Clare,

Could you please wrap this and bring it to the party tomorrow night? I’m horrible at this sort of thing and don’t want to embarrass the old man in front of his friends. I’m sure you’ll do a great job.

Thanks, Sebastian

Nine

She’d wrapped the fishing pole and reel in pink ribbon and glittery bows. It was so girly and gaudy, Sebastian had hid it behind the sofa in the carriage house where no one would see it.

“Such a sweet girl.”

Sebastian stood beneath a big awning constructed in the Wingate backyard. There were about twenty-five guests, none of whom Sebastian had ever met before. He’d been introduced to everyone and recalled most of their names. After years of reporting, he’d developed a knack for recalling people and events.

Roland Meyers, one of Leo’s oldest friends, stood next to him, munching on foie gras. “Who?” Sebastian asked.

Roland pointed across the lawn at a large knot of people, the setting sun bathing them in burnt orange. “Clare.”

Sebastian speared a little weenie with a toothpick and stuck it on his plate next to crab-stuffed Camembert. “So I’ve heard.” His father, he noticed, had dressed himself up in charcoal trousers, white dress shirt, and a god-awful tie with a howling wolf on it.

“She and Joyce put this whole thing together for your father.” Roland took a drink of something on the rocks, and added, “They’ve been like family to Leo. Always taken real good care of him.”

Sebastian detected a note of censure. It wasn’t the first time that evening that he felt as if he were being politely admonished for not visiting sooner, but he didn’t know Roland well enough to be certain.

Roland’s next words removed any doubt. “Never were too busy for him. Not like his own family.”

Sebastian smiled. “The interstate runs two ways, Mr. Meyers.”

The older man nodded. “That’s true enough. I have six kids and can’t imagine not laying eyes on one of them for ten years.”

It had been more like fourteen years, but who was counting. “What do you do for a living?” Sebastian asked, purposely changing the subject.

“Veterinarian.”

Sebastian moved down the table filled with hors d’oeuvres. Directly behind him, sixties music played from speakers hidden by planters of tall grasses and cattails. One of the strongest memories Sebastian had of his father was his love of the Beatles, Dusty Springfield, and especially Bob Dylan-of reading Fantastic Four comics and listening to “Lay Lady Lay.”

Sebastian ate the Camembert on thin crackers and followed that up with a few stuffed mushrooms. He raised his gaze to the people milling about the lawn amidst lit torches and candles floating in various fountains. His gaze moved to the group of people standing near a nymph fountain, and once again landed on one brunette in particular. Clare had curled her straight hair, and the setting sun caught in the big waves and touched the side of her face. She wore a tight blue dress with tiny white flowers that hit her just above the knee. The thin straps of the dress looked like bra straps, and a white ribbon circled her ribs and was tied beneath her breasts.

Earlier, before the guests had arrived that evening, he’d watched the caterer set up while Clare and Joyce had placed Leo’s carved wildlife along the tables and in the cattails. Roland had been right. The Wingate women did take good care of his father. A twinge of guilt plucked his conscience. What he’d said to Roland had been true too. The interstate did run two ways, and he’d never bothered heading in the direction of his father until a week ago. They’d let things fall to nothing, and whether it was the old man’s fault or his didn’t seem to matter anymore.

They’d had a great time fishing together, and Sebastian had felt the first real hint of optimism. Now, if neither of them did anything to mess it up, they might actually have some kind of framework on which to build. Funny that he’d had a fuck-it attitude toward his father only a few short months ago. But that was before he’d stood in a mortuary picking out a casket for his mother. That day, his world shifted, turned him 180 degrees around and changed him, whether he’d wanted it to or not. Now he wanted to know the old man before it was too late. Before he once again had to make a decision on cherrywood or bronze. Crepe or velvet. Cremated or buried.

He polished off the remaining hors d’oeuvre and threw the plate in the trash. Or, given his job, before his father might have to make arrangements for him. He preferred to be burned rather than buried and wanted his ashes dumped rather than kept in a columbarium or on someone’s mantel. During the course of his life, he’d been shot at numerous times, he’d chased stories and been chased, and he didn’t have any illusions about his own mortality.

