He made his fire by the lake in a brick fire pit that had been there a long time. He couldn’t be more obvious if he’d made his fire in front of the porch, yet she didn’t come.
I should’ve kissed her, he thought. For the past several nights she’d found him after dark and they’d talked by the fire. Sometimes they had a beer together, sometimes just the dark and conversation. She had no idea what she was revealing. Her admiration for Sully, her concern, her annoyance with all things as though she felt completely out of place. But he hadn’t suspected a broken heart.
I should’ve kissed her before he came back and made her realize she’d felt so lonely.
He loved the anger that made her skin mottle. He was guessing, but he bet anger made her cry as often as sadness. He wished Lynne had had more fight in her. Maybe she had at first but it was soon reduced to helplessness. He loved Maggie’s sturdiness. He laughed as he thought that—what woman wanted to be admired for something like that?
It crossed his mind that a smart man would move on before things got complicated but it was already too late for that. The minute she had confided she was being sued, he’d submitted an application to the Colorado bar for license to practice here. Colorado had reciprocity with Michigan; he wouldn’t have to take the bar in this state to be licensed, but he did have to apply. Which he had done without saying anything to anyone. He gave one reference in Colorado. Sully. They might not even ask him.
A part of him thought it might bring Maggie peace of mind to learn he wasn’t just a homeless bum but a professional legal mind. Yet he hadn’t shared. Not yet. He wasn’t quite ready to tell everything. Some of it was still too private.
He sat by his fire, thinking. He gave her some time to find him. He didn’t feed the fire; he let it burn out. Then he went prowling, looking for her. If he had to, he’d knock on the door and call her out. Their routine had made him happy. He didn’t know if he was finally working through his issues or if it was something about the crossing—the spot where the Continental Divide separated the east from the west, where everything felt balanced. It was probably just that he’d been looking for a deeper understanding, for self-discovery, for a couple of years now and he was finally stumbling upon it. Pure accident.
She was sitting on her back porch steps in the dark. No fire. Her view? The garden, which was all dirt so far.
“There you are,” he said. “Hiding.”
“It’s not a good night, Calvin,” she said.
“All right, I get that. I was waiting down by the lake. You shouldn’t do that, you know—bring me a beer at night, cozy up and talk in the dark and then shut down. I won’t know how to act tomorrow.”
“Don’t act,” she advised. “Just try to be normal. Just be a guy. You didn’t see anything, you didn’t hear anything. Just be a regular blissfully ignorant man.”
“I’m not that guy.”
“Famous last words,” she said.
“He hurt you,” Cal said. “I thought you might want to talk about it.”
“Are you some kind of counselor? What’s with all this understanding and sensitivity? Because the men I know are not like you. They don’t care about how a woman feels. They’re scared of women’s feelings. And they won’t admit to having feelings of their own, but boy, do they work at protecting them. Defending them.”
“Well, damn, I’m honored. You think I’m not like the men you know?” He sat on the step beside her. “Were you in love with him?”
She shrugged. “Probably not.”
“You’re pouting a lot for nothing, then.”
“He just hurt my feelings, that’s all. Maybe he was right.”
“I doubt it. If he was right, Sully would like him. He doesn’t like him.”
“He never told me that,” Maggie said.
“Because he’s just a guy,” Cal said with a laugh. He put an arm around her shoulders. “I should’ve kissed you last night or the night before. I should’ve done that before some useless old ex showed up and made you feel like you were missing something.”
She laughed in spite of herself. “You arrogant fool. What makes you think you kiss that good?”
He turned her toward him. He grabbed her so suddenly her arms were flapping like a bird’s wings. He covered her gasp with his lips, tightened his arms around her waist, held her close and moved over her lips with urgency, giving it his very best effort. The fit was perfect and he thought this might be one of his most outstanding kisses. He kept his eyes closed but he knew if he peeked hers would be wide-open. He tilted his mouth over hers to kiss her more deeply, edging his lips apart just enough to run his tongue along the seam of her lips, urging her to open up to him a little bit.