flat tummy and slender hips to their best effect.  The red made her pale skin… her mother insisted it was alabaster… really glow, in a good way.  And the heels really made her calves pop.  She smiled at her mirror-self, happy with the way she looked for the moment. 

She headed toward the door and gave it a pull, weaving back toward the dance floor and their VIP booth.  As she passed the bar, she slipped on something and stumbled, only to land in the arms of Ridiculously Handsome, who’d apparently resumed haunting a spot at the bar while she was “in the loo.” 

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” she said profusely as he dabbed at the remains of his drink with a napkin he’d smoothly swept off the bar.

“No worries,” he said, smiling and supporting her with his free arm.

She struggled to get her feet under her again, between the embarrassment, the arak and the fluster, she had lost all coordination.  He set down the napkin and then, with both hands, lifted her and set her down on her feet. 

“Are you sure you’re ok?  I can walk you to your table?” 

She looked up at him.  She could feel herself slipping into those eyes.  He’s even better looking up-close, she thought.  “That’s ok.  I can make it,” she said weakly as she turned back toward the VIP. 

She looked up and saw Cory giving her a thumbs-up.  He might have been more subtle with a flashing neon sign, she thought.  He was standing, leaning over the rail, pumping his arm.  She glanced back and Ridiculously Handsome was looking right at him… then at her.  She felt the heat prickle into her face as she blushed.  Mr. Handsome smiled at her. 

And her foot shot out from under her again. 

Ridiculously Handsome once again caught her and held her up.  This time, though, he smoothly slipped his arms around her waist and supported her as he moved her toward the table she was sharing with Cory.  He pulled her into him, and she surrendered.  Luxuriating in the moment.  She could feel his strong arm against her back and his strong shoulder…  Again, she started to lose herself in the fantasy. 

She got to the bottom of the steps up to the VIP room and turned to him, “Please let me get you a drink.  I don’t even know your name and you’ve saved me at least twice now.”

He nodded and followed her up the three steps, making sure she didn’t have another mishap. 

“Dillon Kennedy,” he said as he gave Cory a firm handshake.

“Cory Taylor,” Cory responded, matching the firmness of Dillon’s handshake. 

“I’m Jenny Coolidge.  Thank you so much, Dillon.  You’re my hero.”

Cory leaned over and whispered into Jenny’s ear, “Definitely playing for team Jenny.  Go for it.”

Jenny blushed again and then waved at the waiter. 

A few minutes later they toasted “new friends” before clinking glasses and downing another shot of Arak. 

“Damn,” Dillon said, “a few of these and you would have been picking me up off the floor.”

Jenny found herself bushing again.  Dillon glanced over to her and gave her an easy smile.  She melted a little more inside.  She loved the way he slipped into the conversation.  He was so comfortable to be around.  Her mind started to drift off into her own little fantasy. 

“… Jenny?” she heard Cory ask.  She had no idea what he’d been saying for the last few seconds, minutes.  She had been busy riding a white stallion with her knight in shining armor, Sir Handsome.  “I said, isn’t it interesting that Dillon is a photographer.”

“Oh, God, yes.  That is so cool,” she replied.  OMG, I sound like an idiot, she said to herself.  A look from Cory confirmed the thought. 

“Well, Dillon, Jenny won’t say it, but she is an amazing computer programmer, as well as being an avid conversationalist and accomplished foodie.”

“Really?” he said, turning back to her.  “I know this incredible Italian place not far from here.  I’d love to take you… both of you.”

“I don’t…” Cory started to say.

 Jenny cut him off, “That would be wonderful.  I’m sure Cory would simply die if he didn’t go.”

Cory and Jenny faced each other for the briefest of moments.  Her eyes bored into him and he smiled and nodded. 

Dillon glanced at his watch, “It’s getting late for me.  I have a shoot tomorrow.”  He turned to Jenny, “Here’s my number.  Whenever you are ready to try that Italian place, give me a call.  You, too, Cory.”  His eyes never left Jenny’s. 

