At Carol’s Clip Joint, tight curls and superhold had never gone out of fashion, and filled the house with the scent of alkaline, peroxide, and alcohol. Except on Sunday. The salon was closed on Sunday and his mother always made him a big breakfast. For a few hours, blueberry pancakes chased away the scent of perm solution, dyes, and hair spray.

That same year, Sebastian got a job washing dishes at a local restaurant, and after a short time he’d been promoted to night manager. He bought a ’75 Datsun pickup. Faded orange with a crumpled rear fender. From that job, he’d learned the value of hard work and how to get what he wanted. He got his first real girlfriend that year too. Monica Diaz had been two years older than him. Two very wise years. And from her he’d learned the difference between good sex, great sex, and mind-altering sex.

Sebastian grabbed a beer and moved from the kitchen, his footfalls the only sound in the silent carriage house. His sophomore year in high school, he’d signed up for journalism because he’d registered late and all the other elective classes were full. He’d spent the next three years reporting on the local music scene for the school newspaper. His senior year, he’d been the editor of the paper, but quickly learned that assigning stories and editing wasn’t much fun. He preferred the reporting side of journalism.

He raised the beer to his lips and picked up the television remote on a table resting by his father’s recliner. With his thumb, he flipped from channel to channel. His chest suddenly felt tight and he tossed the remote on the table. How was he going to put his mother’s life neatly into cardboard boxes?

Thinking about packing up her life made his chest cramp. If he were honest with himself, thinking about clearing out that house was one of the reasons he was here in Boise-one of the things that was keeping him up at night.

He moved to a built-in shelf next to the fireplace and reached for the first bound photo album in the row. He flipped it open. Newspaper articles and magazine clippings fell to the floor and covered his feet. A snapshot of Leo stared back at him from the first page of the album. Leo held a baby in a sagging cloth diaper in his arms. The photo was faded and creased through the middle, and Sebastian assumed it had been taken by his mother. He figured he’d been about six months old at the time, which meant the three of them would have been living in Homedale, a small town east of Boise, and his father would have been working in a dairy.

Like all children of divorce, Sebastian remembered asking his mother why they didn’t live with his father.

“Because your daddy’s lazy,” she’d said. At the time, he hadn’t understood what lazy had to do with them not living together like a family. Later in his life, he would learn that his father wasn’t lazy, he just wasn’t ambitious, and that an unexpected pregnancy had brought two totally different people together. Two people who never should have shook hands, let alone made a baby.

He flipped through the rest of the album filled with different snapshots and school photos. One of the pictures was of him holding a fish just about as big as he’d been at the time. His chest was puffed out and a huge grin showed a missing front tooth.

He bent down on one knee and reached for the clippings. His hand paused as he recognized them as some of his old articles. There was the piece he’d done on the death of Carlos Castaneda, and Time articles on the Jarvis heart valve and the murder of James Bird. Seeing all his articles was a shock. He hadn’t known the old man had kept up on his career. He placed the articles back inside the album and stood.

As he slid it back into the first slot, a pair of brass bookends on the mantel caught his attention. Between the shiny gold ducks was a collection of eight paperbacks by author Alicia Grey. He reached for the first two books in the row and pulled them out. The first had a purple cover and featured a man and woman in period clothing. The woman’s red gown was pushed from her shoulders and her breasts were about to pop out of her gown. The man was shirtless and wore tight black pants and boots. In raised gold the title read, The Devil Pirate’s Embrace. The second book, The Pirate’s Captive, featured a man standing on the bow of a ship with the wind billowing his white puffy shirt. He didn’t have a cutlass, or a pegleg or a patch. Just a Jolly Roger and a woman with her back pressed into his chest. Sebastian replaced one of the books and opened the other. He chuckled as he fanned the pages to the back. Clare stared back at him from a black and white publicity photo.

“This night is just full of surprises,” he uttered as he read her bio.

Alicia Gray is a graduate of Boise State University and Bennington, it began, then went on to list her achievements, including something called a RITA® award from Romance Writers of America. Alicia loves to garden and is waiting for her very own hero to sweep her off her feet.

