“My brains and my words. Both of us made it happen, and you know it.” She wanted to go on objecting but something held her back, some unquenchable faith in the future that told her not to say anything unforgivable. “What a waste, us talking like this,” she said. “It’s not going to change anything. It doesn’t mean anything. Might as well listen to Sammy bark.”

“I don’t want to string you along. You and me… we’re finished. Let me take care of you. I’ll send you a check every month.”

“Thanks for the offer. But I don’t want your charity. I want you to remember the two of us, what it was all about. Love for each other. Respect. A generous spirit. What has happened to you? Have you forgotten everything?”

“Speaking about that, Lindy, I need you to do something for me.”

“What?”

“Get your lawyer off my back and get that receiver out of my company. You know how we’ve always done business at Markov. Our deals are based on trust, and we need to be flexible to take advantage of our markets. A receiver will kill us.”

“Nina explained that to me. He’s just there to oversee-”

“He’ll oversee us right out of business!”

“You won’t let that happen, Mike.”

“Please don’t let it come to that, Lindy. Think about what I’m saying.” He looked back toward the house. “I’ve got to go in before she wakes up,” he said, lifting Lindy’s chin with two fingers, his mood shifting as quickly as day had begun to break. “Isn’t it unbelievable,” he said, “us coming to this.” He didn’t point to the knife, but she knew they both had it on their minds. “Isn’t it crazy?”

“Crazy,” Lindy agreed. They stood across from each other, a matched pair of champagne glasses, bookends, socks. Two that belonged together.

He brushed his hand along her cheek with all the old tenderness, and for that instant Lindy remembered what a great couple they made.

Then, in the gray light, Rachel appeared, running toward them in a satin robe, her long black hair flying behind her like the wings of a raven. “What’s going on?” she cried, pulling up beside Mike, panting.

“Nothing. Lindy and I had to talk.”

“At this hour?”

“No,” Lindy said. “He’s not telling the truth. He’s trying to protect you. But you have a right to know,” she said. “Mike and I just made love, right there in that spot where you’re standing. And it was fantastic, Rachel. Better than ever.”

“What?” Rachel said, stepping back. “No. You’re lying. Mike?”

“Let’s go back inside,” he said, taking her arm and casting a furious look back at Lindy. “We’ll talk there.” He tugged her arm but she shook him off.

“No, we’ll talk now,” Rachel said. “Is it true?”

“Yes, it’s true.”

Mike had been standing almost exactly between the two women, but now stepped up to stand closer to Rachel. At the same moment, Sammy took his place beside Lindy. She put a hand down to pet him, but even Sammy’s warm fur was no solace. She watched Mike with Rachel. She saw by the way he looked at Rachel he was lost to her, enchanted.

Mike took Rachel’s hand. “Rachel, for as long as we’re together, I swear I’ll never touch another woman. This was…” His mouth moved, but he couldn’t articulate whatever it was he was thinking.

During the pause that followed, Rachel seemed to calm down. She appeared to be thinking. “I know what it was,” she said finally, breaking into a terrible smile. “A consolation prize, right, Mike? It’s only fair to offer a cheap consolation prize to the pathetic loser.”

“Now, Rachel, let’s just go. Don’t start something,” Mike said calmly, trying to pull her up the path to the house.

“He loves me,” Lindy said. “He has always loved me.”

“If he loves you so much,” Rachel said, “what’s he doing over here with me? No, wait. Don’t say anything. Let me answer that for you.

“He’s over here with me because he knows we’re just about to climb right back into that big bed upstairs for the kind of really hot sex you’re too worn out to give him these days. Yeah,” she said looking hard at Lindy. “My suggestion is you stick to dark beaches and rooms without lamps from here on out. The light is not your friend.”

“Don’t speak to me like that! Mike?”

But Mike had no control over Rachel. “Oh, come on,” she said. “I’m not saying anything you don’t notice every morning when you look in the mirror at those icky crowfeet and run for the makeup bag.”

“Stop this!” Mike tugged hard on Rachel’s arm, but she did not budge.

“If Mike didn’t have money you’d be out of here so fast we wouldn’t even have to smell the stink of your exhaust fumes!” Lindy said.

“Temper, temper, Lindy. I understand you get… kind of crazy when you’re upset. Mike warned me about you,” Rachel said.

“I…” Lindy said, unable to frame a sentence, the anger in her welling up so high and so deep it threatened to drown her.

“I have an idea!” Rachel said excitedly. “Let’s be friends. Let bygones be bygones. That’s the civilized way to go about this, isn’t it? And as a token of our new relationship, I’m gonna invite you up to the house right now. Isn’t that a good idea, Mike?” she said eagerly. “Don’t you think that would be just lovely?”

“Well…” Mike said. He shuffled his feet clumsily on the ground as if he were trying to establish a foothold in quicksand.

“Really, how about that for fair?” She took Mike’s arm. “C’mon Mike. Let’s invite her right upstairs with us. Remind the old sow how it’s done.”

Lindy ran toward her and wrenched her away from Mike. “You wouldn’t know love if it bit you right in your bony ass!” She pummeled Rachel with her fists all too briefly before Mike flew up behind her, pinning her arms to her side.

“Sammy, get her!” she shouted, fighting frantically to free herself from Mike’s iron clench.

Sammy jumped. Rachel screamed as he knocked her flat to the ground.

“Get her!” Lindy cried.

Rachel continued to scream.

“Sammy, down! Down boy!” Mike roared at the same moment.

“Go Sammy! Bite her face off! Tear her eyes out! Sammy, go!” Mike’s hands gripped her. “Ow! Mike, that hurts!”

“Down, Sammy!” Mike commanded.

The dog, who had listened to this garble of incoherent commands with increasing agitation, looked at them. Confounded into paralysis, he stepped slowly off Rachel.

Rachel scrambled up. Bursting into hysterical tears she ran for the house. Sammy walked up to Mike and Lindy, wagging his tail tentatively. “Good boy,” Mike said. “What a good boy.”

He held on to Lindy until Rachel had made it back inside, then he dropped his hands from Lindy’s arms. “Don’t come around again,” he said. “Next time, we’ll press charges.”

“Mike,” she said. “Wait. Talk to me.”

Without another word, he turned and followed Rachel up to the house.

“He won’t marry her,” Lindy said to herself, brushing the sand off of her clothes and watching his back as he melted into the bright background of morning’s first sun. “One day he’ll wake up, and the devil that’s holding him will let go. He’ll feel his power again. And then he’ll want me back.”