He rose and left their table.  “You, too, Cory,” Cory said in a nasally voice as soon as Dillon was out of earshot.  “Wow.  I turned invisible.”

“Did you say something?” Jenny said, a dreamy look still in her eyes.

“Apparently, I don’t make noise when I speak, either… I’m like a ghost.”  Cory waved his arms around and moved his hand up and down in front of his face, pretending to see through it.

“Oh, zip-it.  He wants to take us to dinner.”

“He wants to take you to dinner.  He’s willing to let me tag along.  He was right about it being late, though.  Let me order up a ride.”

A few minutes later they walked through the street-side door of Midnight and climbed into the waiting silver Pontiac G8GT that the rideshare app had specified.  Brian was their driver.  Twenty minutes after that, Jenny unlocked her door and invited Cory inside. 

“When do you think I should call him?” she asked, holding the card with his number in her hand.

“In a few days… he needs to stew in his juices first,” Cory said, snatching the number out of her hand. 

He turned and went to the guest room while she shook her head and headed to her own room to wash off her make-up and go to bed.  Luckily, because he stayed over once or twice a week, he had clothes and everything else he needed to get ready in the morning.  Unless someone noticed his car had been in the parking lot at work all night and saw him get out of Jenny’s Challenger, nobody would be the wiser.

She turned and looked at Cory.  He smiled, but she could see the concern in his soft, blue eyes.  He was her best friend and often, the only one that would drag her… well, she thought, from just about everything she needed to be dragged from.  His was the shoulder she’d done the ugly cries on when she’d had bad breakups.  He’d been there with a margarita for her when she didn’t land the client she expected to land.  He’d literally thrown her over his shoulder and carried her from a bar before she made a giant fool of herself one night.  He was the person she trusted more than anyone, even herself.  Time after time, he had looked out for her in more ways than she could count.

“If you say so, Cory.  Where to?” she said, rising from her ergonomically designed chair after clicking through the procedures to turn off “Death Star,” her programming machine. 

“Since it is ten o’clock, choices for dinner are limited, but I have an idea.”

With a flourish, he strode from the room, leaving Jenny is his wake.  He was slipping his phone from the breast pocket of his tailored sport coat as he disappeared from view.  She gathered up her purse and slipped her faded denim jacket over her slender frame.  She pushed her glasses up her nose and rushed to catch him. 

Turning down the hall toward the building exit, she caught him just before he stepped through the security gate.  “Well?” she asked. 

“I just got off the phone with my friend, Jesse.  He is getting us a table at Midnight and they are setting us up with a full dinner.  VIP experience.”

“Midnight?  I thought we were going somewhere now…”

“Silly girl.  Midnight… that new restaurant and club?  The one EVERYONE wants to get into.  Mile long line.  Midnight.  But you DO need to change clothes.  We can hurry by your place and I’ll see if you have any clothes you could possibly wear.”

Again, with a flourish he turned and headed toward her car.  And again, she ran to catch up.  She half expected him to demand to drive her car, too. 

***

They sat on the dais that surrounded half of the dance floor.  The small table between them full of small dishes, the remnants of their dinner.  Away from the steps that led to the main level, there was a private buffet loaded with food samples.  Jesse had outdone himself.  Cory had asked for “something exotic” and he had provided a Middle Eastern extravaganza.  The portions were small, but there had been at least thirty different dishes to try…  They were both stuffed and had turned to watch the dance crowd rapidly accumulating beneath them. 

“Good grief,” Jenny said as she pointed out a woman standing on the far side of the bar.

“Seriously, just because they make it in her size doesn’t mean she has to buy it or wear it,” Cory said… his “Mean Girl” surfacing.

“I know, right?  And it was out of style twenty years ago, when it might have fit.”

“What about that guy, Jen?  He is ridiculously handsome,” Cory said, pointing out a tall, dark-haired man casually strolling over to the bar.  He turned and glanced their way and smiled. 

