Chapter 2

The windshield wipers flipped back and forth, sloshing the heavy rain out of the way as Nicole drove down Lakeshore to her home on Hannegan's Cove. It was blowing pretty hard outside, coming right off the lake, to boot. That shot the hell out of going out for a walk after school to try and think the whole thing out.

Nicole didn't actually think Randy would act badly, but she knew he would be disappointed – and there had been far too many such disappointments in the past, running well back before their marriage, and she'd been responsible for many of them. Crystal's phone call in the middle of sixth hour came as a surprise on many fronts, but it was good that she had called, for it gave Nicole some time to get her own thinking in order for what clearly wasn't going to be a happy evening.

It was a relief to pull into the driveway, to pop the controller for the garage door opener, and to drive inside the garage, where at least it was dry. She and Randy had lived in the big lakefront house just a little less than two years. Home again; she could tell from the other bay in the garage being empty that Randy wasn't home yet. By this time of year, he rarely beat her home, anyway.

There was work to be done, though, dinner to be started, papers to grade. It was best to do what she could before Randy got home, so she could give him her undivided attention. He deserved it, to make up for all the times that she couldn't give it to him. He'd given her an awful lot of slack, a lot of freedom – and as she looked out the window at the rain falling, she knew she hadn't been very good about repaying it. But damn it, there were a couple questions that had to be answered pretty quickly, like maybe tonight, and she doubted the easy answers were going to be the right ones.

The huge living room with its big windows opening on a view of the lake always awed her, even though she couldn't see much out of them right now with the driving rain splashing against them. When she and Randy had designed it, and when Ken had first showed the rendering, she'd known it was going to be pretty awesome – and sometimes it was even intimidating. I sure never expected this, back when I was in Kindergarten and first met Randy, she thought.

Though she and Randy had a long relationship, it had been a rather casual one for much of it. They'd just sort of fallen into being boyfriend and girlfriend, without being able to pick out just when. They'd been juniors when they'd taken each other's virginity, out on Turtle Hill in the back seat of his old Dodge, and they'd had a few other adventures along the way. But, when it worked out that she decided to go to Weatherford College, down near Camden, and he'd decided to go to Northern Michigan University in Marquette, they'd both decided soberly that it was a little useless to try to maintain a long-distance relationship.

She didn't see Randy for two years; in that time, she got engaged and disengaged, while he'd simultaneously picked up two steady girlfriends, Crystal Chladek and Myleigh Harris. The only way that had worked was that none of the three thought there were any long-range prospects for him with either of the girls, who were the best of friends, anyway, and Randy was as aware of it as anyone else – it was just fun, a casual thing.

Nicole and Randy started going together again after two years, but very casually, without long-range prospects. They both knew she had one thing going for her that Crystal and Myleigh lacked – she'd be willing to stay in Spearfish Lake, where Randy was pretty well going to have to live to take part in the family business, while the other two were not willing. In that time, she'd gotten to be pretty good friends with both Crystal and Myleigh – she'd hiked a part of the AT with Crystal, and Myleigh had introduced her to surfing. They were still good friends, and when one or the other was in Spearfish Lake, which wasn't often these days, they were always house guests, although Myleigh was here much more often than Crystal. None of us have been very fair to Randy, she thought. And damn it, I'm just as bad as they are.

It had been right there in this big living room, just yesterday afternoon, that Myleigh and Trey had decided to consider buying the house up the street. She knew damn well that three years ago, if Randy had even dreamed Myleigh would wind up teaching at Weatherford, playing with the band with Jennifer and Blake more than just once in a while, and living in Spearfish Lake, she wouldn't have had a chance with Randy. She had no worries that anything might happen with her living up the street, for over the weekend it had become clear to both of them that Trey had broken through some of Myleigh's reserves that Randy had never been able to penetrate.

Actually, maybe having Myleigh and Trey close at hand would help with a nagging problem for both of them: though they were natives of the town and grew up there, virtually everyone they knew from school had left town, to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Oh, there were still kids who they'd been in classes with, but not the kind of headed-for-college kids they'd hung out with. As a result, they had few friends their own age in Spearfish Lake, with the exception of Josh and Tiffany Archer. They weren't real close with them, since Josh and Tiffany were extremely busy with their several businesses and dog training – and with Tiffany just having had her baby, that would probably put them farther away.

There were a handful of friends who Nicole worked with at the school around her age, but only a few and none of them social friends. Randy did have several people he worked out with, played in the band with – but most of them were at least twice his age. Well, that's not fair, she thought, but enough older that there's some distance. Myleigh and Trey looked to break that problem a little, even though it would be spring before they'd be there for much more than a long weekend or so.

