“Am I going crazy?” she said. “Or did Belinda Rowe just walk into my kitchen?”

“Yes,” Belinda said. So far, so good: the woman hadn’t screamed or threatened to call the police. The woman recognized her. “Hello. Your name is…?”

“Marianne,” the woman said. “Marianne Pryor. Are you…? Are you lost? Or… did my husband send you as a… prank? Am I on TV?”

“No, no,” Belinda said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I just sort of wandered in off the street because… well, I wanted to talk to you about your house.”

“My house?” Marianne Pryor said.

“Yes,” Belinda said. “I’d like to buy it.”


One hour and two glasses of chardonnay later, Belinda climbed back into Deacon’s truck, her spirits crumpled like yesterday’s newspaper.

The house wasn’t for sale, not even to Belinda Rowe, not even for $6 million cash. It wasn’t that Marianne Pryor wasn’t a lovely or accommodating woman-she had been both. She gave Belinda a tour of the entire house and then the guest house and then the pool area, complete with shaded cabana and home gym. Every step Belinda took made her fall more deeply in love.

This is exactly what I want, Belinda thought. It was the polar opposite of Deacon’s house. It has style and taste; it has modern conveniences-a dryer, bathtubs that function, Wi-Fi, a warming drawer in the kitchen, a microwave!

The last place they toured was the basement, completely finished, with full windows. There were cedar closets and a pine-paneled bunk room for kids; there was a family room with big, comfy couches and a big-screen TV. The walls were decorated with movie posters: Rocky, Any Given Sunday, Fargo, and… Brilliant Disguise.

Now Belinda was the one doing the blinking. The poster for Brilliant Disguise featured Belinda at age seventeen, standing on Route 66 with her thumb out. Belinda stared into her younger face.

“You…?” she said, turning to Marianne.

Marianne shrugged. “I’m a huge fan. Brilliant Disguise is my favorite movie of all time.”

Victory! Belinda thought. She had been able to see herself in this house-and now she was actually seeing herself in this house.

She would pay anything, she decided. She would do anything. She would give the son, or one of the pretty daughters who had been sunbathing by the pool, a cameo in her next movie.

“Please!” Belinda had said close to the end of her second glass of wine. “Sell me this house!”

“I can’t,” Marianne Pryor said. “My husband’s mother grew up in this house, my husband grew up in this house, and my kids are growing up in this house. My husband proposed to me on the widow’s walk. We got married in the backyard.”

“I’ll give you six million dollars,” Belinda said.

Marianne had rested her hands on Belinda’s shoulders. Marianne had nice skin, lightly tanned, with just a few laugh lines around her eyes. She exuded a certain calm and wisdom and centeredness. Belinda could tell her life had been privileged but she didn’t take it for granted. She probably practiced yoga, gave thanks every day, made soup from scratch, took an annual weekend someplace warm with her college roommates, chaperoned school dances, and loved Christmas.

“Belinda,” Marianne said. “It’s not a house to us. It’s a home. And it’s not a home, it’s a way of life. Our summertime happens here. This house is part of our past, it’s our present, it’ll be our future. It’s who we are. It isn’t for sale.”

“But you could buy a house on the beach,” Belinda said. “You could buy a house on Hulbert Avenue fronting the harbor.”

“I can see you’re not understanding me,” Marianne said. “We don’t want to move anywhere else. We couldn’t. You might as well have walked in and asked to adopt one of our children.” She finished her own wine. “It’s nothing personal. If I were going to sell this house, I would most definitely sell it to you.”

Belinda had smiled, but she was acting. “I get it,” she said. “Thank you for letting me see it.” More acting. She should never have knocked. She should never have come inside.

“It was really nice to meet you,” Marianne said. “Having you walk into my kitchen is one of the most exciting things that’s ever happened to me.”

“But I can’t change your mind?” Belinda said.

“I’m sorry,” Marianne said. But now she’s acting, Belinda thought.

They said their good-byes, and Marianne waved from the portico as Belinda pulled away.

Back to Hoicks Hollow Road, she thought. And all the joys that awaited there.

BUCK

It was Margaret on the phone.

“Talk to me, Goose,” Buck said. It was nearly noon on a Sunday. Margaret should be out puttering in her garden.

“Are you sitting down?” Margaret asked.

“No,” Buck said. He eyed the rock painted with the green 33 that marked the end of the driveway. “Is it that bad?”

