The Cliff House. RaeAnne Thayne

their child?

      When they returned to the house she had moved into along the coast road after her divorce, the lights were on out by the pool.

      “Looks like Shane is swimming!” Mari said. “Can I go out and swim, too?”

      She might have guessed he would be there, probably with his sweet yellow Labrador retriever, Sally, either playing in the water with him or lounging on the side.

      Her elaborate pool with its secret grotto, waterfalls and high-tech hot tub had become his favorite part of living in the guesthouse. Just a few nights earlier, he told her the pool would be the thing he missed most when the renovations to his own house were finished.

      She still wasn’t sure why that had stung so much.

      “He might not be there much longer. We don’t know how long he’s already been in the pool. But I don’t mind if he doesn’t. Go ahead and change into your suit.”

      “I’ll hurry. I can go fast. Come on, Jojo,” she said, already racing for the door with their little dog scampering along behind her.

      Mari, like everyone else in town, adored Shane. Bea had gone with him to enough restaurants or community events to see how people in town respected Shane. Everybody wanted to talk to him, to tell him about their son or nephew or grandson who was on his team, to shake his hand and tell him thanks for all he had done for the town and to wish him well on bringing home the state championship again.

      After the shoulder injuries that ended his glowing NFL career, Shane could have thrown a serious pity party. Instead, he had moved home to be with his father during Bill Landry’s final two years and spent six months of that time finishing his teaching certificate to go with the biology degree he earned playing college ball.

      He could have taken a position on a major university football staff and possibly worked his way up to a Division One head coach. She knew he’d had offers. Good ones. Instead, he was choosing to make his home here in this little town on the Northern California coast, teaching freshman and sophomore biology and coaching a ragtag group of kids.

      Feeling restless for reasons she couldn’t identify, Bea headed to the vast master suite, which she slept in alone, to change into her swimming suit.

      Since Shane had moved into the guesthouse two months earlier, something had changed between them and she wasn’t sure what it was or how to fix it.

      They used to be best friends. She used to be able to talk to him about anything going on in her life: her latest art show, the problems Mari was having with a friend, how Daisy had frustrated her that day. All her hopes, dreams, worries.

      He had been there when her marriage broke up and she tried to find her way as a single mom.

      She, in turn, had helped him navigate the end of his NFL career and had provided emotional support during the final difficult months of his father’s life as heart disease and diabetes eventually claimed Bill Landry.

      Bea had been the unofficial football team mom to his high schoolers the previous year. She took refreshments to practice; she hosted game-viewing parties in her home theater; she knew all their names and cheered on every single game, home or away.

      Things had been fine until Shane decided to renovate his father’s home next door to Stella’s. The place hadn’t been updated since the sixties when it was built and needed extensive work. It had been Bea’s bright idea to offer Shane the guesthouse here while the inside of his place was gutted and redone with new electricity and plumbing.

      She wished she had never opened her big, stupid mouth.

      She hated this edginess that had tormented her around him over the summer. She wanted things to go back to the way they’d been before.

      Life rolled on. That was one of Cruz’s songs that she had helped him write, back in the glory days of their relationship. Life rolled on. You either rolled with it or let it flatten you as it rolled by.

      She changed quickly and found her daughter throwing on her flip-flops near the patio doors.

      Shane was swimming laps and didn’t notice them at first, giving Bea a chance to admire the picture he made in the moonlight: muscles rippling across his wide shoulders, tapering down to slim hips in red board shorts.

      She used to tease him that if he grew his sun-streaked hair out to his shoulders, he could pass for Thor before the buzz cut of the more recent movies.

      She sighed. She hadn’t teased him in a long time. When she tried, her words tangled and she ended up sounding stupid and awkward.

      Marisol didn’t wait for him to notice them. She jumped headlong into the deep end, just feet in front of him.

      Shane paused in midstroke and lifted his head out of the water. His hair was wet, droplets clinging to his face, and Bea curled her fingers at her side against the urge to wipe them away.

      Cut it out, she snapped at herself. He didn’t see her that way. To Shane, she was like a kid sister, one he’d had to bail out of one too many scrapes.

      He smiled as Marisol swam toward him like the little fish she was. “Hey, Sunshine.”

      Mari grinned at the nickname he always called her, a play on the sol part of Marisol, which meant “sun.”

      “Hey, Shane. Guess what? We went to Aunt Stella’s birthday party tonight. She turned forty. Can you believe she’s that old?”

      He sent an amused look toward Bea that made butterflies explode to life inside her. “Forty is far from old, kiddo. And anyway, your aunt Stella is the youngest forty-year-old I know.”

      “I guess. Race you to the other side. I’m gonna win this time.”

      “Says who?” He took off after her and the race was on.

      Bea contented herself with swimming laps while the two of them were being silly, taking turns on the diving board with the most elaborate dive, then playing a hot game of one-on-one basketball with the freestanding hoop Shane had bought the previous summer.

      Bea swam into the grotto and watched them play through the waterfall. Jojo and Sally, the best of friends, had climbed out some time ago and were curled up together on the outdoor carpet that marked one of the seating areas around the pool.

      They loved the pool as much as their humans.

      Keeping it heated year-round was sheer indulgence, but Bea didn’t care. Fortunately, Cape Sanctuary had a fairly temperate climate and the thermometer rarely dipped below freezing.

      As she might have predicted, Mari started to tire after about an hour in the pool, especially as she’d already had a long day with friends earlier, then the excitement of Stella’s party.

      After winning the basketball game by one layup, her daughter climbed out of the pool and started drying off, which seemed to signal to Shane it was time to do the same. After a moment Bea dived through the waterfall so she could exit, embracing the cold drops on her back.

      She had left her towel on the chaise next to his and she tried not to stare at his broad, muscled chest as they both dried off, or the network of ugly scars on his shoulder that had ended up changing his life. What would he do if she pressed her lips just there, to the biggest and ugliest of the scars?

      “How’s Stella doing with her big birthday?” Shane asked, obviously oblivious to her turmoil.

      She swallowed, appalled at herself. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “She has been acting really strange lately. Daisy thinks she’s hiding something from us.”

      “It’s not every day a person turns forty. Could be she’s taking it harder than you might have expected.”

      “Maybe.”

      She suspected there was more to it than simply another cycle around the sun, but Stella could sometimes be an enigma.

      “She was mad at me for not taking you along to her party. Apparently,