IN THE SPIRIT of cooperation, Margot had arrived at the Founders’ Festival Parents’ Workday (also known as Saturday morning at the elementary school gym) with her best smile and her brand-new glue gun. Alas, her enthusiasm to help the locals put together booths and handicrafts was not returned.
First, Jimmy Greenway met her at the door and tried to tell her that the PTA officers were holding an official closed meeting, but Sweet Johnnie waved her in cheerfully.
“Hey, shug!” Sweet Johnnie cried, throwing an arm around her. “I’m so glad you’re here, because we can’t seem to get the easels to stay upright without supergluing them. The flyers are printed on the wrong color paper. And Sara Lee called all of the information booth volunteers and told them that they’re not needed. And I’m havin’ to make a lot of apology phone calls.”
Margot sighed. The board had agreed to establish “Ask Me Anything” booths, staffed by volunteers, on every corner, to help tourists navigate the festival. Sara Lee hadn’t seen the point in them, since “everybody around here knows everybody anyway.”
“Okay, one thing at a time. How bad are the flyers? Could we use them even if they’re on the wrong color paper?”
Sweet Johnnie pulled an example out of her back pocket. It was printed on dark blue paper, so the black print was barely readable, even up close. Margot shook her head. “So, no.”
Sweet Jonnie muttered, “Sara Lee insisted that dark blue would show up best on bulletin boards. I bought some lighter blue paper at the Office Supply Warehouse.”
“Does Mr. Archer mind if we use the school’s copy room to make up some replacement flyers?”
Across the gym, Kyle was nailing together booths with some of the other dads. Between the beard, the white V-neck T-shirt, and the hammer in his hand, he looked like a commercial for extremely flattering jeans. As if he could hear her thinking dirty thoughts about his denim wear, Kyle turned and waved. She waggled her fingers.
“Yeah, Mr. Archer said we could use his copy code,” Sweet Johnnie said. “He was very sweet about it.”
“Great, I’ll just go get started,” Margot said.
“Oh, no need,” Mr. Greenway said, holding up a thick stack of light blue flyers advertising the festival. “I just made the copies. My old copy code still works, you know.”
“Thank you, Mr. Greenway,” Margot said through gritted teeth. She turned to Sweet Johnnie. “Okay, what about the easels? What can I do to help there?”
Sara Lee sidled up to Margot with a sly smirk on her face. “Don’t bother. My Robbie put them together. Some things just need a little force so they can find their place.”
Margot sneered at Sara Lee. “Gee, thanks, Sara Lee.”
She turned to Sweet Johnnie, who was watching the exchange with an alarmed expression. “If you give me the contact list for the Ask Me Anything volunteers, I’ll call them and explain that they are needed, despite some misguided claims to the contrary. I’m used to making professional-grade apologies for other people’s screw-ups.”
“Oh, we don’t need you for that,” a skinny brunette with a startling amount of red highlights piped up from behind Sara Lee. “I already took care of it.”
Margot’s mouth dropped open. Were these people seriously conspiring to keep her from helping with a community festival? Did they not have better uses for their time? Margot glanced at Mr. Greenway, who seemed to be lording his ability to make copies at will over Kyle. No, apparently they did not.
“How did you even know to do that, Katie Beth?” Sweet Johnnie asked. “I didn’t ask anybody to make those calls. How did you know what to say?”
“Sara Lee told me what was needed,” Katie Beth protested. “She’s in charge, isn’t she?”
“No, she’s not,” Sweet Johnnie cried. “Mr. Archer brought Margot in because nothing was getting done. Because we keep arguing over silly things, like a bunch of dang children.”
“Look, it really doesn’t matter who’s in charge,” Margot said. “I’m only here to help. We’re all here for the same reason, which is to make the festival as successful as possible and help bring visitors into the town.”
“Well, we don’t see the point in you being here,” Sara Lee shot back. “We don’t know you. You don’t know anything about this town. And you don’t even have kids at this school. You know, you really have to be a mother to help out around here. Otherwise you’re just in the way.”