“I heard from Harv,” Margaret said. “That restaurant runs on a hundred-thousand-dollar-a-week budget. Food costs, rent, payroll, the hickory wood, the cleaners, the flowers, the linen service, heat, water, electricity… the list goes on. They spend seventy-five hundred a week on caviar alone. And all of those precious little farms Deacon loved so much? They must have been selling him eggs made from gold bullion.”

“But the restaurant charges a fortune,” Buck said.

“It doesn’t cover costs,” Margaret said. “The restaurant operates at a deficit, and don’t forget, they closed for a month after Deacon died, but the staff still got paid, and they took a huge loss due to food spoilage.”

“So there’s no chance of getting any of Deacon’s money back?” Buck said. In his heart, he had known this, but he’d thought… well, the prices were astronomical. To have a martini at the bar set you back twenty-eight bucks! He had thought maybe there was a refrigerator filled with cash.

“None,” Margaret said. “Deacon was the last investor in, so even if the restaurant were turning a profit, he’d be the last of the six to see any money.”

“There goes the house,” Buck said.

“Have you told them?” Margaret asked.

“I’ve only told Laurel and Belinda,” Buck said. “Scarlett got here just this morning.”

“Scarlett showed?” Margaret said. She sounded gossipy, as she did when she and Lanie, Buck’s intern, discussed the plot twists of Ray Donovan.

“She did,” Buck said.

“Wow,” Margaret said. “So now it’s you and the three wives. How are you handling that?”

Badly, Buck thought. He needed to make things right with Laurel-but how?

“Just fine, Margaret, thank you.”

“Okay,” she said, in a tone that indicated she knew things were anything but okay. “Call if you need me.”

“Will do,” Buck said, then he hung up.

At that moment, he gazed down the road to see two figures bicycling toward him-Laurel and Scarlett. He waited for them to approach. They were both wet. Scarlett’s red dress was plastered to her body, but Buck made a concerted effort not to look.

“Hi, Buck!” Scarlett said. Her mood had markedly improved. “We biked to the pond, and I swam in my dress.”

“How very Becky Thatcher of you,” Buck said. He smiled at Laurel. Her damp hair fell over her tanned shoulders. She seemed to be staring off in the direction of the lighthouse; most likely, she was simply avoiding Buck’s eyes. Still angry.

“I was just on the phone with my secretary,” Buck said. “I have some business issues I need to discuss with Laurel. So if you’ll excuse us, Scarlett…?”

Scarlett’s mouth dropped open. “Business issues to discuss with Laurel? That makes no sense. I was Deacon’s wife. Someone here needs to acknowledge who the widow is. It’s me.”

“You’re the widow, yes, you are,” Buck said, hoping that sufficed as acknowledgment. “But right now, I need to talk to Laurel.”

“I’m starving,” Laurel said. “Can it wait until after I eat something?”

Scarlett hopped off her bike. “‘Business’ means ‘money,’” she said. “So I think I’d like to be in on the conversation.”

“We will have a conversation, I assure you,” Buck said. “But first I need to talk to Laurel.”

“Unbelievable!” Scarlett said. She huffed as she pushed the bike up the rocky incline of the driveway.

When she was out of earshot, Buck said to Laurel, “Let me take you out to lunch.”

“No.”

“Laurel, please.”

“You don’t seem to understand,” Laurel said. “I’m not sharing a man with Belinda. I did that once, and I’ll never do it again. You had a chance with me, Buck, but you blew it.”

He looked up. There was so much sky here, whereas in Manhattan, one got only slices. “I know I messed up,” he said. “I’m not interested in Belinda, and she most certainly isn’t interested in me. What happened yesterday”-God, had it been only yesterday? It seemed like three years earlier-“was as random as an asteroid strike. And as insignificant as…” Buck rummaged through his mind, trying to think of something insignificant. “As an ant’s shoelaces.”

Laurel didn’t even smile. “It was significant to me,” she said. “I need someone I can trust.”

“I’ll earn your trust back,” Buck said. “I’ll spend the rest of my life doing it. But right now, let me take you to lunch. Please?”

Laurel’s expression softened. “Okay,” she said. “But only because I’m hungry and there’s a place I’ve been wanting to go.”

In town, Laurel parked the Jeep in front of a restaurant called Black-Eyed Susan’s, with a big plate glass window and window boxes bursting with candy-striped petunias. Buck’s stomach rumbled at the alluring smell of frying bacon emanating from within. He had changed from his board shorts back into half of his suit. He ran his free hand over his face. He hadn’t seen his razor since leaving New York, so he was now sporting gray whiskers. There was nothing worse; he felt like his grandfather. But who cared? He was with Laurel. He had to make this count.