With that happy reflection, he ordered a scotch on the rocks at the open bar, then made his way to his father. When he’d packed for his impromptu trip to Boise, he’d thrown jeans, a couple pairs of cargo pants, and a week’s worth of T-shirts into the suitcase. It hadn’t occurred to him to pack anything to wear to a party. Earlier that afternoon, his father had brought him a blue and white striped dress shirt and a plain red tie. He’d left the tie sitting on the dresser, but he’d been grateful for the loan of the shirt, whose tails he’d tucked into his newest Levi’s. Every now and again he caught the scent of the old man’s laundry soap and realized it was coming from him-a little disconcerting after all these years, but comfortable.

At Sebastian’s approach, his father made a place for him. “Are you having a good time?” Leo asked.

Good time? No. Good time meant something entirely different in Sebastian’s personal lexicon, and he hadn’t had that kind of good time in months. “Sure. The food is good.” He raised his drink to his mouth. “But pass on the cheese ball with the chunks in it,” he advised from behind his glass.

Leo smiled and asked just above a whisper, “What are the chunks?”

“Nuts.” Sebastian took a drink and his gaze slid to Clare, standing a few feet from his father, chatting it up with a man in green and blue plaid who looked to be in his late twenties. “And some sort of fruit.”

“Ah, Joyce’s ambrosia cheese ball. She makes it every Christmas. Horrible stuff.” The corner of Leo’s smile quivered. “Don’t tell her. She thinks everyone loves it.”

Sebastian chuckled and lowered his glass.

“Excuse me while I go grab some of the Camembert before it’s all gone,” his father said, and made a beeline for the buffet table.

Sebastian watched his father walk away, his gait a little slower than it had been earlier. It was getting close to his bedtime.

“I bet Leo is just thrilled to death to finally have you here,” said Lorna Devers, the neighbor from across the hedgerow.

Sebastian pulled his gaze from his father and looked over his shoulder. “I don’t know if he’s thrilled or not.”

“Of course he is.” Mrs. Devers was in her fifties, although it was hard to tell which end of fifty, given that her face was frozen from Botox. Not that Sebastian had a real opinion one way or the other about plastic surgery. He just thought it shouldn’t be so obvious to the casual observer exactly where a person had gotten herself nipped, tucked, sucked, or injected. Case in point, Lorna’s Pamela-Anderson-sized breasts. Not that he had anything against big, or even fake. Just not that big and that fake on a woman that age.

“I’ve known your father for twen-a few years,” she said, then proceeded to talk about herself and her poodles, Missy and Poppet. As far as Sebastian was concerned, that was strike three and four. He had nothing against poodles, although he couldn’t see himself owning one, but Missy and Poppet? Lord, just the sound of those two names siphoned off a few ounces of testosterone. If he listened much longer, he was afraid he’d grow a vagina. To preserve his sanity and his manhood, Sebastian eavesdropped on the different conversations taking place around him while Lorna rambled on.

“I’ll have to buy one of your books,” the guy next to Clare said. “I might learn a thing or two.” He laughed at his own joke, but didn’t seem to notice that he was the only one laughing.

“Rich, you always say that,” Clare managed as smooth as butter. Light from the torches flickered and seeped through the soft strands of her dark curls, touching the corners of her phony-as-hell smile.

“I’m going to do it this time. I hear they’re real sexy. If you need research, give me a call.”

Somehow, when Rich said it, it sounded sleazy. Not like when Sebastian said it. Or…perhaps it sounded just as sleazy and he didn’t want to think he was as ignorant as Rich.

The corners of Clare’s fake smile went higher, but she didn’t answer.

Standing directly across from Sebastian, Joyce conversed with several women who looked to be about her age. He seriously doubted they were friends of his father’s. They looked too rich and too old-guard Junior League.

“Betty McLeod told me Clare writes romance novels,” one of them said. “I love trashy books. The trashier the better.”

Instead of defending Clare, Joyce asserted in a voice that brooked no disagreement, “No. Claresta writes women’s fiction.” Within the wavering light, Sebastian watched Clare’s phony smile fade. Her gaze narrowed as she excused herself from Rich and moved across the lawn to disappear behind pots of tall grasses and cattails.

“Excuse me, Lorna,” he said, interrupting the woman’s fascinating tales of Missy and Poppet’s love of car rides.

“Don’t stay away so long next time,” she called after him.

He followed Clare and found her looking through a stack of CDs next to the sound system. The light from the torches barely leached through the grasses as she read the titles by the blue LCD light.