Quinn had been patient with her for so long. Well, and she had been patient, too.

  One hot August night three years ago, the Vickereys were having a lavish barbeque. Courtney was there, and several of their summer friends, all of them tanned and relaxed, enjoying the summer night, the food, light talk, silly jokes.

  For the first time ever, Quinn arrived with a date, another teacher at the high school, named Essie Holdgate. She taught English, and she and Quinn were collaborating on an interconnected honors course. Essie was small, tiny-boned, with a tiny waist. Her dark hair was cut in a no-nonsense bob, but her face was lovely. She was the first sign that Quinn was recovered from his wife’s betrayal, and the first time he had looked so very happy. Christabel never showed up that night. Probably she was boycotting the couple’s public appearance; later, they’d find out that she’d gone to a bar, gotten drunk, and picked up a man to spend the night with.

  But that night, that first night, when Robin was twenty-six, three years ago, when she worked for a clothing boutique while she tried to figure out what she wanted to do with her life—college had not answered that question for her—when she was dating no one special, but Henry and Valerie were almost engaged, and Courtney was all about her teaching job and not very interested in men—that night Robin had watched Quinn with that china doll Essie Holdgate, and arrived at the horrible revelation that she was in love with Quinn.

  Quinn was eighteen years older than she was! He hung out with her parents! His daughter was only two years younger than Robin! This was absurd!

  Robin had never asked much of life—why should she? She had so much, she knew she was fortunate. She’d never cared much about all that love stuff, and she had a tranquil personality; she didn’t long for celebrity or wealth, she enjoyed each day as it came.

  Suddenly, this! Such a wrenching, burning, ambush of her heart, such an unexpected revelation. Quinn!

  All right, he was handsome, and smart, and he was kind, and the kids he taught adored him, and he clearly did the best he could with his troubled and troubling daughter. But love? Robin loved him? Where did that come from? She’d always admired him. She’d been fond of him, she thought of him often, and the thought made her happy—but this was more than that, this was insane, this was an emotion too strong for her to tolerate.

  Especially because there he was, his entire body leaning toward the precious Essie, his face lighting up when she spoke, and when they sat at the table, he casually draped his arm around her shoulders as he and the exquisite Essie—who was undoubtedly, since she was also a teacher, his soulmate—talked about books.

  Well, damn it, Robin read books! And that had no bearing on anything, it was as if she were completely invisible, and she knew, she knew that Quinn was going to marry Essie and they’d be coming over all the time, holding hands, cooing and gooing, god, they’d probably even have babies!

  Robin managed to make it through the meal, but when dessert was served, she slipped away. No, she ran away. She had terrified herself, and she had no idea how to survive this. She’d thought she could live on this island for the rest of her life. She loved the island, it was her home, and one way or the other, she’d thought, in her idiotic vague way, that she’d find a way to live on the island for the rest of her life.

  But if Quinn married that adorable teeny-weeny Essie, Robin knew she couldn’t bear to remain here, to see them together, to witness their love. And what was love? If it was this desperate frightening whirlwind of emotion, she didn’t want it.

  She’d sequestered herself in her room. When Courtney came to check on her, Robin said she had a stomach bug.

  For the rest of the summer, she lived in a kind of haze, overwhelmed by the crazy new sensation. To others, she seemed normal, if slightly absentminded. Only she knew her heart had become a Tilt-A-Whirl.

  When September came, the island slowly emptied of tourists. Susanna’s summer children left for their real jobs. School started. Quinn didn’t drop by the Vickerey house as often.

  Christabel left to attend art school in Boston.

  One morning the wind shifted, the air was dry, and pots of burgundy chrysanthemums were set out on people’s front porches. The hint of winter, the lift of briskness—the way nature changed overnight gave Robin courage. She was determined to be brave. She had changed overnight, and she wanted to talk to Quinn.

  Friday afternoon, she biked over to his house, sat on his front porch, and waited for him to come home.

  When he pulled into the driveway in his old and compulsively well-maintained Volvo, he was shocked to see her. He nearly threw himself from the car. “Robin! Is everything all right?”

  Quinn was wearing black jeans, a tartan shirt, and his beloved corduroy jacket. His blond hair was mussed and he’d pulled his tie loose and undone the top button of his shirt. To Robin, he was irresistible.

  She rose and slowly walked toward him. “Everything’s fine, Quinn. I came over because I’d like to talk to you in private.”

  “Oh. Oh, well, okay. Let me get my—” He reached into the car for his briefcase and backpack. “Are your parents okay? Henry?”

  “Everyone’s fine.” She followed him back to the porch and into his living room. Her heart was flipping. She had the oddest, most adolescent need to giggle, but managed to restrain herself.

