As I start to turn away, Tommy puts out his hand. “What’s your name, love?”

Love. Hmmm. So long since I felt like anyone’s love. “Jackie. Jacqueline.”

“Right. I’ll tell Kai you stopped by, Jacqueline.”

I’m blushing more furiously, shaking my head. I feel awash in emotions, a return to geeky adolescence. “Don’t tell him. I don’t want to bother him.”

“It’s not a bother, Jackie.”

I shake my head harder, feel hot from my chin to my forehead, hot everywhere the sun touches me. “Really. It’s okay.” And before I can dig myself into a deeper, more embarrassing hole, I hurry away, on down the beach, in the opposite direction of my hotel. Because Butch is waiting at the hotel, and I can’t handle Butch. Not now. Not when I feel like this. Not when I want something so bad and I’ve no idea what it is.

I walk and walk, all the way down the beach until the sand runs out and there’s a seawall and what looks like a minicoliseum—although I haven’t a clue what that is—and then I turn around and slowly start back even as the dull panic returns.

In forty-eight hours I go back to Seattle. In just two days I go back to my life, yet there’s all the things I’ve never done. All the things I wish I’d done.

The catamaran sunset cruise.

The surf lesson.

Not to mention the sexy young surf instructor….

The sun’s dropping in the sky. I must have walked for nearly an hour, and I’m tired. And hot. And thirsty.

Not far from my hotel I hear music, and I stop at one of the outdoor restaurants on the beach. I recognize the name of it; Butch has been talking about it. Duke’s.

I stand at the edge of Duke’s patio to check out the live band playing. The patio is crowded with tables, and the tables are all full. And with the sun long and warm, casting bright gold rays on everyone and everything, I feel so apart. So alone.

I watch everyone sitting there, girls, guys, groups sprawled everywhere, and they’re golden in the warm, late afternoon sun. The girls have such long, easy hair, straight, shimmering in the sun, flat stomachs untouched by age or childbirth.

I hitch my sarong higher on my waist, hiding my postbaby tummy, which is flattish when I stand but has a roll when I sit—it’s a tummy that will never be the same short of surgery—and I feel old. I don’t remember growing old. I don’t remember changing. Aging.