e didn’t have sex.”

“Excuse me?” Clare’s eyes stung, as she battled the tears she refused to shed. She was mortified and embarrassed, but she would not cry in public, especially in front of Sebastian. She was made of sterner stuff. “What did you say?”

“We didn’t have sex.” He shrugged his big shoulders. “You were too drunk.”

Clare looked at Sebastian for several long seconds, not quite trusting her ears. “We didn’t? But you said we did.”

“Not at first. You woke up naked and you assumed that we did. I just let you assume it.”

“What?” They hadn’t had sex and she’d just gone through the agony of the past few moments. For nothing? “You did more than let me assume. You said we were really loud and you were afraid someone was going to call security.”

“Yeah, maybe I embellished a little.”

“A little?” The sting in the back of her eyes turned to shooting anger. “You said I couldn’t get enough!”

“Well, you deserved it.” He pointed to the Molson beer on his T-shirt and had the audacity to act offended. “I’ve never taken advantage of a drunk woman. Not even one who strips naked right in front of me, crawls into bed, then spoons me all night.”

“Spoons? Spoons!” Had she done that? She didn’t know. How could she know? He was probably lying about that too. He’d lied about the sex. She took a calming breath and tried to remember that she didn’t yell in public. Scream or pummel lying bastards to death. Be nice, the little voice in her head warned. Don’t lower yourself to his level. She’d been raised to be a nice girl and look where it got her. Nice girls didn’t finish first. They just sat around choking on everything they were too nice to say. Stuffing it down, terrified that someday they would burst, and the world would see that they weren’t nice after all. “I don’t believe you.”

“You were all over me like white on rice.”

“You’re clearly delusional.” He was pushing her like he had when they’d been kids, but she wasn’t going to fall into old childish patterns with him. “But I don’t have to believe your wild fantasies.”

“You wanted freaky, down and dirty sex. But I didn’t think it was right to take advantage of a shit-faced drunk.”

She felt her head get tight. “I’m not a drunk.”

He shrugged. “You were, but I didn’t give you what you were begging me for.”

Her tight head exploded. “You lying dickhead,” she said, and didn’t care if her outburst was immature, or the sign of an ignorant mind, or if she’d responded to his baiting. It felt good to take her anger out on him. He deserved it. Or rather, it did feel good until he gave her that wicked grin of his. The one she recognized. The one that reached his green eyes and robbed her of satisfaction.

He took a few steps forward until only an inch or so of thin air separated his chest from the lapels of her jacket. “You were pressed against me so tight, my button fly left an imprint on your bare butt.”

“Grow up.” She tipped her head back and looked up past his clean-shaven chin and mouth to his eyes. “Why would I believe you? You’ve admitted that you lied. We didn’t have sex and—” She stopped and sucked in a breath. “Thank God.” She felt as if a heavy load had suddenly been lifted from her heart. “Thank God I didn’t actually sleep with you,” she said through a huge gush of relief. She shook her head and began to laugh like a lunatic. She wasn’t a big drunk slut after all. She hadn’t reverted to her old self-destructive pattern. “You don’t know what a relief that is. I didn’t have loud, hot, sweaty sex with you.” She raised a palm to her forehead. Finally, a little good news after the week from hell. “Whew!”

He folded his arms across his chest and stared down at her. A lock of his sandy blond hair fell over his tan forehead. “You walk around so uptight, I doubt you’ve ever had loud, hot, sweaty sex. You wouldn’t know loud, hot, sweaty sex if it threw you down and climbed on top.”

She could practically feel his testosterone-infused indignation. He was right, she hadn’t ever had loud, hot, sweaty sex. But she would probably know if it climbed on her. “Sebastian, I write romance novels for a living.” She reached into the pocket of her jacket.

“Yeah?”

She pulled out her keys. There was no way she would ever let him know he was right about her. “Where do you think I get my ideas for all the loud, hot, sweaty sex I put in my books?” It was one of the most frequently asked questions of romance authors, and one of the most absurd. It was called romantic fiction for a reason, but if she were given a dollar for each time she was asked where she got her ideas for the love scenes she wrote, she could supplement her income quite nicely. “It’s all carefully researched. You’re a journalist. You know about research. Right?”

