happiness for her friend. I’d overheard her cry out that someone had ruined her, and I could only presume that someone was a man. But now, I realized she’d not only been broken, she’d been robbed of believing these life events everyone around her celebrated—falling in love, marriage, children—were ever going to be hers.

That solidified my determination to find a way in. Even if “us” was never a possibility, she needed to know she deserved what every single man, woman, and child did.

Love.

Katherine

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, Bear Claw would open to the public. That meant I needed to take full advantage of not only my last free afternoon for a while, but the rest of the summer sunshine on my naked body.

I was a single woman with a mostly private deck, two gay neighbors, and very little shame. At two in the afternoon, I heard clomping up my stairs and the greeting of, “You better be naked when I get up there. I brought tacos and Starbucks!”