Ex’s and Oh’s by Sandra Steffen Page A

seemed to her that the richest lives were those with deep, lasting friendships and family history passed on from generation to generation.
    Shane had given her a gift in the form of Anna’s letter. And what had she done? Insulted him and practically slammed the door in his face. She owed him something.
    Before she talked herself out of it, she reached for her keys.
    Shane’s was one of the few boats in its slip this evening. He sat on deck, his head bowed as he worked on something in a large plastic case on his lap. The setting sun wasa ball of orange beyond him, tingeing the sky pink and lavender, fading to gray.
    The cork soles of Caroline’s sandals muffled her approach on the wooden pier, and yet something must have alerted him to her presence. He looked up and didn’t look away.
    “Where did you get the letter?” she asked, stopping where his boat was fastened to the pier.
    “Beneath a loose floorboard in the lighthouse cottage.”
    “When?”
    “Twenty-five minutes before your little don’t speech.”
    Despite the fact that she deserved that, she cringed. “I owe you an apology.”
    “You don’t owe me anything.”
    He wasn’t going to make this easy for her. Ironically, it put her on more even footing. “You trimmed your beard, showed up unannounced, and I jumped to conclusions,” she said.
    There was something deliberate about the way he closed the tackle box and placed it at his feet, something just as deliberate in the way he smoothed a hand over his short beard. “What conclusions?”
    He seemed to take perverse satisfaction in making her say it. Fine. “You surprised me when you kissed me.”
    “I’m listening.”
    “Why did you?” she asked.
    “You insinuated you felt old.”
    “Then it was a pity kiss?” How lovely.
    Waves pressed against the cement pilings of the pier, splashing on the boat’s hull, only to be dragged slowly, rhythmically away again. All around them boats were starting to come in.
    “What difference does it make?” he asked. “I’m not your type, remember?”
    “I didn’t say you’re not my type. I said I’m not yours. There’s a big difference. I’m not good at relationships. In fact, I can count my friends on one hand. I’m figuring this out as I go, but this is my flaw, not yours.”
    “What kind of flaw?”
    “It would take all night to explain.”
    She caught him looking at her mouth. “Would you care to come aboard, Caroline?”
    She shook her head, thinking she should have expected that. Covering a yawn, she said, “All I seem to want to do lately is sleep.”
    “I was only suggesting you come aboard to talk. Andy’s below deck.”
    Ah, yes, Andy. Shane’s and Tori’s troubled son.
    “Normally he stays at his mother’s during the week, but I think he took pity on me after riding my butt into the ground tonight. It’s hell getting old. For the record, thatwasn’t a pity kiss. I talked. You listened. You talked. I kissed you. That’s just the way it happened to work out.”
    And men claimed women were illogical.
    Shane wasn’t like the men she’d known in Chicago. There was a vein of the uncivilized in him. Something about him brought out the worst in her, and the best.
    She wasn’t sure how it had happened, but there seemed to be an understanding, a kind of camaraderie between them. It was almost as if they were becoming friends. It began with Karl, and spread in ways she couldn’t explain even to herself. Shane didn’t seem to think she was bad at relationships. Or perhaps he just didn’t think it was so unusual to be bad at them. Why on earth that made her feel better, she didn’t know. But as she walked away, she was fairly certain she’d set something right by coming here. She just wasn’t altogether sure what, exactly.
    By the time Tori unlocked the door of the third vacant office space, she and Caroline were both wilting. Switching on lights as she went, Tori said, “They need to keep the air-conditioning on if they want to