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  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Synopsis

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Other Books by Laina Villeneuve

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Bella Books

  Synopsis

  Robyn Landy thought her happily-ever-after would start after she retired from the U.S. Coast Guard. Instead, she discovers that her job demands were not the only reason her eight-year relationship was tanking. Struggling to find equilibrium in her life, she leases a horse at a local barn. There she befriends Kristine Owens and her son Caemon. The new setting relieves the sadness she feels at home.

  A relative newcomer to rural Arcata, Grace Warren heads grant coordination for the local college's art department. As new friends encourage her to explore the local arts scene and wilderness, Grace finds herself repeatedly crossing paths with the intensely attractive Robyn. When she discovers Robyn’s woodworking artistry, they seem perfect for each other and Grace easily envisions a future together.

  But the decidedly reserved Robyn chafes under Grace’s advice and scrutiny. Why are women always trying to change her? There’s no reason to upend her life yet again—except for a kiss neither of them can forget.

  Copyright © 2015 by Laina Villeneuve

  Bella Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 10543

  Tallahassee, FL 32302

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  First Bella Books Edition 2015

  eBook released 2015

  Editor: Cath Walker

  Cover Designer: Sandy Knowles

  ISBN: 978-1-59493-464-3

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Other Bella Books by Laina Villeneuve

  Take Only Pictures

  The Right Thing Easy

  Acknowledgments

  The years I spent in Arcata gave me so many gifts. Michael, thank you for sharing your home, craft and knowledge of the coast with me. Heather, thanks to you and your family for help with military details and recollections of Arcata hotspots. Thank you, Ruth, for reading my thesis project so many years ago and saying it was good enough to send to Naiad and for letting me use your poetry here. Susan, thanks for introducing me to Freshwater and for your notes. I am truly honored to be your colleague.

  Thank you, Marilyn, for every walk we shared and for playing violin. The music in the book is here because of you. Dad, I hope that I got the music right. I will always treasure the conversations we had that contributed so greatly to character and plot.

  To my sisters-in-law: Theresa, thanks for fashion advice. Katrina, your Queering Marriage inspired me greatly.

  Idalia and Vasthi, thanks for help with character diversity.

  Tamara Bertolini, you helped me understand when things need to be tossed overboard.

  Everyone at Bella, thank you for making this book awesome inside and out. Cath, thank you for not only spotting the plot holes but helping me find ways to fill them.

  Mom, thank you for the title.

  Readers will want to thank my wife for having a better sense of where this story was going than I did. I am forever grateful that she always had an answer to my question, “what happens next?”

  Finally, I am thankful for the spark lent to this story by Caemon Patrick Marston-Simmons, a boy I had hoped to one day meet. I was devastated when leukemia took him just after his third birthday. His moms generously allowed me to use his name which in turn brought so much more. The life he brought to this story surprised me. He snuck his way into scenes and shaped the lives of my characters. He has touched my life deeply, and with this story, I honor his legacy. More about him is available on the blog C is for Crocodile.

  About the Author

  Laina Villeneuve and her spouse first registered as domestic partners in the spring of 2005 by getting the document notarized at a local copy shop and still wonder if the clerk had any idea she played a part in their commitment. A year later, they married illegally at their church surrounded by family and friends. In 2008, they remarried after California legalized gay marriage with their first son as a witness. They will celebrate ten years this summer by touring some of California’s natural wonders with their three children.

  Chapter One

  Opportunity sat in the palm of Robyn’s hand.

  She’d pulled it from the bowl of small pewter stones that she kept on a low table by her bed. Every morning before she rose, she sifted through the cool stones, each inscribed with a word, mixing them in their shared bowl before selecting one. A second smaller bowl held her choice for contemplation or inspiration throughout her day. She accepted what the bowl gave her.

  That wasn’t actually true. She’d grown tired of how often Tears sat in the second bowl and had started avoiding the small stones, shifting her fingers to a second stone if she happened to feel the almost round one between her thumb and forefinger. She wasn’t one to cry and took it as some cosmic suggestion that she might feel better if she did. But s
he was stubborn, not that there was a stone for that. Promise. Loyalty. Many of the stones reminded her of the commitment she had made to heed their message and inserted themselves into her fingers, bowl and consciousness.