“If you think childlessness is my soft underbelly, you are jabbing at the wrong spot,” Margot said with a snort. Sara Lee rolled her eyes. “And sending the dogcatcher to Aunt Tootie’s house? That’s bush league. I’m not scared of you. I’m not going to be intimidated away from helping just because it makes you unhappy. Look, you’re terrible at this. I’m not saying this to hurt you, you just are. Mr. Archer wouldn’t have called me in, otherwise. I don’t care who gets the credit. Take all the credit, as far as I’m concerned. But I refuse to let this thing fall flat because you’re too shortsighted to realize when you’re in over your head. There is one voice that matters here, one directive, and it’s mine, and if you have a problem with it, there’s the door.”
“You can’t throw me out of a volunteer work day,” Sara Lee shot back.
Margot smiled brightly. “Watch me.”
Sara Lee hissed, her asymmetrical hair clinging to her left cheek. “You’re crazy, just like your daddy.”
Margot’s eyes narrowed.
“What’s going on here?” Kyle asked.
Sara Lee’s expression turned all peaches and cream. “Just a little debate about who does what.”
“That’s right, just a little difference of opinion,” Margot said. Her hand had twitched around her glue gun like Clint Eastwood’s in a spaghetti Western. Sara Lee flinched. But Margot merely smirked at her.
“I’ll just go see if Robbie needs any help,” Sara Lee simpered as she tottered off toward a man who looked like a jock gone to seed. Sara Lee’s supporters peeled away, leaving Margot with Sweet Johnnie and Kyle.
“Why do I feel like I missed something important?” Kyle asked.
“I’ve never seen anyone talk to Sara Lee that way, not even when we were kids,” Sweet Johnnie whispered.
“She’s not nearly as scary as she thinks she is,” Margot assured her. “I just can’t believe she’s putting this much energy into excluding me from the Founders’ Festival. It’s hardly the Field Museum Gala.”
“Well, I don’t know what that is, but you need to watch Sara Lee. She’s mean as hell when you cross her.” Sweet Johnnie cast an apologetic glance at Kyle. “Sorry, I know you have to work with her for the PTA. I don’t want to put you in an awkward position.”
“Oh, no, she’s awful,” Kyle agreed. “And Sweet Johnnie’s right, she fights dirty. You saw what she did with Tootie’s dogs. Last year, Ike’s wife demanded to see the reports for the school’s Christmas wrap fund-raiser and the Rise and Shine got ten health department complaints called in on them in the next week.”
Margot frowned. “Did Sara Lee ever turn the fund-raiser reports over?”
Kyle shrugged. “I had to make my own breakfast for more than a week until Ike got the mess straightened out. That whole time is one big blur.”
SEVERAL DAYS LATER—after Margot had removed most of the poster-board glitter out of her hair—she shuffled down the dock toward the Snack Shack in a distinct funk. Not even the sparkle of the early-autumn sun on the lake could cheer her. She slumped into the shack, sliding onto one of the stools at the counter, and balanced her chin on her hand. The Snack Shack was a cozy little space, decorated in red vinyl and early Coca-Cola memorabilia. The chalkboard behind the counter listed the deep-fried specials of the day. Margot had come to worship at this altar to cholesterol, hoping it would keep her from falling into some sort of vocational depression.
Leslie was standing at an enormous bubbling cauldron of oil, deftly turning some golden-brown lumps over with a pair of chopsticks. Donna was sitting at the counter, sipping a cup of coffee. “Hey, Aunt Leslie. Aunt Donna.”
“Hey there,” Donna said. “You look like a freshly smacked ass.”
“What is wrong with you?” Margot asked, shaking her head.
“Why the long face, shug?” Leslie asked gently, plucking the lumps from their fry bath and popping them onto a plate.
“Well, I got a callback on one of the résumés I sent out,” Margot said, watching as Leslie sprinkled powdered sugar on the plate and slid it in front of her.
“But that should be good news, right? It gets you out of town, and that’s what you want,” said Stan as he slid onto the stool at her right. Margot could hear the intentional gentling of his tone, as if he was struggling not to sound judgmental. “I need a refill for the coffee vats, Les. The Brooks visitation is starting up in twenty minutes.”
Margot’s lips pinched together. Damn it, why hadn’t she heard Stan following her out on the deck? He wasn’t exactly stealthy. And while she hadn’t wandered to the Snack Shack looking for a sympathetic ear, she would rather lean on Leslie’s shoulder without Stan around to hear about her latest round of humiliation. His knowing what had just happened would somehow make it that much worse.
“No problem,” Donna said as Leslie set about making her specialty sludge in an industrial-size coffee brewer. “Margot was about to tell me why she looks like somebody just gave her socks for secret Santa.”