“Was that smile for you or me?” Jenny asked.

“Me…  Has to be me.  There is NO way a man that well put together can be straight.  Sorry, Girlfriend,” Cory said, a smug look on his face. 

Over at the bar, the bartender handed him his drink and he left some cash on the bar as he flashed them a smile, before a leggy blonde sauntered up to him.  They couldn’t hear the conversation, but Cory started his own narration.  As she talked with him, she looked back across the bar, then gave him a pouty expression and walked away. 

Cory narrated both sides of the imagined conversation…  “Hi good-looking, my girlfriends have a table over there, want to join us?” he said in a falsetto voice. 

“Um, no.  I’m strictly dickly,” he replied, answering himself, using a deep voice.

“Ok, Mr. Taylor, she was hot enough that even a gay man would have been tempted.  Hell, I would be tempted,” Jenny interrupted. 

“You’re right, Jen.  I have to admit, I’d hit that… if only to find out where she got that dress.  And boy, did she wear it or what?  You need a dress like that.”

“Right.  What kind of fashion expert are you?  I’m a couple of numbers and letters short of filling that thing out,” she said, looking down at her “less-endowed” chest.  “What do you think… thirty-six, double D?”

“Seriously, Jen, you are a hot number.  Any guy… I mean ANY guy would be lucky to have you on his arm.  Combine that with the fact that you are brilliant and the second most wonderful person in the world, and you are a total package.”  He lightly put his hand over hers.  “We’ll get your sense of style fixed…”

“Second most wonderful?”

“Well… there is me,” Cory replied before getting up to trot off to the “little-boys room.” 

Jenny looked up again, but Ridiculously Handsome was gone from the bar.  She scanned around the room for a moment, expecting to see that he had decided to take up Miss Stacked on her offer, but she didn’t see him. 

Jesse, Cory’s friend, stopped by and dropped off a couple more drinks.  As he set them down, he told her they were called Arak, a Middle Eastern drink made from aniseed, and tasted similar to Ouzo.  That clears it up, she thought to herself, but smiled and took a sip.  She tasted licorice, presumably from the aniseed of the anise plant. 

“Wow, that is potent stuff,” she said out loud, coughing.

Jesse threw his back like a shot and encouraged her to do the same.  She coughed again, and her eyes got big for a moment.  He took the glasses and told her he’d be back in a minute. 

As Cory rejoined her, Jesse set down another couple of rounds and disappeared.  She and Cory moved their glance around the dance floor and the bar looking for others to watch and make up stories about as they tossed the remaining drinks back. 

“I need to visit the powder room,” Jenny said as she rose, slightly unsteadily.  “Whew, those Araks are serious.”

“Are you going to be ok?” Cory asked her, also rising and finding that he wasn’t much steadier on his feet. 

“Just keep an eye on me, but I’ll be fine.”  She self-consciously pulled the hem of her short dress down and headed for the stairs.  Three careful steps down and she was on the dance floor, crossing toward the bathroom. 

any moment her father or her mother could climb the steps and see us.

That was more than forty years ago, and I can still smell her perfume. I’ve never known the name of it, but I can’t pick up its scent without thinking of her. I can feel my fingers slipping through her blonde hair. I see her bright green smiling eyes. I hear her joyful laugh. The soft crush of her lips on mine.

Sunrise was the best time… the sun coming up over the Chesapeake Bay, over the beach only a block away. But it was rare that I would be there that early in the morning. Second best was sunset. The fiery color was behind us, but the boats and the star would twinkle against the deep blue of the evening sky as it faded from blue into black.

Even now, just the idea sends me back in time. Looking at her as the last rays of the day filtered through her hair, lighting a halo around her angelic face. Sitting across from her, holding hands across the divide… her feet next to me, mine next to her. Her smile.

“So, what is a widow’s walk?” I asked her father one night as we stood next to the grill on their balcony. They had a small thrift shop on the first floor of the building, an apartment occupying the two floors above that, and finally the widow’s walk snaking along the peak of the roof.

