Page 139 of The Woman By the Lake

He reached out, squeezed my knee, put his hand back to the wheel and muttered, “I really like you too, honey.”

“Good.”

“And to answer your question, Harry is not gay. Harry was married to a really amazing woman, he was head over heels for her, she felt the same, but a year after they got hitched, her horse threw her. She broke her neck, the kind of break where she lost her life.”

“Oh God,” I whispered.

“He still has his stables, but he got rid of his horses, and part of him died when she did. I don’t think he’s had a single date since that happened, and it was years ago.”

Poor, handsome, good-with-Ledger, good-friend-to-Riggs Harry.

“I understand that,” I said. Though, I got myself some (as he put it) on occasion.

“Bet you do,” he muttered.

I didn’t want him to think I was that mired in my grief for Trevor, so I shared, “So you know. I, um…saw to certain needs. I dated and such. Just never really got into it.”

“Right,” he said gently, did the reach-out-and-touch-my-knee thing again before he put his hand back to the wheel. Then he remarked, “Surprised you didn’t notice his wedding ring. Don’t keep tabs, but do know he still wears it.”

“He wasn’t wearing it today.”

I watched his face. Thus, I witnessed the slow smile that spread across it.

“What?” I asked.

“We had occasion to get in each other’s shit recently, and I might not have been subtle when I told him to stop fucking around and get on with his life. Seems he listened.”

I hoped he did.

We drove the rest of the way in silence that was comfortable, something I liked, considering we’d had some awkward words, and then Riggs was just over it.

And I’d find that Angelica either had a type or researched her baby daddies in order to push out the kind of children she wished to create, because Storm also lived in a mountain house, even if his wasn’t as secluded as Riggs’s (there were other houses around, not close, but not near as far as Riggs’s was from mine) and there was no lake.

But it was rambling and rustic and appealing.

He was too, if the tall, fit, black-haired man, with the very full, somewhat long beard, wearing a plaid flannel, jeans and boots, ambling out the front door after Riggs parked next to his shiny, silver, big (but not as tall) truck, was Storm.

We got out, strode up his walk, and they firmly shook hands, exchanging low, “Heys” before they broke, and Storm turned his stormy eyes to me (oh yes, that was where he got his nickname—his eyes were an extraordinary moody pewter, unlike any color I’d seen before (but definitely as unique as Riggs’s silvery gaze), the effect with his tan skin and coal-black hair was fantastic—though that stormy nickname could also be about him being a man who threw mugs).

“Storm, this is Nadia, my woman. Nadia, this is Storm, Viggo’s dad,” Riggs introduced.

But he didn’t stop there, and by a small miracle after he referred to me as “his woman,” I managed to follow what he said next.

“And, man, so you know, she was with me when Lucille spilled. She helped me through it better than I did for you, so I didn’t break any mugs, and she and Ledge are getting tight. This means she’s gonna be around Viggo. And I’m down with her knowing whatever you’re gonna say.”

“I could also go sit in the truck and play phone games,” I offered.

“Come in,” Storm invited. “I don’t give a shit who knows this. And I know that sounded short, but I actually just don’t.”

I nodded.

Riggs took my hand, and he led us inside the house of a man with a three-year old boy. There was an abundance of toys overflowing from a large crate in a corner and a freestanding booster chair an older toddler could crawl up into himself at the kitchen table.

And these were on open display, not tucked away or easily hidden.

In other words, if Storm had visitors of the female variety, they went in knowing he was a proud dad, and if things sparked, he came as a package.

I decided from that, I was going to like the guy.

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