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never
looked elsewhere. All lies, but rather convincing ones when told by the
silver-tongue devil.
    Both she and Boyd could hear the squeal of Belinda’s
car tires on her Mercedes as the woman took off down the street in front of
their houses. Boyd had yet to move from the fence. He and Sara gave each other
another easy smile. He then turned on his heels within the sand.
    Was he leaving without saying anything to her?
    A sense of panic rose in her like the floodwaters.
This would’ve been about the time he would be naked, they would start talking,
and things would progress as they always did. Any delay to routine made her
edgy.
    She was about to ask him if Belinda had finally gotten
between him and her, and their daily activity , however Boyd turned
before the words could be said, giving her another devilish grin.
    “See you inside in five. Hope you’re hungry.”
    No small talk, no full-length discussions about stuff
Sara didn’t give a pile of shit about, no socially accepted behavioral lectures
while both sunbathed in the buff; nothing, other than five minutes…and he
hoped she was hungry?
    Well, she was hungry, but not necessarily for food.
Her eyes strayed to the man’s scrumptious backside as he walked toward his
patio. She liked a man’s butt to be firm. It meant he cared about his physique.
    Sara waited until Boyd opened the patio door and
walked through before she headed into her own humble domicile on her side of
the fence. She did not want to seem as though she missed him, or she too eager
for his attention today.
    Once inside, the place reeking of air freshener to
drench the ocean’s permeation, she tossed her towel onto her unmade bed,
grabbed a see-through pool slipover from her open closet, and slipped her pink
flip-flops on her feet, then walked over to the neighbor’s door with an easy
stride—an almost spring in her step.
    Her mouth watered in anticipation. Her fingers itched
due to unnecessary wait. Her brain told her heart it would eventually catch up.
    She found Boyd inside the kitchen pouring two glasses
of wine. As Sara came inside without invitation, she glided across the pristine
floor a house cleaner polished for the McCarlye’s on Wednesdays and Friday
mornings, and eased right into his arms.
    “I thought she would never leave,” she said.
    His sigh to her statement was felt through the full
length of her body as he kissed the top of her head.
    Until Sara’s disappearance a full year ago, she’d been
a mousy brown, same as Belinda was. Now she was bleach-bottle blonde.
    She’d also been Sara Rogan, daughter of a dead woman.
Now she was Mecenna Jones, a young widow. She had to tell the neighbors
something, so she made up the lost husband and lost love. It was the easiest
lie ever told, and the one that got her inside other’s lives.
    The color of her eyes stayed the same, however. She’d
not gone for colored contacts to hide their natural beauty; told many times
they were an iridescent blue any man would love to willfully drown in.
    Those iridescent blue pools stared up into gray orbs
so closely colored to liquid silver as his mouth descended to hers like
wildfire; quick, hot, all-consuming, Boyd’s lips molded to hers as if meant to
be there. His hands formed to the sides of her face. His thumb pads slid over
her skin, heightening the chase.
    Boyd would never kiss her until they were well inside
the bedroom. And he tended to do so only after the sex. This was new. It
was passionate. It set her toes afire. He seemed as if not wanting to pull
back. Yet, when he did, he handed her a glass of wine, and a shameless smile to
go with it.
    Boyd was a man of few words. Those he would say were
usually done with meaningful discussion. Without this quirky nature to the man,
she might not have been as attracted to him as she was. Then again, how could
she not be attracted to such a rare specimen? She thought him to be as near to
fine wine aged to perfection as any man could ever be. There was