“This house was built by a sea captain a hundred and fifty years ago. Looking around,” he continued, “you can still see a lot of his touches… the joinery in the wood, the details.

“He built it for his wife, Ophelia. Her picture is in the hallway. Beautiful woman, dark hair and eyes. And he built the walk on top so that she could look out to the sea. If you look, over in the southeast corner, there is a socket set into the rail. She had a telescope in a locker in the cupola that she could set into the socket and watch the sea when he was gone.

“The captain disappeared on one of their voyages. I guess that would have been around 1830.

“When the ship was due in, she went to the roof, out on the walk, and scanned the horizon with the telescope. A day turned into a week. A week turned into a month. ‘He’s lost,’ they told her. A month turned into a year.

“Every day, rain or shine, she would go up to the walk and scan the horizon for a sign of the man she loved.

“Even before that she was a widow of the sea. She knew her man couldn’t leave his first love, no matter how much she wished he would. And like any widow of the sea, she wanted to know when her lost love would return.

“That’s why it’s called a widow’s walk,” he finished. He had a far-off, wistful look in his eyes.

“He loves to tell that story,” Holly said softly in my ear as she snuck up behind me, wrapping her arms around me and squeezing.

“I guess I do,” he said. “I guess the romance of the sea has a place in my heart.”

After that, sometimes when I was riding my bike to her house, I would catch Holly on the walk watching me come down the street… sometimes with a telescope. I would wave and she would raise her hand to me. Even from the ground, I could see her brilliant smile.

***

Ophelia looked through her telescope in the failing light of the evening. It had been so long. Day after day she waited, watching. James had never lied to her, and he said he would come back. His last voyage was to be three months. Cuba, Brazil, the Canary Islands, Italy, Portsmouth and then home. Then he was retiring.

But the three months turned into four, then six. Then a year. She didn’t lose faith. Even when sailors came back talking of a storm in the Atlantic, and word filtered in that his ship never made it to the Canary Islands, her faith was steadfast.

James would return for her.

A decade passed, then two. Every morning at sunrise and every evening just before sunset, she would be on the walk, her eye to the spyglass. Her spyglass trained on the horizon. She knew every ship that sailed the bay, but none of the sails were the ones for which she was looking.

In 1853, she disappeared. A dinner for two was set on the table, uneaten. Everything was perfectly placed. All the captain’s favorite foods were laid out. A single candle burned much of the way down in the center of the table.

Clarinda, Ophelia’s best friend, looked from her window at sunset. She didn’t see Ophelia and rushed across the street to her house. She rushed up the stairs to the private apartment over the small shop Ophelia owned, calling her friend’s name.

That was when she discovered the dinner laid out. She quickly looked around the apartment, then ran up the outside stairs to the walk.

The telescope was heeled over in its mount. She scanned the horizon, then looked through the telescope. She almost thought she could see something at the edge of the sea, where it and the sky met.

Ophelia was never found. Locals combed the shoreline, thinking she had lost patience and swam out to sea to join her husband. Clarinda never uttered what she saw while looking through the telescope that evening on the widow’s walk, only leaving it in her journal.

But later, she would say that she could see Ophelia pacing the walk, usually at sunrise, but sometimes at sunset as well. She would always be wearing a black dress, as many had seen her in, wrapped in a bone-colored, lace shawl. And if she looked to the sea, she would see those same sails on the horizon. When she would look back to Ophelia’s house, her friend would be gone.

***

I had never seen Ophelia, but Holly said that she had seen her a few times. I thought maybe one evening when we were sitting in the cupola, holding hands, quietly watching the light fade, we might catch a glimpse of the woman that had so loved her captain.

“What is she like?” I asked one night at the sun dipped below the horizon behind us, a cargo ship’s light rolling slowly south in the bay.

“Sad. She was heartbroken. She would walk along the course, looking to the sea. Sometimes, she would bend as if looking through a telescope that was no longer there. Then, the last time I saw her, she was looking, as she normally did… and she jumped.

