“Yuki’s mother,” I said. “We buried her today. Out in Colma.”

“Aw. Jeez, Lindsay. I’m sorry.”

“Joe, it was so sudden. Yuki and her mom were going to go on a cruise together next week!”

Joe opened his arms to me, and I leaned into him. Then I talked for ten minutes straight about how close Yuki had been to her mom, how the hospital might have screwed up by giving Keiko the wrong meds.

My voice tightened in my throat as I told him about my own mom, about visiting her grave that afternoon.

“It’s a rotten shame that I messed up, Joe. I wish you’d been with me today. I’ve really missed you.”

“How much?” he asked, the glint in his eyes showing me that I was out of the doghouse.

I stretched out my arms, making the universal symbol for “this much.” Joe pulled me closer, giving me a full-body hug and a five-star kiss.

We clung together for a long moment, me with a hand in Joe’s thick hair, holding his cheek tightly against mine, feeling his strong arms wrapped around me. This was good, so good.

He walked me backward to the bedroom, his hands cupping my buttocks. He was hard against me and holding me so that there was no space between us.

He lowered me onto the bed, lay down next to me, and moved my hair off my face.

So handsome, my Joe.

“I missed you more,” he said.

“No way.” I took his hand and put it over my heart. “Feel that?”

“You know that I love you, Lindsay.”

“I love you, too.”

Joe unzipped my skirt, kissed me, undid the buttons of my blouse, unclipped the barrette from my hair, slowly tugged off my clothes, until I was bare and flushed and, well, panting.

I hugged pillows to my chest as Joe tossed my clothes and his onto the lap of the chair. Neither one of us was talking now.

When I couldn’t stand to wait another minute, he flipped up the covers, took away my pillows, and got into bed beside me, his naked body hot against mine.

I hooked my arms around his neck, pressed my toes against the tops of his feet, fitted my mouth to his, dissolved into the smell and feel and taste of Joe.

He opened me with his hands and his mouth, and then he moved into me.

Oh my God.

It had been a long time since nothing mattered but this.

Chapter 45

JOE AND I WERE LEANING into the wind at the bow as the ferry chugged across the bay on the return trip from Sausalito to San Francisco. Joe looked pensive, and I wondered why that was.

I reviewed our lazy roll out of bed at around 11:00 that morning, the brilliant blue sky as we held hands on the top deck of the outbound ferry. We’d had a cozy late lunch at Poggio, an outstanding restaurant overlooking the water.