“I did that one time, woman,” Stan said. “Bob told me you were running low on socks.”
Margot snorted.
“What’s wrong, girl?” Stan asked, in a tone far gentler than he’d ever used in her presence. “Ya are looking pretty down in the mouth for someone who just got a job offer.”
Margot pressed her fingertips between her scrunched brows. “I didn’t get a job offer.”
“Then why did they call back?” Donna asked.
Margot shoved her hands through her loose blond hair. She would not cry in front of her father. She might cry later, in her bathtub, drinking off-brand pinot noir from a Solo cup, but she would not cry now. Even if it meant staring at the ceiling and pretending that her contacts were dry.
“I got a callback from Soiree, a really great company in New York. I mean, one of my pie-in-the-sky dream jobs that I didn’t think I had a shot at, but I applied for because I had nothing to lose. They sent me an e-mail yesterday and asked me to set up a Skype session this afternoon. I cleared it with E.J.J., and I set up the webcam at my desk so I could look all professional and impressive. And when I opened up the chat window, I thought it was sort of strange that there were six people sitting in the room, staring at the monitor. I mean, sometimes you have panel interviews when you’re applying at some of the larger firms, but none of the people on the screen looked old enough to be managers or partners. Bethenny, the recruiter who e-mailed me, wasn’t on camera, but she started asking me questions. They were normal interview questions at first, my educational background, my internships, early work history.”
Margot pressed her forehead into her hands. “And then Bethenny started asking about the greenhouse gala, asking me what I thought led to the ‘crisis’ and what I would do differently now to prevent the same thing from happening. I thought it was normal for her to ask about it. I mean, I wasn’t surprised they’d heard about the flamingo incident. And I didn’t blame them for wanting to know whether I’d learned from it, if they were going to hire me. But then the off-camera woman started asking the people sitting in front of the camera where they thought I’d gone wrong, how they would have handled it differently, and what sort of office policies could be written to prevent a ‘disaster’ like this in the future. She was using me as a teaching tool for her underlings! I was giving a TED Talk without even realizing it.”
“Aw, honey, that’s awful,” Leslie said.
“I interrupted their brutal postmortem of my every decision and asked whether this was standard interview procedure, and Bethenny laughed. She said she thought my application was a joke, that there was no way I really thought I would be hired on to their company after what I’d done. And she thought I understood that this was a ‘learning opportunity’ for her employees.”
Donna frowned. “Tell you what. If anyone asks where me and Duffy are tomorrow, tell them we’re on an all-day charter and don’t offer any extra details.”
“Why?” Margot asked.
“So we have an alibi when that snotty bitch’s office burns down,” Donna said with a shrug.
“As much as I appreciate the offer of carefully orchestrated arson, that won’t be necessary.”
“Oh, that’s okay, we can downgrade to filling their office with bees. Rubbing every toilet seat with poison ivy. Hiding a dead bass under a couch cushion in what’s-her-face’s office so it will stink for weeks and she won’t be able to figure out why.”
Margot glanced at Stan and Leslie, neither of whom seemed fazed by Donna’s speedy list of disturbing revenge tactics. “Again, thank you, but no. I went back and checked my e-mails with Bethenny and realized she hadn’t called it an interview. She’d called it a ‘session.’ So I can’t even get upset with them.”
“Well, sure you can,” Stan said, frowning. “They acted like assholes. You can get mad at assholes. Even Tootie ‘Turn the Other Cheek’ McCready accepts that.”
Margot groaned. “I think I was more embarrassed than anything else. No, wait, I’m angry, too. You know what really makes me angry? I’m angry because those snot-nosed little interns were picking apart my work and my decisions, like they could have done any better under the circumstances. Like I could have psychically detected the chef’s intention to serve the mayor’s wife an allergen and then incinerated the shrimp tower with the power of my mind.” Margot sighed. “No, that’s not it. I’m angry because I let my guard down. I walked right into a humiliating trap and didn’t even realize it. I used to be much more cynical. I had the detachment that would have protected my feelings in a case like this. I wouldn’t have fallen for vague, misleading language. And even if I did, I wouldn’t have let it bother me so much. I think living out in the country is making me soft.”
“Not soft,” Leslie insisted. “Softer, maybe. But you’re still plenty cynical, sweetheart, trust me. People around here still talk about how intimidating you are.”
