After some mind-blowing coffee at The Roastery as per Kiefer’s recommendation, they visited Pike Place Market, a marvelous wonderland of food and commerce that reminded Fedora of Liberty Station in San Diego. But what amazed her about Pike Place Market was that it was run by farmers, craftsmen and shop owners. It really was head and shoulders above Liberty Station, but then again, it had a ninety-year head start. By the time they left, she had two shopping bags stuffed with specialty food items—wine, hard sausages, local honey, dried herbs, spices, and pasta she’d scooped out of a big bin. Cole carried it all on the condition that she feed him some of it.

They returned to the hotel only long enough to drop off the bags.

“Wait, don’t you want to relax a little?” she asked him.

He glanced at the bedside clock. “I guess that’s okay, but we’re due at the dock in forty-five minutes.”

“Like a boat dock?”

“Yes.” He grinned. “We’re going on a dinner cruise.”

She couldn’t hold back her squeal of excitement. “I’ve never been on a dinner cruise before. Is it dressy?”

“No. It’s casual, but it might get chilly.”

Turned out he had not bought tickets on a big boat with a bunch of other people and a big restaurant-like room. He’d booked a smaller vessel—the Millennium Dolphin—for just the two of them.

Part of her was nervous about what this might mean because this had romance written all over it, but she told that part of herself to shut up and just enjoy. She was fully capable of keeping the evening light and fun.

They set sail before sunset. The view of the city from the water was beautiful and it was so relaxing to sit with Cole and share a bottle of wine and some surprisingly tasty appetizers. They marveled at the multimillion-dollar waterfront homes of Lake Washington. They were all different, tastefully gorgeous and every one had a private dock. The captain, whose name just happened to be Jack (no relation to Captain Sparrow of Pirates of the Caribbean fame), pointed out where various celebrities like Bill Gates and the guy who started up Costco lived. Fedora could only wonder what it must be like to live in a home three times as big as her entire apartment building.

“What do you suppose people do in all those rooms?” she wondered aloud. “Maybe their entourages live with them. It must take an army to keep them clean. I wonder if Bill Gates’ house is in two different zipcodes…”

“A guy I know, Dustin DeVries, lives around here somewhere,” Cole said. “He plays for the Cascades.”

“You actually know him? Ooh, can I touch you?” she asked with a laugh.

He nuzzled her neck and whispered, “You can touch me anytime, anywhere.”

“Stop it. We’re not completely alone here.” But her body temperature rose a degree or two.

Captain Jack said, “I heard Howard Schultz, the guy who invented Starbucks, has an entire Starbucks in his house. I don’t know if that’s true or not.”

“Come on,” said Fedora with a laugh. “That’s crazy.”

“Rich people are crazy,” Captain Jack said.

“If you were as rich as Bill Gates or Howard Schultz,” Fedora said to Cole, “what would you have in your mega-mansion? Obviously, I’d have a state of the art kitchen. Maybe more than one.”

“Besides the obligatory home theatre? How big a piece of property are we talking about? It might be fun to have a private ice rink. Not the outdoor kind, but one that’s an actual building.” He sipped his wine.

“What about a man cave?”

“Oh, that’s a given.”

“What would you have in it?”

He laughed and rested an ankle on his knee. “Let’s see. First of all, I’d need a big sign—the first thing they see—to proclaim the room as the Man Cave. This would be to get the guys into the right head space.”

“Oh brother,” she said. “You mean so they can shed all of their manners, their verbal filters and such?”

“You got it.”

She chuckled.

“I’d have the best TV and sound system money can buy, obviously. And a lot of leather recliners with which to enjoy said TV and sound system.”

“Of course.”

“And a pool table. A poker table—the kind with the slots for your chips. Every video game known to man. A stripper pole. Just kidding,” he said when she poked him in the side. “A wet bar, again, obviously, with a really big refrigerator for beer.”

“What about a walk-in? The sky’s the limit…”

Cole’s eyes went huge. “Excellent idea. A walk-in beer fridge. That’s perfect.”

“Smart woman,” Captain Jack remarked.

“That she is,” Cole replied, putting his arm around her. “So, what would you put in your Lady Cave?”

Fedora almost spat out her wine. Even Captain Jack snickered.

When Cole realized what he’d said, he cursed. “Shit. Sorry. That didn’t come out right.”

“No kidding.” She turned to Captain Jack. “One track mind.”