Sebastian didn’t answer, but his wicked smile flat-lined.

Clare opened her car door and Sebastian was forced to take a step back. “You don’t think I just make all that stuff up, do you?” She smiled and climbed into her car. She didn’t wait for an answer as she fired up the Lexus and closed the door. As she drove away, she looked in her rearview mirror at Sebastian standing exactly where she’d left him, looking stunned.

He’d never read a romance novel. Thought they were sappy. For chicks. Sebastian buried his fingers in the front pockets of his jeans and watched Clare’s taillights disappear. How much sex did she put into those books she wrote? And how hot was it?

The back door to the house closed and drew his attention to his father walking toward him. Was that why Mrs. Wingate didn’t like to talk about what Clare wrote for a living? Was it porn, and more importantly, did Clare really research something like that?

“I see Clare left,” his father said as he approached. “Such a nice sweet girl.”

Sebastian looked at his father and wondered if he was talking about the same Clare who’d just called him a lying dickhead. Or the Clare who’d been so relieved that she hadn’t had sex with him, she’d looked like a death row inmate who’d suddenly found God. Like she just might fall to the ground and praise Jesus.

“I know that Joyce put you on the spot in there.” Leo stopped in front of Sebastian and shoved his hat on his head. “I know you weren’t planning to stay the weekend.” He looked across the yard and added, “Don’t feel like you have to stay now. I know you got important things to do.”

None of which he felt compelled to do. “I can stay the weekend, Dad.”

“Good.” Leo nodded. “Good, then.”

Squirrels chatted in the trees overhead, and Sebastian asked, “What are your plans for the day?”

“Well, after I change my clothes, I was thinking of driving to the Lincoln dealership.”

“You need a new car?”

“Yeah, the Lincoln just turned fifty.”

“You have a fifty-year-old Lincoln?”

“No.” Leo shook his head. “No. The speedometer just turned fifty thousand miles. I get a new Town Car every fifty thousand miles.”

Yeah? His Land Cruiser had more than seventy thousand, but he couldn’t see himself turning it in. Fact was, he just wasn’t all that materialistic. Except when it came to wristwatches. He loved a good watch with lots of gadgets on it. “Do you want company?” he heard himself ask. Spending time with the old man away from the carriage house could be just what the two of them needed. Maybe do some father-son bonding over some cars. He could help his father out. It could be good.

The squirrels continued to chatter into the silence. Then Leo answered, “Sure. If you’ve got the time. I heard your cell phone ringin’ earlier and I thought you might be busy.”

The call had concerned a piece for a major news magazine that he and the managing editor had discussed several months ago. Now he wasn’t so sure he wanted to hop a plane and travel to Rajwara, India, and chase an epidemic of black fever. The conventional methods of treatment in that part of the world had bred drug-resistant parasites and no longer worked. The projected death toll was as high as 200,000 worldwide.

When he’d spoken to the editor about the piece, it had seemed important, exciting. It was still important, vitally so, but now he wasn’t so hot to see the drawn, hopeless faces or hear the suffering from hut after hut as he walked dusty streets. He was losing the fire to tell the story, and he knew it.

“I don’t have anything to do for a few hours,” he said, and the two of them walked toward the carriage house. He could feel the burning desire for his job cool a bit, and it scared the hell out of him. If he wasn’t a journalist, wasn’t chasing stories and tracking leads, who the hell was he? “Where else do you want to look besides the Lincoln dealership?”

“Nowhere. I’ve always been a Lincoln man.”

Sebastian thought back to his childhood and remembered the car his father had driven. “You had a Versailles. Two-toned brown with beige leather seats.”

“Fawn,” Leo corrected him as they passed a marble fountain with a cherub peeing into a clamshell. “The leather was fawn that year. The two-tone paint was fawn and butternut.”

