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“Don’t tell me again.” I held up a hand. “You don’t even have a car and never have had one.”

“Don’t need one.” Nick’s eyes were cat-bright. “But if I
did
, it would a fuel efficient little number, not something out of a Mad Max movie. Do you know...”

Enough was enough. I slammed the truck into reverse and would have peeled some rubber if there’d been any asphalt in the lot. As it was, the truck slid sideways, grappling for traction, and spewed up a lot of dust before it lunged onto the road with a roar.

Nick swore and disappeared from my rear view mirror. I heard a thunk and allowed myself a smile.

“Oh,” I said, eyes wide in mock innocence. Scarlet O’Hara is one of my best imitations. “Didn’t you have your seat belt fastened? Sometimes I just forget how powerful a great big gasoline-sucking pollutant-spewing vehicle like this can be.”

“Very funny, Phil,” Nick growled. “Glad you’ve had a good night’s sleep.”

I didn’t think it was the time to reveal that I had lain awake half of what had been left of the night, replaying that kiss. “Don’t come complaining to me. You could have stayed in my spare room.”

He sat up straight, probably as surprised as I was that that suggestion had fallen from my lips. Clearly, malicious aliens had seized control of my tongue. I shut up and drove, the silence telling me that I wasn’t going to weasel easily out of that flub.

Nick sounded grim when he finally spoke. “How exactly would that keep you from being involved?”

I felt my cheeks get hot and concentrated on the road. It was dead straight and empty, so required my relentless attention. “Where
did
you sleep?”

“I didn’t.” He looked out the window, his expression somber. “I just walked.”

My heart squeezed. He looked very lonely and very tired and the sucker impulse is tough to quell. He had to be running on empty. “We could stop and get a coffee.”

That earned me a sharp glance. “Let me guess—drive through at a burger joint? Do you know what those people are doing to rain forests? And never mind the impact on the population here and abroad with their artery-clogging menus...”

I pulled over in the parking lot of a donut shop and hit the brakes, then glared at him in the rearview mirror. “Let’s get something straight, Nicholas Sullivan. I am doing you a favor. Now, you can keep the lectures and we can go to Rosemount, or you can spout your opinions from the curb as you try to hitch a ride. Your choice.”

Nick folded his arms across his chest, a hint of a smile touching his lips. “And when did Phil Coxwell start talking so tough?”

I gave him a look of mock ferocity. “You said my baby is ugly.” I patted the dash of the truck soothingly, as though its feelings might be hurt. “Them’s fighting words.”

“This truck is your baby?”

“You better believe it.”

Nick grinned then, the smile softening his features and the twinkle in his eye banishing my annoyance. “I surrender. I could use a cup of brew, regardless of where it came from. It can’t be worse than the worst ever.”

I pretended I wasn’t affected by his smile. “Which was?”

“Tepid water and used coffee grounds, strained through a sock, somewhere in Bhutan.”

My eyes widened, but one glance told me he wasn’t lying—about the sock or the location. Once again, I felt suddenly stay-at-home, the most unlikely companion possible for a man who traveled the world with enviable ease. “I don’t even know where Bhutan is.”

Nick’s expression had become distant, his thoughts on the other side of the world. “It’s east of the sun and west of the moon. The last Shangri-La.” His gaze locked with mine so suddenly that I jumped. “More pragmatic travelers connect through Tibet. Bhutan’s in the Himalayas. You should go sometime. You’d love it.”

“Why do you say that?”

Nick leaned forward, bracing one elbow on the back of the front passenger seat. “The colors, Phil. Last time, we went in March, because there’s a religious festival around the solstice. We sat for three days watching priests, all in costumes and masks, dancing and chanting. The crowd waved streamers and pounded their feet on the bleachers, the sound of drums and cymbals got right into your blood.”

He shook his head. “You end up with children on your shoulders who you don’t even know and at the end everyone is dancing together, caught in the moment. It’s magical and marvelous.”

The focus in Nick’s eyes shifted back to me, but they stayed the same turbulent green. He looked at me, then the warmth of his fingertips landed on my shoulder. This time, I couldn’t blame the heat in his eyes on either lightning or champagne.