Jack shrugged.

“All right.” She turned back to Cole. “Let’s call it a retreat, a Lady Retreat.”

“Good idea,” he said, his face still a little red.

“First of all, I would not have a sign. Women are smart enough to realize they’re entering a same sex sanctuary without being told.”

“Hold on there,” Cole said, straightening.

“Hey, I call ’em like I see ’em.”

“Well, I like the same sex sanctuary part,” he mumbled.

“Of course you do. Moving on,” she said, shaking her head. “I, too, would have a giant TV and comfy seating. Probably not leather though. Probably something soft against the skin. Chenille maybe. And I would compile the ultimate rom-com DVD collection.”

Cole started making gagging noises, which made her smile.

“I’d make sure there were fresh flowers all the time. There would be a hot tub—”

“Now you’re talking.”

“And massage tables.”

“Holy shit,” Cole said. “You are a genius.”

She held up a hand. “No men allowed.”

“Damn it. Not even me?”

She cocked her head at him. “Are the Man Cave and Lady Retreat in the same house?”

He returned her gaze. “Maybe.”

Choosing to avoid the undercurrents there, she glanced away. “Then you could come in only if you promised to watch a rom-com.”

“Could I watch it from the hot tub?”

“Silly question.”

“Naked?”

“Sillier question,” she said laughing.

“Well, that’s the whole point of men seeing rom-coms, you know,” Cole said. “You go so that your woman gets all soft and squishy inside and then you go home and score.”

“You’re horrible,” she said, slapping him on the chest.

“It’s the truth.”

She looked up at Captain Jack who held up a hand and said, “I plead the fifth.”

Eventually Captain Jack anchored in a secluded cove for dinner. Cole worried that Fedora would find the food substandard, but as advertised, Captain Jack could actually cook. They dined simply but well on grilled fish, veggies sautéed to the perfect degree of doneness, and new potatoes with rosemary. For dessert there was crème brûlée for two that he finished off with a handheld blow torch.

He and Jack spoke a bit about the charter yacht business after Cole had said he’d definitely post a rave review online about the evening, and Fedora wandered away. As they started back, Cole found her at the bow of the boat. She was leaning on the shiny railing, looking out on the Seattle skyline. The clouds parted long enough for light from the city and the moon to dance on the water. Her hair was down, tendrils of it lifted by the brisk breeze created by their passage. Even though she was dressed warmly in a jacket, beanie, shirt and jeans, she couldn’t have looked more beautiful.

As he joined her, wrapping his arm around her shoulders, he realized he hadn’t felt this content in a long time and he knew it was because of this new intimacy. He still felt idiotic for not having realized what an amazing woman Fedora was before now.

His thoughts bounced to their joking conversation about Man Caves and Lady Retreats and mused that the idea of living together had a crazy but comforting appeal. He could easily imagine spending all his nights with this woman, laughing, making sexual innuendos, just plain watching her—her facial expressions, the way she moved, even how she slept. Of course, that was a move that couldn’t be made for a while. Hell, the woman was skittish about allowing people to know they were even dating. But as his mother loved to tell him, he wasn’t getting any younger. He’d always thought he would end up married and with children, but Megan had kept putting it off, saying she wasn’t ready, until he eventually figured out she didn’t want them. Then, after the divorce, he had a bad taste in his mouth whenever he even thought about remarrying. He hadn’t even really wanted a serious relationship. Maybe that made him a coward, but he was definitely thinking about it now.

Back at the hotel room, he made love to her more tenderly. Before, he’d been partly motivated by a need to make her come, to make her realize he actually knew what he was doing. Age had some advantages over youth. And he’d succeeded. He’d loved seeing her sprawled in the bed, completely undone. To him, the best part of sex wasn’t his own orgasm. Shit, that was great but only lasted a few seconds. No, true, more lasting satisfaction came from the knowledge that he’d brought Fedora to the peak, sometimes more than once. Hearing her purr of contentment, drinking in that sweet kiss just before he withdrew from her body—that was the reward.

To that end, the sex was…different, at least it was for him. Without getting all sickly sentimental, it felt like more than sex, like the act had some hidden meaning behind it that even he didn’t want to examine too closely. Yet. Better to take a page from her book and just taking things as they came. No sense in rushing things.

But when she was comfortingly ensconced in his arms, her legs entwined with his, like a dummy, he rushed things.