Sebastian laughed. Who would have guessed that his father was the Rain Man of Lincolns? The BlackBerry hooked to his belt rang, and he stayed outside to answer it while his father entered the carriage house to change. A producer from the History Channel wanted to know if he was willing to be interviewed for a documentary they were putting together on the history of Afghanistan. Sebastian didn’t consider himself an expert on Afghan history. He was more of an observer, but he agreed to do the interview and it was set for next month.

A half hour after the call ended, he and his father were on their way to the Lithia Lincoln Mercury dealership to look at Town Cars. Leo had spiffed himself up in a navy blue suit and a tie with the Tasmanian devil on it. His gray hair was slicked back like he’d combed it with a pork chop.

“What’s with the suit?” Sebastian asked as they drove up Fairview past Rocky’s Drive Inn. As they passed, a car hop in a short skirt skated down a row of cars with a tray held above her head.

“Salesmen respect a guy in a suit and tie.”

Sebastian turned his attention to his father. “Not a Looney Toons tie.”

Leo glanced over at him, then returned his green gaze to the road. “What’s wrong with my tie?”

“It has a cartoon character on it,” he explained.

“So? This a great tie. Lots of guys wear ties like this.”

“They shouldn’t,” Sebastian mumbled, and looked out the passenger side window. Just because he didn’t like to shop didn’t mean he didn’t know how to dress.

They drove for a few more moments in silence as Sebastian took in the sites up and down the busy street. Nothing looked familiar. “Have I ever been out this way?” he asked.

“Sure,” Leo answered as they sped past a woman walking a big black dog and a beagle. “That’s where I went to school,” he said, and pointed to an old elementary school with a bell on top. “And remember when I took you and Clare to the drive-in theater?”

“Oh, yeah.” They’d had popcorn and orange Fanta. “We saw Superman II.”

Leo moved into the middle lane. “They tore it all down and now it’s where they sell Lincolns.” He turned into Lithia Motors and drove slowly past rows of shiny cars designed to create avarice in the least materialistic. Near the middle of the lot, they parked and were soon approached by J. T. Wilson, who wore a polo shirt with the dealership’s insignia above the left pocket.

“Which of the Town Cars are you interested in looking at?” J.T. asked as the three of them moved across the parking lot. “We have three models of Signature Town Car.”

“I haven’t made up my mind. I’d like to test-drive a few and compare,” Leo answered.

Sebastian just couldn’t see why a guy would get worked up over a Town Car, but as they walked past two rows of SUVs, he stopped as if his feet had suddenly got stuck to the asphalt. “Why not test-drive the Navigator?” He glanced inside at the plush interior and ran a hand along the shiny black paint. He could see himself in that car and had visions of driving down the road fiddling with the stereo.

“I like the Town Car.”

“You could add a set of chrome rims,” Sebastian persisted, experiencing unexpected car craving. Perhaps he was more like Leo than he thought. “Maybe some custom grill work.”

“I’d feel ridiculous. Like that Puff Daddy.”

“P. Diddy.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. You could haul in a Navigator.”

Leo shook his head and kept walking. “I don’t want to haul anything.”

“Most of the Navigators have a tow package with a heavy-duty receiver hitch,” J.T. informed them.

Sebastian didn’t bother informing the men he’d meant haul ass. Reluctantly, they moved on, and together Sebastian and Leo took a gold Town Car for a test-drive. “Why do you turn in a perfectly good car every fifty thousand?” he asked as they drove out of the dealership.

“Depreciation and trade-in value,” Leo answered. “And I just like a new car.”

Sebastian didn’t know anything about depreciation and wasn’t picky about the miles on his car. “This thing sure is smooth,” he said.

“Hauls ass too.”

Sebastian looked at his father, and across the car they shared a smile. Finally, they agreed on something. The importance of hauling ass.

The two of them spent the next half hour tearing up the streets and enjoying moments of comfortable silence punctuated by easy conversation. They talked about the changes he’d noticed in Boise, although he’d been young the last time he visited. The population had exploded and brought a lot of growth, but one thing that remained just as he’d remembered was the state capitol building made of sandstone and patterned after the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. As a kid, his dad had taken him to visit, and he could recall the marble interior and crawling around on the cannon somewhere on the grounds. Mostly he remembered how it looked at night. All lit up with the golden eagle shining on top of the dome, 208 feet above.