“Her movement, solid, but ethereal, startled me. She looked directly at me, but also through me. I could see the joy on her face… it emanated from her. She glowed. Then, she ran along the walk to the steps, spun and climbed down them… and disappeared.”

“You haven’t seen her since?” I asked.

“I thought I caught a glimpse of her glow out in the bay that night, but I don’t know.”

Holly slipped off the bench opposite me in the cupola and sat next to me, my arm wrapping around her. She snuggled into me as I held her tight.

“I think she found her happiness. I think her captain came back for her like she knew he would,” I said.

Holly turned to me. Her hand touched my cheek. I pulled her close and felt her soft lips with mine. Everything about that moment burned into my memory.

“I hope so,” she said after the kiss, as I took in her perfume and felt her hair between my fingers.

***

Holly is long gone. Her parents passed away a decade ago and she has her own family on the other side of the country. I’ve moved away as well, with a family of my own. But I still visit my mother nearby.

The shop her family owned is boarded up, the house in dire need of a renovation. It was built over two hundred years ago, and its age showed forty years ago when I was last inside. But it is sadly abandoned.

I often stay in a hotel a few blocks away, overlooking the beach and the bay beyond. It isn’t far from my mother’s house where I grew up. Sometimes, I sit on the hotel’s balcony so that I can watch the light fade to night, see the sky go from brilliant blue to black, and watch the twinkle of stars and ships on the water as they grow and take over the night.

But one night was different.

As I sat on the wicker chair, an ice-cold beer on the table next to me, out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move on Holly’s widow’s walk. I spun… Ophelia was walking the course. I watched her look out to sea. After a few minutes, I saw her jump and could see her aura brighten.

I set down my drink and sprinted from the room. I ran down the stairs from my fifth-floor room, not willing to wait for an elevator. Reaching the ground floor, I tore through the lobby and out the door, sprinting down the boardwalk.

The glow from Holly’s roof passed in front of me, a hundred yards away. I chased after it as fast as my aging body would allow. She moved over the ground like a shimmer, quickly, but not hurried.

Forty yards away, she crossed to the sand. I angled toward the water, cutting diagonally to where she was headed. I needed to be closer… to see her.

Twenty feet away, I skidded to a stop. My hands were on my knees and my heart thudded in my chest.

Ophelia turned to me. “Thank you,” she said.

I looked up, and there was a glowing launch from the ship sliding onto the sand.

“The love between you and Holly allowed us to be reunited,” the captain said. “This is our celebration.”

He lifted her onto the boat, a moment later it slid back out into the bay, cutting through the waves.

***

“Hi Holly,” I said into my phone, sitting again on the balcony.

“Oh my gosh… I haven’t talked to you in forever,” she replied.

“I saw Ophelia… and Captain Morgan. They told me that we freed them to be together again. I think it was that kiss.”

“That was forty-one years ago tonight,” she said. “I was actually just thinking about it.”

***

Clarinda’s Journal:

There, upon the horizon, lit by the setting sun were the sails of a schooner. As I continued to watch, I could see a woman on the aft deck, her hair dark, flowing in the wind.

The two-masted ship began to turn out to sea, away to the south.

If I didn’t know better, I would have thought it Capt. James Morgan’s ship. She was as sleek and beautiful a vessel as I ever saw sail. Watching through the spyglass, I could see the woman and the captain kiss. If it were Ophelia, she was twenty years younger. Always a beautiful woman, she had again the radiance she’d lost when all thought her love gone.

I turned back, an otherworldly boy and girl sat in the cupola, intertwined. There was a flash as they kissed, then they were gone. It was calm.

Beth had been Lincoln’s dream girl. In elementary school, they’d been buddies… she was ‘one of the guys’ and did the same stuff as the rest of the gang. But by junior high, things started changing. Their relationship morphed from ‘buds’ to something completely different. One day, in sixth grade, they were walking home from the bus stop, just the two of them. He’d tripped, and she pulled him back up… and for the rest of the walk, until she turned to go up her front walk, their fingers were interlinked.