His hand rose, his fingertip ran across the curve of my bottom lip. I didn’t even care if he smudged my lipstick.

In fact, I was hoping he’d smudge it wit his mouth.

His gaze dropped to my lips as though our thoughts were as one. He leaned in a bit closer and I couldn’t resist. I reached out one hand and touched the stubble on his jaw, yearning for another kiss.

Just to see how much was champagne and how much was real, of course.

But Nick pulled back as though he had been jerked by a string. He scowled out the side window and his words turned brusque.

“You’d love it, Phil. It’s actually more colorful than your kitchen.” All the affectionate warmth had been banished from his tone, his comment that of a stranger. “You should go sometime.”

It was hardly an invitation.

Trust Nick to make sure that I knew where I stood. Honesty was this man’s terminal disease.

I turned off the ignition with a flick of my wrist and reached for the door handle, trying to lighten the moment. “I don’t know if I’d be up for exotic destinations if I had to drink the coffee.”

“The sock was clean!” Nick protested, clearly relieved that I offered the chance of retreat. “But the coffee was horrible. It was a sign of desperation that we drank it anyway.”

“I think we can do a bit better than that today.”

“I’d hope so. It would be pretty scary if the glories of civilization couldn’t do better than tube socks for filters.” Nick watched me, but the intensity was gone from his eyes. “You don’t think they have any of those double chocolate numbers, do you?”

I feigned shock. “Wait a minute. Aren’t you the guy who just lectured me on environmental friendliness? Shouldn’t you be asking for tofu and twig filling?”

Nick nodded with mock solemnity. “A man’s got to know his weakness. Double chocolate donuts are mine.”

“Uh huh.” An army of brothers taught me to establish quantities
before
shopping for food. “When did you eat last?”

“Yesterday. Airline food.” Nick grimaced. “And I use the noun loosely.”

I laughed despite myself.

I splurged on half a dozen double chocolate donuts. Nick fell on them like a ravenous wolf. I declined his offer to share—which probably relieved him—and entertained myself with the driving.

And it was fun. There was no one on the road ahead of us, at least not going in the same direction we were—no one except a sleepy little russet Honda. It was puttering along, clearly not a morning car, or maybe not driven by a morning person. Yet I, a non-morning person myself, was feeling frisky. And it wasn’t even eight o’clock.

Must have been the chocolate bar.

I pulled up right behind the Honda, imagining that the Beast exhaled a puff of smoke at the little car’s back bumper. The driver slowed down and put the right signal on. I waited, but he or she didn’t turn anywhere.

It was my cue to pass.

The sounds of donut destruction halted. “You’re not going to do this,” Nick admonished, but he was wrong.

I didn’t answer, just gauged the oncoming traffic, which was pretty heavy. The Beast was ready to rock, pistons a-pumping, sparks a-firing.

I chose my gap and floored the accelerator, easily passing the Honda and swerving back into the eastbound lane with the breadth of two baby hairs to spare. I had a fleeting glimpse of the woman in the oncoming silver Lexus, who looked as though she had swallowed her teeth.

The Beast swayed hard on its shocks before reestablishing its balance—there was that heady sense of an almost-roll—and I felt better than I had all morning.

A long way ahead, another car lurked in my lane. I smiled a predatory smile and touched the gas, urging the Beast on. Clearly I had missed the fun of driving to Rosemount by plodding along in the rank and file of the evening commuter exodus.

Oh yes, if nothing else, I can drive.

The first thing I asked my brother James when he won the job of teaching me to drive was how to squeal the tires. He refused, supposedly on principle, but I figured he didn’t know how to do it. Eldest son, you know, scion of responsibility etc. etc.

So I asked Matt—Number Two son—and he ratted on me to my father, who promptly suspended my driving lessons for six months “until I learned some decorum.” Father is big on the carrot-and-stick scenario. Punishment always figures largely on his agenda. I guess that makes him a good judge, a better conservative and downright splendid church father—if one of the “you’re all going to hell and good riddance” variety.

Not that I have any issues with that.