When they returned to the dealership, playtime was over and Leo got down to business.

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “You’re going to have to come down.”

“I’ve given you my best deal.”

“He has a trade-in,” Sebastian provided, in an effort to help out the old man. “Right?”

Leo turned his head and looked at him. Ten minutes later they pulled out of the lot in the old Town Car, on their way back to the carriage house.

“You never tell a salesman that you have a trade-in unless he asks. I just about had him dickered down to where I want him,” Leo said as they left the dealership behind. “You might think you know a thing or two about what tie to wear, but you don’t know anything about buying a car.” He shook his head. “Now I’ll have to cross that dealership off. I’ll never get a good deal there.”

So much for father-son bonding.

After dinner that night, Leo worked in the garden, then went to bed after the ten o’clock news. Sebastian apologized for ruining his potential deal, and Leo smiled and patted his shoulder on his way to bed.

“I’m sorry I got a little hot. I guess we’re just not used to each other’s ways. It’ll take time yet.”

Sebastian wondered if they’d ever get used to “each other’s ways.” He had his doubts. They were both spinning their wheels, fighting to find common ground. But it shouldn’t have been so hard.

Alone in the kitchen, he moved to the refrigerator and pulled out a beer. His life was in his apartment on Mercer Place in Seattle. And it wasn’t like he didn’t have a shitload waiting for him there—he had his own problems to contend with, and he had to pack up his mother’s house in Tacoma. She’d lived in that house for close to twenty years, and getting it ready to put on the market was going to be a real bitch.

His mother had been married and divorced three times by the time he turned ten. Each time, she’d been filled with the promise of happily ever after. Each time, she’d fully expected the marriage to last a lifetime. But every husband had lasted less than a year. The boyfriends in her life hadn’t even stuck around that long. And every time another relationship failed to work out, she’d put Sebastian to bed and cry herself to sleep while he lay awake, hearing her sobbing through the thin walls. Her tears made him cry too. They hurt his chest and made him feel helpless and afraid.

By his sophomore year in high school, Sebastian and his mother had moved half a dozen times. His mother had been a “beauty consultant,” meaning she cut and styled hair. Which made it easy for her to get a job wherever they happened to move, each time hoping for a “new start.” Which also meant a new neighborhood, and Sebastian would have to make new friends all over again.

The summer he turned sixteen, they landed in the small house in North Tacoma. For some reason—perhaps his mother had grown up or grown weary of moving—she’d decided to stay put in that small house on Eleventh Street. She must have grown weary of men too. She’d stopped dating almost altogether, and instead of putting so much of her energy into relationships, spent time converting the front room of the house into Carol’s Clip Joint—naming it after herself—and outfitting it with two styling stations, shampoo bowls, and drier chairs. Her best friend, Myrna, had always worked alongside his mother, cutting hair, giving perms, and sharing the latest.

At Carol’s Clip Joint, tight curls and superhold had never gone out of fashion, and filled the house with the scent of alkaline, peroxide, and alcohol. Except on Sunday. The salon was closed on Sunday and his mother always made him a big breakfast. For a few hours, blueberry pancakes chased away the scent of perm solution, dyes, and hair spray.

That same year, Sebastian got a job washing dishes at a local restaurant, and after a short time he’d been promoted to night manager. He bought a ’75 Datsun pickup. Faded orange with a crumpled rear fender. From that job, he’d learned the value of hard work and how to get what he wanted. He got his first real girlfriend that year too. Monica Diaz had been two years older than him. Two very wise years. And from her he’d learned the difference between good sex, great sex, and mind-altering sex.

Sebastian grabbed a beer and moved from the kitchen, his footfalls the only sound in the silent carriage house. His sophomore year in high school, he’d signed up for journalism because he’d registered late and all the other elective classes were full. He’d spent the next three years reporting on the local music scene for the school newspaper. His senior year, he’d been the editor of the paper, but quickly learned that assigning stories and editing wasn’t much fun. He preferred the reporting side of journalism.