It all crashed to a halt at the end of ninth grade. Linc’s dad was transferred to Great Britain. Trans-Atlantic calls were expensive, and even though he tried, writing was something he did like just about every other fifteen-year-old boy… he didn’t.

***

She wrote a few letters, at least a few more than she received. She was still in love with Linc, but he wasn’t there. She didn’t know if he was ever coming back. Eventually, life moved on for her.

Steve Ogden took her to her first dance, and while her mind wandered to Lincoln Royce, she pushed it down. He was gone and she didn’t know if he even thought about her anymore.

Beth Thomas graduated and went on to college. She started using her full name, then met and married Tim Willis. He had been a good man, until he wasn’t. But they had three wonderful children together. After college, she never went back to Virginia, at least not until after the divorce. Her kids were grown, and had scattered to the winds, and her father’s health declined. Her parents needed her. When she thought about it, she needed something different. Someplace different.

***

Lincoln Royce picked up the loaf of bread and set it in his cart. He had a lot more things to get. It wasn’t his first trip to the grocery store since moving back, but each time, it seemed like the list got longer and he realized all the things he was missing.

“Lincoln Royce?” he heard from behind him.

He spun around. His eyes landed on a woman that seemed familiar. He looked at her for a moment, eyes probing, trying to see through the years. It had been a month since he’d moved back, transferred to the place he’d lived until he was fifteen. He’d left thirty-nine years before.

“Liz Jones… right?”

“Pretty good, Linc. It’s Liz Garrett now. I almost forget… twenty-five years. Are you visiting?” she asked.

“No. I moved back a few weeks ago. How have you been?”

“Good… like I said, married. Two kids. Grandson on the way,” she said, smiling wide. “Never left. What about you? We kind of lost track of you after you moved to England.”

“Yeah… wow. That’s been a minute, hasn’t it? I was actually living outside of London until coming back here. I got married, we had a son. My wife passed from cancer two years ago. The company was looking to expand, and here I am.”

“I’m so sorry, Linc. That must have been devastating,” Liz said, reaching out and taking his hand. “Have you seen any of the old crowd?”

“No. I wouldn’t even know where to start. And work has been a little crazy. And getting my house in order. I bought it without having set foot in it. It was still a good deal, but needed a little more than I thought, you know?”

“Hey, why don’t you come over for dinner. You and my husband, Gil, would get along great. What do ya say? Friday, I won’t take no for an answer.”

He knew her determination. He also knew she had been Beth’s best friend when he left. If anyone knew where she was and how she was doing, Liz would have the inside track.

“Sure,” he replied.

She tapped his phone with hers, passing along her address.

“Casual. We’ll grill or something. It’ll be fun.” Her eyes glinted with the mirth he remembered.

***

Elizabeth Willis was sitting in the kitchen of her best friend’s house, a glass of merlot in her hand. It was her second.

“You are up to something, Liz. I have known you too long. I can see it in your eyes,” Beth said to her friend.

“Moi?” Liz replied, her hand on her chest, her eyes wide. “Aside from setting you up on a blind date, nothing at all.”

“Blind date? You are kidding me. I’ve been in town a week.” She shook her head. She wasn’t mad. More than just about anyone, she knew that Liz loved her. They were both only-children, and they had been like sisters their entire lives. Even when Beth lived across the country, the two of them remained incredibly close. “Fine… who is it?”

“I’m not telling… But he is tall, quite attractive. Light brown hair threaded with silver. He has gorgeous hazel eyes.”

“And why is this beautiful hunk of masculinity not married?” Beth asked, her eyelashes fluttering.

“Widower. His wife died of cancer. He has a son, twenty-eight. I really think you’ll like him. And he is going to love you.”

“I don’t know… but I guess it’s too late now. You owe me, though,” Beth said, refilling both of their glasses.