  Her decision to lease a horse after more than twenty years away had given her something different to think about each day. Finding another way to invest her energy gave her days new purpose. Instead of reminding her of her failed relationship, they seemed to be pointing Robyn back toward herself.

  * * *

  Once she arrived at the barn for her morning chores, Robyn ran her hands along the bay mare’s neck before grabbing a brush. She worked her left hand in small circles with the black rubber curry before brushing the dust and hair free with her right, this ritual her meditation. Thinking about this morning’s offering of Opportunity, she wondered if the stones were nudging her to buy this mare she’d been leasing. The barn and the routine that came with it were good for her, an opportunity (there was that word again) to focus her thoughts on the present instead of over-analyzing the past and worrying about her future.

  Before these horse chores had pulled her out to the barn, she’d become a hermit, leaving the house only to roam the beaches alone or scour estate and garage sales. She was alongside people but never interacting with them, her eyes keen to find a hidden treasure.

  When Barb had first noticed her, talked to her and pulled her out of her shell, she’d felt like it was she who had been pulled from the discards. She had felt valued, polished up and finally seen. Their first years had been full of love, laughter and joy, stones that had once felt wonderful but now mocked her when she saw them in her palm.

  She closed her eyes and leaned against Taj’s barrel, feeling her warmth, matching her breathing to the rise and fall beneath her, trying to pinpoint how long things had been cold with Barb. When had they stopped touching? Once, she had always turned to spoon her lover and savor the moments before they separated for the day as she came up to the surface of wakefulness.

  But that was back when they had shared Barb’s massive four-poster in the master bedroom that Robyn’s grandparents had shared for sixty-six years. When she and Barb went to bed together, Robyn could convince herself that it was their room. When Barbara started to come to bed hours later, Robyn spent too many nights lying alone comparing the love and respect her grandparents had for each other to her own relationship. She and Barb were such a failure in comparison that she escaped to the loft her papa had built in the attic above the room that was hers each summer. She lay on the simple queen mattress and stared at the stars, telling herself that she didn’t want to disturb Barb’s sleep.

  They were barely roommates.

  Forgiveness.

  The stones were always reminding her that no relationship is perfect. They had eight years together. That was surely worth something.

  But it wasn’t Forgiveness, Loyalty or Promise she’d pulled from her dish of stones today. Not Patience, Courage or Worrier.

  Opportunity had come to her.

  Chapter Two

  Indirect

  “Can’t catch me!” a child’s voice boomed in the aisle, breaking the peace of the morning.

  “No running, Caemon,” a woman’s voice answered. “We don’t want to spook the horses.”

  Robyn peeked from her horse’s stall and saw a tall woman and young boy stop at the neighboring stall. Both wore plaid shirts, jeans and boots. They worked on the combination lock of the tack shed together, the youngster keeping up a constant stream of chatter. Robyn’s blue eyes widened in surprise at his loquaciousness. Before either saw her, she ducked back into her stall.

  To her, quiet was peace. She’d never been one for a lot of words, always preferring to just listen. In college, she’d been the student who sat in the back without uttering a word all semester. She soaked everything in but never felt the need to participate.

  Barb was always pushing her to open up more, but it never went well when she did share what was in her head. So she typically kept her words to herself.

  She stilled when the chattering ceased. Curious, she inched toward the door to see if the pair was already leaving.

  “You Penapea’s friend?” the tow-headed youngster asked quizzically.

  Robyn stepped closer to the door and peered over and into two keen blue eyes. How had he even known she was there?

  Seemingly unconcerned by Robyn’s confusion, the boy continued. “My Mommy has a baby in her belly. I have one too. See?” He pulled out a stuffed cat and held it out for her to examine.

  “Caemon, come help me with the rake, please. Let’s not bother the nice lady.”

  Robyn studied the woman, looking for shared traits with the boy. While their coloring didn’t match, the sharp line of his jaw echoed hers. “He’s no bother,” Robyn surprised herself with her answer, and her words stopped the woman across the aisle. After a moment of hesitation, she approached to stand by the boy, tucking her light brown hair behind her ears.

  “Baby Kitty cared of horses, so he tay in here,” Caemon said, bringing her attention back to the boy as he tucked the stuffed animal back under his shirt.

  “Baby Kitty is scared,” the boy’s mother translated, walking over to scoop him up into her arms. He promptly grabbed the half-door and pulled both of them to where he could look in to see Robyn’s horse.