“Thank you, Aunt Leslie.” Margot sniffed. Stan, on the other hand, simply stared at her, frowning and saying nothing. Margot deflated just a little bit more. How disappointing for him, to find out the daughter who’d devoted all her time to her career was failing at keeping that career. She knew she shouldn’t have said anything in front of him.
“You know what I’ve learned?” Stan asked.
Margot lifted her head and saw that, yes, it was her father who had just spoken and not some helpful bystander. “No, Stan, what have you learned?”
“Sometimes life just stinks like a bass in your couch,” Stan said. “It’s not fair. And sometimes it doesn’t get better. And sometimes there’s no reason for it. It just stinks. You can either lean into it and try to ride it out, or you can fold under the weight.”
Margot didn’t mean to frown at her father, she really didn’t. But who was Stan to lecture her on pulling herself up by her bootstraps when he was living in a sleeping cubby at a funeral home? She almost opened her mouth to ask Stan to leave her with Aunt Leslie to discuss the matter, but he followed up with “I know I haven’t spent much time around ya. But I don’t think you’re a ‘fold under the weight’ kind of gal. So you misunderstood an e-mail, big deal. You got embarrassed in front of a bunch of interns. Who cares? In a couple of months, some other catastrophe will catch their attention and they won’t even think about your flamingo problem. You just keep plugging along. You’ll be fine.”
Margot mulled that over for a moment or two and nodded. “Thank you.”
“Well, you don’t have to be a smartass about it,” Stan snapped.
“No, really, I appreciate it. That was helpful.”
Stan seemed confused for a moment, like Margot was going to take it back. “Any time.”
Stan didn’t smile. There was no affectionate ruffling of her hair as he slid off the stool and carried the huge jug of Leslie’s coffee down the dock toward the funeral home.
Leslie placed a tall Coke with lots of ice in front of Margot. “Here, hon, you’re looking sort of pale.”
Margot took a long draw from the foam cup.
“You sure you’re all right?” Donna asked.
“I just had a conversation with a parent that didn’t end in yelling or recriminations,” Margot said. “It only took me thirty years.”
“Oh, honey, most people don’t get that until they’re in their fifties.” Leslie reached over the counter and patted Margot’s hand. Margot grinned at her, shaking her head.
“What exactly am I supposed to be eating?” Margot asked, poking at the large fried dough ball on her plate.
“You know those chocolate cupcakes with the little white swirls on top?”
“You deep-fried a Hostess cupcake?” Margot marveled.
Leslie giggled. “Well, sure, if it works for Twinkies, why not?”
“Prepare yourself,” Donna warned her.
Margot pushed her fork through the dough ball, eyes widening as a chocolatey ooze emerged from the center. The first bite was warm and crispy and sweet, like a doughnut and a hush puppy had a beautiful baby.
“This should not be as good as it is,” Margot said with a sigh, digging in for a second bite.
Leslie smiled brightly. “See?”
MARGOT WAS WARY of opening her personal e-mail account for almost a week after the prank interview. She didn’t want to be tricked into being an object lesson twice. She wondered if word of her “misunderstanding” had spread to her former colleagues. Was she even more of a laughingstock than she had been before?
Maybe she would end up staying in Lake Sackett long term after all. Her job search was still pretty much at a standstill, but was that such a terrible thing? She was getting used to her little cottage. She was getting used to driving twenty minutes when she forgot milk. The cost of living was low. She had pretty decent job security and a comfortable living situation. She was starting to appreciate her work at the funeral home, bringing order to the chaos that followed death, bringing comfort to people just by handling the little details that were beyond their grasp.
And she was making friends . . . okay, she was becoming closer with her cousins. She’d established a routine of going to Frankie’s cabin on Saturdays for terrible mutant shark movies and fruity drinks. Marianne joined them when she could, but sometimes she called with excuses about the boys’ soccer schedule—which Frankie interpreted as “sexytimes with the hot backwoods hubby.” Inevitably, Arlo would find a way to skirt around Frankie’s door and snuggle under Margot’s arm on the couch. And if she happened to feed him a couple of kernels of popcorn she dropped, it wasn’t a gesture of doggy friendship. She just didn’t want to waste food.