They moved out to the deck, overlooking the bay. Gil was manning the grill, cooking up a few steaks. The awning was rolled out, and with the breeze, it was a perfect evening to sit and listen to the waves lapping on the beach as the sun lowered in the sky.

“Doorbell,” Liz said as she jumped off her chair and headed back into the house.

“I don’t know a thing,” Gil said, laughing as Beth turned to look at him. “I’m just the hired help. But my wife might know you better than you know you.”

Beth turned and looked back toward the sliding glass door as Liz came through. A moment later, her date stepped through the door. She hadn’t even seen his face when she knew who it was. The way he reached for the door was enough for her.

“Linc!” Beth cried as she launched from the tall chair into his arms. His arms wrapped around her as she buried her face in his chest, squeezing him. “Are you real? Are you really here?”

“Hi, Beth.” He pulled back a little and looked at her. “My God, you are beautiful.” Beth reached up and wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. “I’ve missed you.”

Beth pulled him back to the table and sat down next to him, her fingers intertwined with his and her eyes locked on him. Her other hand reached out and touched him tentatively. “I missed you, too.”

***

Linc looked at Beth in the pale light of the approaching twilight. Her golden hair, now streaked with touches of silver, a few wrinkles emanating from the corners of her beautiful blue eyes. But he saw the same girl he’d fallen in love with forty years before. He saw the girl he was never able to forget. She sipped her merlot, her eyes coming back to him and she set the glass down. Her smile was as brilliant as ever, and her eyes held the same playful shimmer.

Gil laid out the plates, grilled flat-iron steaks with a blue-cheese butter, rosemary and garlic, along with roasted potatoes and grilled, homemade bread.

“Gil, this is amazing,” Linc said.

Through dinner, with Liz and Gil only occasionally bumping into their consciousness, they had talked about their lives. The thirty-nine years that had escaped them. School, college, work, kids. Their eyes seldom left the others.

After dinner, they sat close and held hands, the conversation continuing. Every once in a while, Gil or Liz would get a thought out, but they were all but invisible to the two lovers.

Liz brought out the warm, dark chocolate brownies, their aroma mixing with the merlot.

“Do you want to walk on the beach?” Linc whispered in Beth’s ear as dessert was finished.

“Yes, she does,” Liz said quickly. “Gil and I will take care of this.”

“I can help…” Beth tried to say.

“No, you can’t. I’ve never been so happy to be ignored in my own house in my life. Go… walk… fall back in love with each other,” Liz laughed out.

Beth blushed deeply as Linc held her hand, helping her from the chair. “Too late,” she whispered to her friend. “Thank you.”

Beth slipped her arm into Linc’s as they turned and walked down to the beach, their shoes sitting on the front porch of the house. They walked the length of the beach, slowly, enjoying each other’s touch as they talked about the old days, both together and apart.

“It must have been devastating to lose your wife like that,” Beth said, her head leaned over on his shoulder as they strolled across the sand.

“It was. It was almost as hard as losing you when I moved. Don’t get me wrong… I loved Bianca… I still do… but we had a good life together. We were married for almost thirty years. But I never forgot about you.”

“I never forgot about you, either,” Beth replied, stopping, Linc turning to face her.

For the first time since they were both fifteen, she reached up and wrapped one hand around the back of his neck, the other around his shoulders. His hand fell to her waist, then encircled her, pulling her tight. She stretched up and tasted his lips, the first touch tentative. He leaned down, returning the kiss, longer and deeper. They kissed again, each kiss more intimate and comfortable than the last.

As they walked away from the beach to collect their shoes, Liz stepped onto the porch. “How was dinner?” she asked, her eyes gleaming.

“The pairings were amazing, Liz,” Linc said, his smile broad.

“The merlot was perfect with the steaks and pairing of it with the dark chocolate brownies was exquisite,” Beth added.

“Of course, pairing me with Beth again was the one that put the night over the top,” Linc beamed.