  “But it doesn’t look like that one is scared,” Robyn observed.

  “Of anything,” the woman said. “I’m Kristine, and this is my big boy, Caemon.”

  “Caemon Owens-Fisher,” the boy said, puffing out his chest.

  Robyn straightened her posture. “I’m Robyn Landy. Pleased to meet you both.” Seeing no baby bulge on the woman in front of her, she guessed that she was talking to Caemon’s other mom.

  “I a big helper,” Caemon provided. “I can do the rake and ride in the wheelbarrow. Sometimes I ride the tractor. Do you have a tractor?”

  “I don’t.”

  He looked disappointed.

  “You no like tractors?”

  “Oh, I love tractors, but my garden isn’t big enough to use a tractor.”

  “I want to see your garden!” he exclaimed.

  “Caemon, we came to see Bean. You’re going to help me clean his stall, remember?”

  “I get the rake!” he squealed, wriggling from his mother’s arms.

  “How do you keep up?”

  “Not very well,” Kristine said. “And my wife’s in the last trimester of number two.”

  Robyn was pleased to discover she’d deduced correctly and liked the way Kristine talked about her family so openly. It could be that Kristine already intuited that Robyn herself was “family.” Her short hair could ping people’s gaydar, but then people had often commented that she seemed too feminine to be gay, which Robyn attributed to her Japanese ancestry. Something about the way Kristine carried herself made Robyn suspect that Kristine would have mentioned her wife to anyone she was talking to, gay or straight. Robyn had spent many years wishing she could speak so candidly.

  “Mama! The rake tuck, Mama!”

  “I’m coming,” Kristine called, but she didn’t leave the stall immediately. She studied the horse behind Robyn. She took a carrot out of her pocket and snapped it in half, immediately capturing the animal’s attention. The mare promptly stepped to the door to take the carrot. Kristine slid her hand along the horse’s jaw and continued to stroke her neck. “Did you buy her?” she asked, her eyes shaded with sadness.

  “I’m leasing her. Her owner doesn’t seem ready to sell, and I’m okay with that. It’s been a long time since I’ve been a barn rat. It’s probably good to come back slow.”

  Caemon came racing across the barn, noisily dragging the rake he’d found. The horse ducked away from the stall door. “Drop the rake,” Kristine barked.

  Caemon froze and followed his mother’s order.

  In a softer tone, Kristine explained that they didn’t want to spook the horses.

  “I give T
aj carrot?” Caemon asked. “Where Penapea?”

  Kristine gave the other half of her carrot to Caemon and lifted him, and he expertly fed it to the horse. “Robyn is taking care of Taj while Penelope gets better, Sweet. Let’s go give some carrots to Bean before he gets jealous.” She squeezed him tightly before setting him down. Robyn caught her swiping a tear from her face as she stood and offered a smile. “Hope to see you again.”

  “Likewise.” Robyn watched Kristine follow Caemon back to their horse’s stall. She wondered again about the arrangement she had with Taj Mahal’s owner, Eleanor. Though Eleanor had seemed as at home in the barn as anyone, she was clearly relieved when Robyn had decided to lease the horse. Robyn had already puzzled over whether the horse might have belonged to Eleanor’s child, but she hadn’t said anything about a Penelope or what she was recovering from.

  Robyn quickly saddled and bridled the horse in her stall, waving to Kristine and Caemon as she led Taj out, surprised when the mare started heading toward Bean’s stall. Giving Taj a tug, she turned her toward the arena, feeling Kristine’s steady gaze on them as they made their way down the barn aisle.

  Chapter Three

  Hard Work

  Wind off the ocean blew wet and cold, forcing Robyn to trudge along with her hood up and head down to keep warm. Most people thought of the beach as warm and welcoming. They had no experience with the shoreline on the Northcoast where rock formations jutted from the cold water and steep cliff faces topped by tenacious evergreens. Some beaches had a wider stretch of sand with ever-shifting dunes. As she walked, she scanned the shore, hoping last night’s storm had kicked up some good wood she could work in her shop.

  So far, the offerings were beautiful pieces but either much too big or small and splintered. She had found a manageable chunk that wasn’t the redwood or madrone that typically washed up. Based on ocean currents it was likely lumber lost from a Japanese freighter. She looked forward to getting it back to her shop to clean it up and determine whether it was mahogany.