I made a massive effort to pull myself together so I didn’t watch him like a love-struck idiot and headed back to Mindy and Becca. He tooted his horn as he drove passed us and I lifted my hand in a wave, hoping my wave didn’t make me look like a love-struck idiot.

“I think he likes you,” Becca said then she looked at Mindy who was watching me and they both giggled.

“I need to spend money,” I muttered.

“Yeah, me too,” Mindy said, linking her arm with mine and we took off.

There weren’t some great shops in town, there were some really great shops and considering I didn’t have to pay for a wedding anymore and I’d been saving since Niles asked me over a year ago, I went crazy. I bought so much stuff both Becca and Mindy had to help me carry my bags. I also found Sarah’s earrings and feeling generous I bought all three of us a pair even though they were more expensive than I was expecting mainly because they were heavy with silver and beautifully crafted. Becca and Mindy tried to protest but I wouldn’t let them. A girl who’d been raped and her friend who was looking out for her needed new, expensive, heavy, silver, beautifully crafted earrings. It should be a law.

We ran into practically everyone the girls knew it seemed since we were constantly stopped in shops and on the boardwalk. There were a lot of introductions and gabbing. I was a curiosity since some had heard of me already and it was evident Max was a popular person and anyone associated with him was automatically an object of fascination most especially an outsider with an English accent. Others, Becca and Mindy freely told, “Nina’s with Max” which then made me an object of fascination.

After the curiosity about me wore off, most of the talk was about Curtis Dodd and who might have done the deed. Most of this was liberally interspersed with open comments about how no one was really going to miss him. Some of it was catty talk about Shauna who, it was evident, was not a popular person. There were a lot of careful looks at Mindy who seemed to have trouble dealing with these indicated by the pink that would tinge her cheeks. When that happened either Becca or I would get close. Sometimes, if Mindy started shuffling her feet or chewing at her cuticles, I’d grab her hand. When I did this she held on tight and I’d feel the sting of tears behind my eyes but I just held her right back.

We walked by a photography shop that printed digital photos and I asked the girls if we could go in because I was dying to see the photo Cotton took printed out rather than small on the screen at the back of the camera. When we entered it appeared to be a Shrine to Jimmy Cotton, the walls were wallpapered with his pictures. We hung out while the photos were printing halfheartedly looking at photography stuff we had no interest in. When they were done, I paid for the photos and we stood a few feet from the counter looking through them.

I came upon Cotton’s photo and stared, stunned at what the man could do with a digital camera. The framing was magnificent, he managed to make the bluff, river and mountains most of the photo, Max and me at the side.

But regardless of the beauty of the vista, it was Max and me that took my full attention.

Not surprisingly, Max was incredibly photogenic, smiling natural and casual into the camera.

Surprisingly, even with his supreme male beauty, I looked natural and casual, smiling at his side. My cream cap, blonde hair and pale, wind-kissed skin was an attractive foil to his dark handsomeness. I liked the look of us together, maybe a bit too much.

And we didn’t look like we’d just met and barely knew each other. We looked like we’d known each other forever, comfortable in our close hold.

We looked even like we belonged together.

I hadn’t realized I’d put my hand to his stomach, my arm around his back and I noticed that I fitted into his side like God created me specifically to slot right there. And his hand curled at my neck, gloved fingers barely visible through the strands of my hair, had the weird look like he was claiming me. I was, just simply, his.

“I freaking love that picture!” Mindy cried, standing close, staring at the photo and Becca got close too.

“Wow, awesome shot,” she breathed. “Max is hot and you’ve got the prettiest eyes I’ve ever seen.”

I started, tore my eyes from the photo and looked at Becca. “I’m sorry?”

Becca’s gaze came to my face. “Prettiest eyes, Max said it too.”

I blinked and felt my eyebrows go up just as I felt a pleasant warmth wash through me.

“I’m sorry?” I repeated.

“Max said you’ve got the prettiest eyes he’s ever seen.”

Oh my God.

“He said that?” I whispered and Becca grinned.

“Yeah, the other day, when, um…” Her gaze slid to Mindy who was listening then came back to me. “He said it the other day when we were talkin’ ‘bout you. He said you were cute when you were pissed and you’ve got the prettiest eyes he’d ever seen.”

Oh. My. God.

I looked back to the photo and examined, for the first time in my life with any great attention, my eyes. You couldn’t see it really in the photo but I knew they were deep set and hazel, more brown than green. I’d never thought much of them except wishing they were bigger, wider so I could use more flair with eye shadow and, even focusing on them, I didn’t think much of them now.

“You do have really pretty eyes,” Mindy said to me softly. “I noticed them right off the bat.”

“I… they’re… um…” I stammered.

“Really unusual, striking, eye-catching, no pun intended,” Becca said on a grin.

“Can I have a copy of that photo?” Mindy asked, still speaking softly and I looked closely at her.

She was gazing at the photo and her face was soft like her voice.

“Sure, darling,” I said softly back and her eyes skittered to me.

“Thanks,” she whispered.

I walked to the counter, handed my memory card to the clerk as well as the photo and asked for another copy.

Then I turned to Mindy and told her, “Best part about it, outside the view, is that Jimmy Cotton took it.”

“Jimmy Cotton does not take snapshots,” the clerk said to me, his voice filled with unmistakable outrage.

I turned back to him, surprised at his entry into our conversation and the tone of it, and asked, “I’m sorry?”