Duffy had managed to talk her onto his boat on a few afternoons when he didn’t have charters, but she absolutely refused to fish again. She was content to learn how to drive the pontoon and indulge in a long list of important Oprah-level books she’d always meant to read but never had time to in the city, while Duffy fished and chatted about nothing at all. She’d asked about Lana, the aggressively skanky ex-wife, but Duffy shut her down by offering her sweet tea and a deep-fried Twinkie and then ignoring the question. She would miss her cousins if she left. She would miss E.J.J. She would miss Uncle Bob and Aunt Leslie. Okay, she was still afraid of Aunt Donna, but she would miss that little ripple of fear down her spine when Donna made eye contact. And Tootie, how would she get along without Aunt Tootie being all inspirational and then snarky by turns?
Her father. Well, they’d had one nice conversation. That was more progress than either of them had expected.
And then there was Kyle. She had no idea what was happening there. Maybe it was a friendship. Maybe it was one of those badly timed flirtations that would never take off. But it didn’t feel wrong.
Maybe it wouldn’t be a fate worse than death, making Lake Sackett her permanent home.
When a Saturday night kept Frankie at work (a car wreck involving a local mechanic versus a deer) and Marianne at home (she claimed Nate had a soccer game, but Duffy saw her picking up strawberries and wine at the grocery), Margot decided to drop by Kyle’s house. She didn’t even use the excuse of planning for the festival, because everything was well in hand, thank you very much. She just wanted to see him and she wanted him to know that she wanted to see him. Pretense was going to choke the life out of whatever it was between them, and she wasn’t going to have it.
She was surprised to find him sitting on the end of his dock, watching the September sun sinking into the horizon. The girls were nowhere to be seen, which made her a little uneasy. But she noted that Kyle was drinking a beer, something she guessed he wouldn’t do around the kids. And he seemed to be scowling off into the distance. His hunched shoulders and angry expression reminded her of that troubled wraith she’d first met.
But now he wasn’t just some fascinating possible phantom. He was a man with a history she understood, and she wasn’t sure if that made it easier or more difficult to see him like this. He didn’t move as she walked down the dock, though it was impossible that he missed her footsteps. The sound of crickets chirping was the only noise to compete with her boots against the wood.
Margot stood in front of him, offering him the large bottle of Gold City Growler, a local craft beer Duffy had recommended. Kyle reached up to accept it, his brow creased and his eyes lost. “Bad night?” she asked.
“Eh,” he said, waggling his hand back and forth. She dropped to her butt, sliding against his side. He leaned his head against her temple. She waited for him to talk, not wanting to rush him, watching the sky turn the water purple and dull. Eventually he ended up draped bonelessly across her lap as she ran her fingers through his hair.
“Want to talk about it?” she asked, cracking open the fresh bottle and taking a short pull. She wasn’t much of a beer drinker, or any sort of beer drinker, really. But she could appreciate how the bitter bubbles complemented the setting better than fruity girly drinks.
“I’m confused by you,” he muttered against her denim-clad leg.
She frowned but didn’t stop stroking his hair. “Because?”
“I shouldn’t want you. You’re fancy and bossy and you’re going to leave town at the first chance you get. I don’t think I’m ready for whatever this is. But I want you. I want to see where this goes. I haven’t wanted anything like it in a long time and that makes me feel sort of terrible.”
“How drunk are you right now?” she asked.
“Eh,” he said, sitting up and waggling his hand again.
“So this diatribe about you being scared of relationships is based on real feelings and not alcohol?”
“I’m not afraid of relationships. I’m skittish. Don’t judge me.”
“I don’t have room to judge anyone about that. I haven’t been in a committed relationship in . . . I don’t think I’ve ever been in a committed relationship. I never had the time. Or really the desire. That’s sad. Is that sad?”
“A little,” he said, shrugging. “I thought that I would be safer if I didn’t want anybody for more than something physical. I thought I could keep all the pieces of me separate. The dad. The man. The guy who wears a poncho to avoid a cafeteria food bath. The parts of me that laugh every time you open your mouth. The pieces of me that want to tear your clothes off. The even more complicated bits that sit in awe when you take down snotty soccer moms. But I can’t. It’s stupid to try.”
He dropped his head to her shoulder. “I loved my wife. I’m always going to love her. And for a long time I thought that meant punishing myself for outliving her.” He tipped his forehead against hers. “I don’t want to do that anymore.”