  Quinn walked into the dining room to drop his stuff on the table—he did most of his work at the table, even though one of his bedrooms was an office. Robin followed him, and when he turned to her, she said quickly, because that was the only way she could say it: “Quinn, I’m in love with you.”

  He had laughed with relief. “Robin, that’s really sweet of you to say. But—”

  “Sweet?” she interrupted. “No, not sweet.” She flung herself at him, clutched the lapels of his corduroy jacket, and yanked him toward her for a kiss.

  It was not a magical kiss. He was not prepared and she was too nervous, too eager, trying too hard to seem passionate. Her mouth hit his mouth too hard, knocking his lips against his teeth. Even so, they connected.

  Quinn stared at her, amazed. Then he put his hands on her face and bent his mouth toward hers and pressed a long, tender, and ragingly sexual kiss on her mouth.

  When he lifted his head, Robin gasped.

  Quinn turned away. He stalked into the living room. “No. No, Robin, that was wrong. I’m sorry.”

  His face was flushed, and Robin followed him, on fire. “Not wrong!” she insisted. “You know it was right, that kiss. Quinn, I mean it. I’m in love with you.”

  “You’re a child,” he said.

  “I’m an adult,” she argued. “I’m twenty-six years old.”

  “And I’m forty-four. My daughter is only two years younger than you are. This is completely inappropriate.”

  She grinned, cocking her head. “I think if you’ll take me to bed, you’ll find it’s extremely appropriate.”

  Panic flashed over his face, then vanished, and she knew without a doubt that Quinn had thought that Christabel might walk in on them, and fortunately remembered that Christabel was off island, in art school.

  “Robin,” Quinn reasoned, “you’ve got to realize we can’t possibly have a future together. Your parents—Christabel—my colleagues—the superintendent of school—” He sounded desperate.

  “I don’t need a future,” Robin told him. “I want this day. I want you now.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t think—”

  Robin pressed herself against him. “Don’t think.”

  That first time they had not made it to the bedroom. They did not make love so much as they took each other, wrestled and devoured each other, dropping down onto the carpet in front of the sofa, moaning and shoving and pulling and arching, and then collapsing side by side.

  They lay there for a long time, catching their breath. Robin rolled onto her side and buried her head in his chest, sniffing his scent like an animal. She had seen him in bathing trunks, but somehow, as he lay beside her wearing only a tartan shirt, unbuttoned to reveal his tanned and naked chest, somehow he seemed naked to her. She was certainly naked to him, in body and soul.

  Quinn smoothed her hair back from her face. Lifting himself over her with his weight resting on his elbows, he told her, “That was lovely.”

  “Lovely? That was phenomenal.”

  He smiled sweetly. “Oh, you eloquent Vickereys.” He pulled on his trousers and buttoned his shirt, but left it hanging out, a rakish look for such a well-groomed man. He rose, went into the kitchen, and returned with two glasses of cranberry juice.

  Robin barked with laughter. “Cranberry juice? You know I’m twenty-six, don’t you?”

  He sat in an armchair and put his glass on the table. “We need clear minds, Robin. We acted foolishly enough without liquor. We don’t need to add it to the mix.”

  She dressed. She curled up on the sofa and took a sip of the cranberry juice. It was cool, sweet, and refreshing, and exactly what she needed.

  Tilting her head, she said, “So you like me, too.”

  “Of course, I do, Robin. I desire you. I’ve always been attracted to you, but I’ve also always known it’s an impossibility. I’m a teacher, a public figure, a man who works with young people. I can’t even be seen with a woman young enough to be my daughter.”

  —

  That was how it began, their love affair. With passion and desire and good humor, and an agreement to keep what was between them secret until the time was right to share it with everyone else.

  That was three years ago. The first year, Quinn had to gently, kindly extricate himself from his relationship with Essie. Robin understood his reasoning for doing it slowly, but each time he was with Essie—at the high school homecoming dance he’d promised to chaperone with her, at a mutual friend’s wedding and reception—each time jealousy had built a bonfire in Robin’s heart, and when she finally, secretly, met Quinn, their lovemaking was a conflagration. By Christmas, Quinn was no longer dating Essie, but Christabel returned home for the holidays, and when Quinn and Robin met, it was at holiday dinners and gatherings. They did not touch each other. They scarcely looked at each other. And the restraint became a kind of delicious game.

  When Christabel dropped out of art school and returned to the island, Robin was the one to suggest to Quinn that they keep it a secret for a few more months. She cared for Christabel and didn’t want to cause her any more pain.

  So Robin met with Quinn in secret. Their meetings were of necessity brief, taking place in hidden locations, and their longing for each other increased the desperation of their need. Each time they met was shocking, brave, and exquisitely rich with emotion.

  During the past year, Robin and Quinn had spent more time talking and less time making love. They didn’t feel comfortable speaking on the phone when others were around, but they texted each other.

