Footsteps sounded on the dock behind her. One of the guests. She pressed her wet cheek to her knee, blotting her tears.

“Hello, sweetheart.”

Her head came up, and her heart lurched. He’d found her. She should have known.

“I used your toothbrush,” he said from behind her. “I was going to use your razor until I figured out there wasn’t any hot water.” His voice sounded rusty, as if he hadn’t spoken for a while.

Slowly she turned. Her eyes widened in shock. He was mismatched, unkempt, and unshaven. Beneath a ratty red wind-breaker, he wore a faded orange T-shirt and navy slacks that looked as though he’d slept in them. He held a bunch of Disney balloons in his hand. Goofy had deflated and hung against his leg, but he didn’t seem to notice. Between the balloons and his dishevelment, he should have looked ridiculous. But with the polished veneer he’d worked so hard to obtain stripped away, she felt even more threatened.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” she heard herself say. “This is a waste of time.”

He cocked his head and gave her his huckster’s smile. “Hey, this is supposed to be like in Jerry Maguire. Remember? ‘You had me at hello.’”

“Skinny women are pushovers.”

His phony charm evaporated like the helium in the Goofy balloon. He shrugged, took a step closer. “My real name’s Harley. Harley D. Campione. Take a guess what the D stands for?”

He’d mow her down if she didn’t keep swinging. “Dumb ass?”

“It stands for Davidson. Harley Davidson Campione. How do you like that? My old man loved a good joke, as long as it wasn’t on him.”

She wouldn’t let him play on her sympathies. “Go away, Harley. We’ve both said everything we needed to.”

He stuffed his free hand in the pocket of his windbreaker. “I used to fall in love with his girlfriends. He was a good-looking guy, and he knew how to turn on the charm when he felt like it, so there was a whole slew of them. Every time he brought a new one home, I let myself believe she’d be the one who’d stick, that finally he’d settle down and act like a father. There was this one woman…Carol. She made noodles from scratch. Rolled the dough out with a pop bottle and let me cut it into these little strips. Best thing I ever tasted in my life. Another—her name was Erin—she’d drive me wherever I wanted to go. She forged his name on a permission slip so I could play Pop Warner football. When she left, I lost my ride, and I had to walk four miles to practice if nobody picked me up on the highway. That turned out to be a good thing, though. I ended up with a lot more endurance than the other guys. I wasn’t the strongest, and I wasn’t the fastest, but I never gave up, and that was a powerful life lesson.”

“Sometimes knowing when to give up is the real test of character.”