She palmed his jaw, tilting her head as she rubbed a thumb over his chin. “So don’t.”
The corner of his mouth lifted in a sad half smile. He leaned forward and pressed a hesitant kiss against her lips, and then another and another, each hungrier than the last. She rolled onto her knees, making him rise to meet her, returning those kisses with equal energy. She clutched at his hair, pulling him closer as the tension seemed to bleed out of his body.
The hands around her back relaxed and slid along her ribs. The kisses that had been so fervent just a minute before slowed into a lazy dance.
Kyle looped his arm under her legs and pulled them up from what could end up being a precarious position on the dock. He hitched her legs around his hips and walked her toward the house. And given the firm weight she felt wedged against her as they moved, she had a pretty good idea she wasn’t being invited in for sweet tea.
“Girls?” she murmured against his lips, rubbing her cheek on the scruff of his beard.
“Sleepovers,” he said, catching the line of her jaw between his teeth.
“You really don’t have to carry me all the way to the bedroom,” she said as he managed to open his back door with one hand.
“Oh, thank God,” he said, dropping her to her feet. “I know it was romantic as hell, but I was reaching muscle failure somewhere on the back porch.”
She snickered, tugging on his shirttail as she backed down his hallway. He kicked off his shoes and then bent over to yank at the button of her jeans. Giggling, she nudged off her own shoes and pressed him against the hallway wall to tackle his pants.
Stepping through the bedroom door, she yelped, jerking her foot up from the floor and nearly kneeing Kyle in the crotch. He dodged, throwing himself against the wall to avoid the crushing blow.
“What in the hell!” she cried, hopping on her good leg while she tried to dig a tiny sharp object out of the sole of her foot.
“Is this a tiny hooker shoe?” she said, holding up the offending bit of pink plastic.
“Barbie shoes,” Kyle said, shaking his head and supporting her arms while she massaged her foot. “Everybody bitches about LEGOs. But those mini platforms are the real danger to parental feet.”
“You get wordy when you’re drunk.”
“Not that drunk. Here, let me help.” Margot cried out when Kyle lifted her off her feet, but instead of sweeping her up bridal style, he swung her onto his back and carried her piggyback toward the bed. It was unexpected, like most things about Kyle.
She noticed that while there were lots of dust catchers and photos in the common areas of the house, there was only one photo here—one of Hazel and June smiling from a pile of pumpkins. The room would have been considered spartan if not for the wide, inviting bed situated in front of a picture window. Moonlight streamed through the glass as he tugged at the catch on her bra.
“I haven’t brought anyone back here,” he told her. “Ever.”
“I understand. It’s been a while since I’ve done this,” she admitted as he pushed her onto the bed. She scooted back on the mattress as he crawled along with her, caging her against the bed.
“It’s like falling off a bicycle,” he promised, then frowned. “Or something like that.”
He trailed his lips over her jawline and she turned her head so he could get better access to her neck. Her panties disappeared over his shoulder. Warmth flooded her middle and she sighed at the lovely, slippery sensations between her thighs. She made “eye contact” with Hazel and Juniper’s photo in the frame by the bed and winced.
Kyle lifted his head and saw where she was staring. He reached over and flipped the picture frame facedown on the nightstand. When she arched an eyebrow, he shrugged. The heat of his fingers burned her thighs as he parted them and slipped his hips against her. She leaned up and closed her lips over his. He sighed into her mouth, his beard tickling her cheeks as he wrapped her legs around his waist.
A deft hand skimmed over her belly button and between her thighs, the thumb ghosting around but never quite touching the little bundle of nerves there. She laughed, gasping, as she shifted her hips, chasing his fingers. He snickered, because apparently he was a tease.
“All right, then,” she whispered, grasping him in her hand. He yelped softly and dropped his head to her shoulder.
“Okay, okay,” he whimpered, pinching her lightly and making her cry out. Two long fingers smoothed the way inside of her and her breath came in short pants against his shoulder. He fluttered them inside her and she gripped him even tighter. He canted into her hand and the smile against his skin was full of wicked promise.
Margot heard the crinkle of a foil packet and was grateful that she didn’t have to argue for one. Kyle paused just before the long, slow slide into her and said, “This may not last long. But what I lack in initial endurance, I will make up for in enthusiasm and repeat performances.”
Margot’s answering cackle was stopped short as he thrust home and pulled the blankets over their heads.