But that didn't deal with the here and now problem. About all she could do was get the papers graded and have dinner going when he got home, since she was sure as she could be that there wouldn't be any time for it afterwards. Unless Randy worked later – and he'd call if he had to – he'd get home about ten after five. God, she thought, there has to be something...

Be positive, Nicole thought as she heard the garage door opening. There's got to be a bright side somewhere. Find it.

As she often did, she greeted him at the door with a kiss. "Hi, lover," she said warmly. "Anything interesting happen today?"

"Yeah," he said offhandedly. "Looks like we won the bid on the Blair gym. It's not all pinned down yet, but it looks like that'll be the big project for the summer. Solkow-Warner was way high. Anyway, the target date on groundbreaking is April 1."

"So that means no spring Canyon trip, I take it?" she said, trying to ease her way into it.

"Yeah, well, the odds were against it anyway," he shook his head. "If it hadn't been that, it would have been something else."

"Well, maybe next fall," she said brightly.

"Not likely," he shook his head again. "We'll probably be dealing with the punch list up through the end of the year. Guess it's just as well. I had a call from Crystal today. She was getting loaded for the last trip of the season and she said the weather stank."

"Any news from her?" Nicole said.

"Yeah, she and Preach are getting married, like the 24th, out in Flag, I guess."

Nicole shook her head; she wanted to be impassive, since Crystal had already told her that news – and the worse news. "It just strikes me as a little surprising, I guess," she said. "I mean, back in August you could tell they were getting close, but somehow I never figured on Crystal marrying a minister."

"Well, me either," he said. "But Preach was up for making the sacrifice of his own goals to become a Canyon bum with her, so the best man won, I guess. They're going to be using the sailing trip to the Bahamas for their honeymoon, so I invited myself out."

"I know," Nicole said. "Crystal called me to tell me, too, and she told me what you said. Randy, I'm sorry."

"Yeah, what the hell," he shrugged. "It was only a week."

Nicole could tell that he was down and didn't blame him in the slightest, but he was taking it a lot better than she'd dreamed. That worried her. "So, are we planning on going to the wedding?"

"We probably should," he replied. "But I think I'd just as soon give it a pass. They'll be up here in another month. Let Mohammed come to the mountain for once."

"Maybe we should go," she frowned, wondering what was going through his mind. "I mean, we do have friends there who won't be coming to Myleigh's wedding."

"Yeah, and most of them are rafters," he said sadly. "They'll be sitting around talking about the great times they had in the Canyon, and I'll just be wishing I could go do it again and know I can't. There's no point in torturing myself." He let out a sigh. "Shit, we can't even send them a toaster for a wedding present. There's no place for them to plug it in."

"We could still go to Buddha and Giselle's," Nicole said, beginning to see what the point was, and yes, he was a lot more negative than he seemed on the surface.

"In theory, we could," he agreed listlessly. "But the real chance of that got blown up when Myleigh and Trey set their wedding for the 29th. That means we couldn't fly down before the 30th, and I have to be back on the third. What with everything, flying eats up the whole day each way. That only leaves a couple days down there we could surf, so it's not worth the money or the effort. Then it will probably be flat as a baby's ass, like it was on our honeymoon – alleged honeymoon – we got screwed out of half of. No, I think I learned my lesson today. Don't plan anything since it won't come off." He shrugged. "If you want to go down and surf, you might as well, since you don't have to race back for an important meeting that doesn't mean anything."

"Randy, I am not going without you," Nicole said flatly. "Can't you get that meeting moved?"

"I suppose in theory I could," he said. "But I bitched and whined and moaned enough as it was; I don't want to have to go back to them again."

"You could go back to them and tell them things have come up," she said. "And they have."

"Yeah, I know," he said glumly. "But if I do, then some other damn thing will come up. Nicole, I've planned one too many trips, screwed around with one too many dates, and then have to stay here and work instead. So, screw it. I guess Crystal and Preach found out where they're supposed to be, which is in the Canyon. I'm supposed to be out busting my ass at Clark Construction, and the Canyon or the Bahamas or Florida or whatever the hell is not where I'm supposed to be. So, fuck it. I won't try any more. Crystal and Preach get to go places, Myleigh and Trey get to go places, you get to go places, but I guess I don't. So be it."

Oh, God! This was every bit as bad as she'd worried it might be. "I knew I should never have done that trip in August," she sighed.

"There were good reasons for you to do it," he sighed. "Not the least of which is I don't want you resenting me because I'd hold you back when you get the chance to go somewhere."