“A lot? No. As much as I enjoy sex, I never slept with a woman I didn’t care about. If that makes me an oddball, I can live with it.”

It didn’t make him an oddball; it made him a decent guy. But she still wished he hadn’t brought up sex. All right, so she was the one who’d brought it up, but he didn’t have to give her any details. She wanted to believe he …

She didn’t know what she wanted to believe, and she was glad when his cell rang.

“A client,” he said, glancing at the display. “I have to take this.”

He retreated to the next room. She studied the untidy pile of books on the table. John Steinbeck, Kurt Vonnegut, a couple of motivational books, the Bible. There were some newsmagazines, Sports Illustrated, GQ. Everything looked as though it had been read, and she seemed to remember Mike trapping David into more than one conversation about books.

Through the glass doors, she could see him in the next room talking on the phone. He was the only consistent male role model in Toby’s life, the closest thing Toby had to a big brother. Or a father. She could no longer doubt Mike’s affection for Toby, but would it last? How would Toby react if Mike disengaged himself?

Each day it became more difficult to get her bearings. She could no longer tell what was self-serving about Mike and what was genuine. But she did know what was self-serving about herself … She felt a flush of shame.

He finished his phone conversation and rejoined her, but it quickly became evident that he was more interested in getting back to Toby and the dog than he was in talking to her.

LUCY SAT ON AN OLD beach towel she’d spread under a cherry tree in the neighboring orchards just out of sight of the cottage. For three days, she’d been checking the local news, but she’d seen nothing about bodies washing ashore, so she assumed the thugs who’d attacked her had survived. Too bad. Today she’d cranked the extractor, bottled honey, and cooked, but before she started tonight’s dinner, she’d slipped away to spend a little time here, lying on her back and looking at the clouds through the branches.