He raised the beer to his lips and picked up the television remote on a table resting by his father’s recliner. With his thumb, he flipped from channel to channel. His chest suddenly felt tight and he tossed the remote on the table. How was he going to put his mother’s life neatly into cardboard boxes?

Thinking about packing up her life made his chest cramp. If he were honest with himself, thinking about clearing out that house was one of the reasons he was here in Boise—one of the things that was keeping him up at night.

He moved to a built-in shelf next to the fireplace and reached for the first bound photo album in the row. He flipped it open. Newspaper articles and magazine clippings fell to the floor and covered his feet. A snapshot of Leo stared back at him from the first page of the album. Leo held a baby in a sagging cloth diaper in his arms. The photo was faded and creased through the middle, and Sebastian assumed it had been taken by his mother. He figured he’d been about six months old at the time, which meant the three of them would have been living in Homedale, a small town east of Boise, and his father would have been working in a dairy.

Like all children of divorce, Sebastian remembered asking his mother why they didn’t live with his father.

“Because your daddy’s lazy,” she’d said. At the time, he hadn’t understood what lazy had to do with them not living together like a family. Later in his life, he would learn that his father wasn’t lazy, he just wasn’t ambitious, and that an unexpected pregnancy had brought two totally different people together. Two people who never should have shook hands, let alone made a baby.

He flipped through the rest of the album filled with different snapshots and school photos. One of the pictures was of him holding a fish just about as big as he’d been at the time. His chest was puffed out and a huge grin showed a missing front tooth.

He bent down on one knee and reached for the clippings. His hand paused as he recognized them as some of his old articles. There was the piece he’d done on the death of Carlos Castaneda, and Time articles on the Jarvis heart valve and the murder of James Bird. Seeing all his articles was a shock. He hadn’t known the old man had kept up on his career. He placed the articles back inside the album and stood.

As he slid it back into the first slot, a pair of brass bookends on the mantel caught his attention. Between the shiny gold ducks was a collection of eight paperbacks by author Alicia Grey. He reached for the first two books in the row and pulled them out. The first had a purple cover and featured a man and woman in period clothing. The woman’s red gown was pushed from her shoulders and her breasts were about to pop out of her gown. The man was shirtless and wore tight black pants and boots. In raised gold the title read, The Devil Pirate’s Embrace. The second book, The Pirate’s Captive, featured a man standing on the bow of a ship with the wind billowing his white puffy shirt. He didn’t have a cutlass, or a pegleg or a patch. Just a Jolly Roger and a woman with her back pressed into his chest. Sebastian replaced one of the books and opened the other. He chuckled as he fanned the pages to the back. Clare stared back at him from a black and white publicity photo.

“This night is just full of surprises,” he uttered as he read her bio.

Alicia Gray is a graduate of Boise State University and Bennington, it began, then went on to list her achievements, including something called a RITA® award from Romance Writers of America. Alicia loves to garden and is waiting for her very own hero to sweep her off her feet.

“Good luck with that,” Sebastian scoffed. A guy would have to be desperate to attempt anything with Clare. Despite his father’s opinion of her, Clare Wingate was a ballbuster, and it was a wise man who kept any part of him away from her.

Where do you think I get my ideas for all the loud, hot, sweaty sex I put in my books? she’d asked when she decided not to ignore him. It’s all carefully researched. A ballbuster with soft curves in all the right places, and a mouth that made a man think of oral sex. Which Sebastian figured was a shame and a total waste.

He flipped to the little teaser page in front and moved to his father’s leather recliner. He pulled the switch on the lamp and read as he sat.

“Why are you here, sir?” he read.

“You know why I’ve come, Julia. Kiss me,” the pirate demanded. “Kiss me and let me taste the sweetness of your lips.”

“Holy Christ,” Sebastian swore, and turned to Chapter One. This should put him right to sleep.