Zach, of course, being the youngest son and household rebel was up for squealing tires, though he cheerfully admitted that he didn’t know how to do it either. We figured it out together, along with how to make nice regular figure eights on the iced-up Rosemount High parking lot. It was fun, even if we did pay dearly for our transgressions once discovered.

Zach, though, is nuts. I never drove donuts on the ice on Mary Lake. I’d drive out with him, because I was sure he was going to plunge through the ice and die a cold wet death and there would be no one around to save him but me. How exactly I was going to do that wasn’t clear to me at the time.

Fortunately he never did break through the ice, so I never had to figure it out. But then Zach is the proverbial cat of nine lives, the one who always lands on his feet.

The silence prompted me to glance in the rearview. Nick looked a bit green around the gills. His fingers were dug deep into the deluxe vinyl upholstery, his donuts forgotten. “Do you always drive like that?”

“Pretty much.” I wrinkled my nose. “Maybe driving aggressively is my weakness.”

“And you use the verb loosely.”

I pretended to be insulted. “Would you rather walk?”

“Very funny.” He polished off the last donut and checked the corners of the box diligently for strays. “I’ll take my chances.”

We laughed and the sky pinkened in the east. We might have been old friends riding along on a mission, but that kiss that hadn’t happened rode along with us like an unwelcome passenger.

And so did the one that had.

My mind was going faster than the Beast, trying to sort out all the potential repercussions. Nick never did anything by accident, after all. Did ducking a kiss this morning mean that he was worried and distracted, or that he had no long term plans for hanging around?

Either way, I would find out pretty damn quick once we got to Rosemount.

Like it or not.

R
osemount is an old New England town, founded in the late seventeenth century. The town looks out to sea, its back braced against a low hill, a site that accurately reflects its indifference to the country behind and its interest, at least once, in old mother England. It has a stern and grey demeanor, like an ancient spinster, perhaps one who enjoys rapping her cane to make sure everyone is listening.

The town had originally been named Whalers’ End, a tribute to the original source of its income. After a maritime accident—the wreckage of which still provides stalwart divers with adventure—the name had been considered bad luck and had been changed to the more sedate Rosemount. There still weren’t many roses, although the hill behind could have been said to be a mount.

A little one.

Maybe a dowager’s hump.

Boston had once been so far away as to be effectively of another world, and there were still residents who would prefer it stayed that way. The automobile had changed Rosemount, just as it had changed the rest of America. A mere fifty-minute drive from the northern outskirts of Boston ensured that the fishermen of Rosemount had been gradually replaced by commuters.

The more practical among the town’s citizenry saw this transition as a good sign. Diversifying the local economy was key to survival in a changing world. After all, fish were an integral ingredient in Rosemount’s fishing industry, and everyone knew the stocks were dwindling.

In fact, an ongoing argument as to who is responsible for the sorry state of the fishing business—local opinion favors alternatively big business, the Japanese, those Canadians or the government, depending on the wind—can be joined at the Merry Widow pub right downtown, if ever you’re so inclined.

Despite its relatively small size, there’s a big division in the town—between old residents and new, between fishermen and professionals—a division perpetuated by their differing perspectives regarding development.

The town’s older houses have been restored and renovated, primarily by commuters with fat wallets. A strict historical society ensures that the mood is kept intact for a burgeoning tourist trade. The newcomers want “quaint”, a New England town from the past with picture-perfect views and gregarious locals. Unfortunately, since most of them have demanding careers in the city, they expect this local hospitality to come from the old timers.

The old timers, predominantly fishermen, just want to get on with the increasingly competitive business of wringing a living from the sea. They don’t want to paint their boats in cheery colors or hang gingham curtains in their smaller older seaside houses. They don’t have time to plant nasturtiums or the interest in greeting every visitor like an old friend. And they are, by and large, a crusty and colorful bunch, content to be who they are rather than worry what they look like.

The economic disparity between the two groups does little to ensure reconciliation—though in the summers, when revenue flows like a good rain, tensions are slight. Old timers grumble of the intrusion of tourists, but do so under their breaths. More and more of them each year take those tourists to see the whales, or divers out to the wreckage, loading down their boats with something other than nets bulging with silvery fish.