“Good luck with that,” Sebastian scoffed. A guy would have to be desperate to attempt anything with Clare. Despite his father’s opinion of her, Clare Wingate was a ballbuster, and it was a wise man who kept any part of him away from her.

Where do you think I get my ideas for all the loud, hot, sweaty sex I put in my books? she’d asked when she decided not to ignore him. It’s all carefully researched. A ballbuster with soft curves in all the right places, and a mouth that made a man think of oral sex. Which Sebastian figured was a shame and a total waste.

He flipped to the little teaser page in front and moved to his father’s leather recliner. He pulled the switch on the lamp and read as he sat.

“Why are you here, sir?” he read.

“You know why I’ve come, Julia. Kiss me,” the pirate demanded. “Kiss me and let me taste the sweetness of your lips.”

“Holy Christ,” Sebastian swore, and turned to Chapter One. This should put him right to sleep.

Six

Clare raised her hand and knocked on the red door of the carriage house. Through the dark lenses of her sunglasses, she glanced at her gold watch. It was a little after two in the afternoon, and the relentless sun heated her bare shoulders as she stood on the porch. The temperature hovered at ninety-five, but was bound to reach a hundred.

Earlier, she’d written five pages, walked for half an hour on the treadmill in her spare bedroom, and made a list of names for Leo’s party. For the past few days she’d run herself ragged with planning, but it kept her too busy to think about her life. For which she was grateful, although she’d never admit it to her mother. After she ran the names by Leo, she had to pick up her dry cleaning and buy party decorations. Then she would cook dinner and wash dishes, which she calculated would keep her busy until six or seven. After that, maybe she’d write some more. Each time she thought of Lonny, she felt a little piece of her heart chip away. Perhaps if she kept herself very busy for the next few months, her broken heart would heal and spare her some of the pain.

She was still waiting for an epiphany. A light to be shed on her life and show her why she’d chosen Lonny. A ta-da moment to explain why she hadn’t seen the truth of her relationship with him.

Clare adjusted the small purse on her shoulder. It hadn’t happened yet.

The door swung open. Light spilled across the threshold and shined into the house. “Holy mother of God,” Sebastian swore as he raised one arm to shield his gaze from the sun.

“Afraid not.”

Beneath his bare arm, he squinted down at her through bloodshot eyes as if he didn’t quite recognize her. He wore the same jeans and Molson T-shirt he’d worn the day before. He was wrinkled and his hair stood up in front. “Clare?” he finally said, his voice rough and sleepy, as if he’d just rolled out of bed.

“Bingo.” Light brown stubble shadowed the lower half of his face, and the shadow from his arm rested across the seam of his lips. “Did I wake you?”

“I’ve been up for a few.”

“Late night?”

“Yeah.” He scrubbed his face with his hands. “What time is it?”

“About a quarter after two. Did you sleep in your clothes?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Out carousing again?”

“Carousing?” He dropped his hands to his sides. “No. I was up all night reading.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him picture books weren’t really considered reading, but she was going to be nice today if it killed her. Calling him a dickhead the other day had felt good. For a while. But by the time she’d pulled into her garage, the elation had worn thin and she’d felt undignified and gauche. The nice thing-the ladylike thing-would be to apologize. She’d kill herself first. “It must have been a good book.”

“It was interesting.” A ghost of a smile curved his mouth.

She didn’t ask what kind of book he’d read. She didn’t really care. “Is your father around?”

“I don’t know.” He stepped aside, and she walked past him into the house. He smelled like bed linen and warm skin, and he was such a big man, he seemed to dwarf the space around him. Or perhaps it just seemed that way because she was used to Lonny, who stood a few inches taller than her own medium height and was quite thin.

“I searched for him in my mother’s house and he’s not there.” She pushed her sunglasses to the top of her head and looked at Sebastian as he closed the door. He leaned his back against it, folded his arms across his chest and stared at her feet. Slowly, he lifted his gaze from the toes of her red sandals and up her halter dress with the deep red cherries on it. His attention paused on her mouth before continuing to her eyes. He tilted his head to one side, studying her as if trying to figure something out.