“Jimmy Cotton…” he waved my photo at me, “does not take snapshots.” He indicated the walls of his shop with a wave of his hand. “He’s a master.”

“Yes, I agree, but he happened onto us at the bluff yesterday and he took our photo.”

“With a digital camera?” the clerk shot back, now his tone was filled with derision as if digital cameras were the invention of the devil.

“Um…” I looked at the memory card then answered, “yes.”

“Jimmy doesn’t do digital.”

“Um…” I started but I heard Mindy whisper from beside me. “The bluff?”

I turned to her and said, “Yes.”

She snatched the photo out of the clerk’s hand and looked closely at it.

“God, I was lookin’ at you and Max, I didn’t notice you were at the bluff.”

“We were. Max took me there yesterday,” I said and her eyes moved quickly to me.

Then she breathed, “Wow.”

“Sorry?”

“Wow,” she said louder.

“Wow, what?”

“Wow, Max took you to the bluff.” The strange wonder slid out of her face and it brightened then she smiled, blinding and huge. “He took you to the bluff.”

“Yes,” I said, drawing out the word because I was confused.

“What’s the big deal?” Becca asked, getting close.

“The bluff is Max’s favorite place in the world,” Mindy answered.

“He seemed rather fond of it,” I remarked and Mindy giggled.

“Yeah, you could say he’s ‘rather fond of it’,” Mindy replied through her continuing giggles. “Brody told me he’s seriously rather fond of it. It’s his special place and he doesn’t share it with just anybody. He didn’t take Brody there for years. He didn’t take me there until my sixteenth birthday and he’s known me since I was born.”

I had the strange sensation of not getting a good feeling about this information at the same time I was getting a good feeling about it.

“Really?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Mindy said through a smile.

“Wow,” Becca whispered.

Wow was right.

“I don’t know what to do with that information,” I told Mindy and Becca.

“I’ll ask Brody what you should do with that information,” Mindy offered helpfully and I felt my lungs seize.

“No, don’t do that.”

“Oh yeah, do that,” Becca encouraged. “I wanna know too.”

“No, don’t,” I repeated.

“You gotta,” Becca said. “This could be huge.”

“Yeah,” Mindy’s eyes were bright with excitement and happiness. “Lovin’ this, Brody’ll love it too.” Her bright, happy eyes came to me. “Maybe even enough to come home and check you out.”

This was a nightmare.

“Um… that kind of scares me,” I told her and she laughed, linked her arm with mine and put her forehead to my shoulder.

“My big bro is cool, you’ll adore him. He’s awesome,” she said when she lifted her head.

I looked into her carefree eyes and I didn’t have the heart to burst her bubble.

“Brilliant,” I muttered and she grinned.

“That’ll be a quarter,” the clerk said from behind us, waving the print.

“A quarter for a Jimmy Cotton print? Bargain!” Becca exclaimed, I thought mostly to annoy the clerk.

If this was her intention, she succeeded magnificently and the three of us walked out of the shop together under the weight of his irate scowl, Becca and Mindy gulping back giggles.

Me?

I found it funny, their giggles were infectious and I definitely laughed.

That didn’t mean I wasn’t quaking in my boots.

***

We were sitting at a red and white checked table clothed table in the center of which was an enormous pepperoni and mushroom pizza that a family of five could assist us with consuming and everyone would be sated when Mindy started the conversation.

“Okay, it’s none of my business, really, but it kind of is because I’ve known Max since I was born.”

I looked at her around my beer knowing I wasn’t going to like this.

I lowered my beer and asked, “What’s none of your business?”

Her head tipped to my hand. “That diamond on your finger.”

I was right, I didn’t like this.

“Mindy –” I started.

“I know you’ve known him, like, real brief, but sometimes shit happens fast when you know it’s right and you guys seem solid,” she said softly. “Still, it isn’t Max’s.”

Max and me seemed solid? Shit happens fast when you know it’s right?

I ignored both of those and said softly back, “No, it isn’t Max’s.”

“So, is it an heirloom or something?” she asked and I pulled in a deep breath.

“No,” I said on the exhale.

“So, whose is it?” she pressed.

I looked at Becca who had a slice of pizza in her hand, her hand to her mouth, her teeth in the slice but her eyeballs were wandering around the room looking at anything but Mindy and me and, if she didn’t have the pizza in her mouth, I knew she would have been whistling.

Then I looked at Mindy and made a decision. “His name is Niles.”

“Niles?” she asked and I could tell she didn’t much like his name.

Niles was a perfectly fine name, of course, however it didn’t ring American Mountain Man like “Max” or “Brody” or “Damon”.

“Niles,” I repeated.

“Okay, so,” Mindy went on and I could see she was pulling up the courage to do so and I wished she wouldn’t but I understood why she did, considering it was obvious she was close to Max and cared about him. “You’re wearin’ Niles’s ring, why are you up at the A-Frame with Max?”

“It’s a long story.”

“We got time.”

“Mins,” Becca whispered.

“No, it’s okay,” I said but I didn’t know why I said it since it wasn’t.

Then suddenly it was.

And over beer and pizza, I found myself telling two twenty-four year old girls (I’d found out their ages) everything about my life, Niles, Charlie, my timeout adventure in the mountains and my e-mail.

I did not, however, tell them about Max.

When I stopped speaking and grabbed another slice of pizza, Becca breathed, “Wow, you’re goin’ through a lot.”