  Quinn wanted to tell the others. He was tired of secrecy; it was beginning to feel like game-playing to him. He didn’t like keeping a secret of such magnitude from his daughter and from Robin’s parents, who were close friends.

  Quinn wanted to go public with their love, and more than that, he wanted to leave this island, move away from the house where Christabel’s mother had abandoned her, and start life over in some mainland Massachusetts town. Christabel would have a new start there, meet new people, breathe fresh and healing air. Quinn could find a job teaching at another school. He and Robin could marry, and all their neighbors and his colleagues would know him and Robin as man and wife, not Quinn and the Vickereys’ oldest daughter.

  Robin argued with him. She loved Nantucket. She wanted to live here all her life. She had an identity separate from her family’s. She volunteered for several organizations. She had friends who didn’t care two figs that she was a Vickerey. As for Christabel, she was also happy here. She felt safe here. Hadn’t she dropped out of art school to return to the island?

  She was simply running back to her father, Quinn argued. It wasn’t healthy for his daughter to be so attached, he knew that. She needed to strike out for herself, to be in a broader, less claustrophobic world.

  For the past six months, Robin and Quinn had argued more than they had made love.

  She knew she had to tell Quinn about her other secret. Then he would understand why she had to stay on the island.

  Yet she had not found the courage to tell him. She knew that once she revealed her secret to him, he very well might recoil from her, he might think her as mad as her own brother had been sometimes in his life. She needed to tell Quinn, and soon, but she was afraid.

  The day of Susanna’s birthday party was sunny, bright, and warm, with only the gentlest of breezes stirring the air. Courtney followed Robin everywhere, helping her with the thousand details needed to make the evening perfect. The caterers took over the kitchen. The tent rental company had raised the poles supporting the white sailcloth tent and laid the hardwood floors yesterday. Today they set up the tables and chairs and laid out the starched white tablecloths. The florist arrived with centerpieces. The bartenders lugged in barrels of ice and cases of wine and champagne. Courtney helped Robin set out the place cards Robin had so painstakingly handwritten. Dr. V hid in his study. Susanna’s friends took her out to lunch and kept her out as long as possible. The children—biological and summer—took time to go down to the beach to swim and tan.

  The glitches were minor. With so many people taking showers, the hot water ran out. One of Susanna’s friends discovered the dress she’d brought had a tear along one seam. Susanna, ever handy, mended it. A married couple, longtime friends of the older Vickereys, had RSVP’d that they were coming, but phoned at the last minute, sending their regrets because of a family situation. Courtney helped Robin rearrange the place cards. Upstairs, as they dressed for the party, Pearl slipped into such a brazenly seductive skin-tight orange dress that Iris burst into tears.

  “You can’t come to my mother’s party looking like a whore!” Iris shouted.

  Everyone on the second floor heard. Robin and Courtney, in Robin’s room getting dressed, froze, listening with every cell of their bodies to see whether they’d have to intervene.

  “Fine,” Pearl said. “It would be a waste, anyway. This party’s going to be full of old people.”

  “Sometimes I hate you, Pearl,” Iris said.

  Pearl laughed with her smoky low voice. “Yes, sweetie, but sometimes you love me.”

  She changed into a barely respectable lavender sheath. Iris, Robin, and Courtney wore bright summery dresses, and Susanna wore her mother’s pearl choker with a lime green silk dress she and Robin had gone to New York to buy. The guys wore blazers with white shirts and ties, even Dr. V, who grumbled about the discomfort.

  A knock at the door. James opened it. “Sonya! Richard! Come in!”

  The party started, the bartenders got busy, and Robin and Courtney edged around the room, discreetly snapping photos on their phones. Not quite one hundred people crowded into the house and out onto the patio, and by dinner time, they’d enjoyed a drink or two and were a very happy bunch.

  Robin, who had made the seating arrangements, had placed James next to Courtney at a round table. Jolly, rotund Jacob sat on Courtney’s left, and Pearl was on the other side of James. Callum Findlay and Robin made the last pair. It was a good mix, full of jokes and laughter. While they enjoyed the entrée—marinated swordfish grilled to perfection—the conversation was general, but as they waited for their plates to be removed and the birthday cake to be carried in and the toasts to take place, Courtney glanced at James. He was studying her with a smile, and when their eyes met, she almost spontaneously combusted.

  “Stop that,” she whispered.

  “Stop what?” James had perfected the sideways, slightly guilty smile.

  “Be good, James. It’s your mother’s birthday party.”

  Beneath the table, his knee touched hers. James put his arm around her shoulder and drew her close. “What did you say? I can’t hear in this crowd.”

  His lips didn’t quite touch her ear as he spoke. His breath stirred her hair. Her dress was strapless, so his hand rested on her bare skin, and his touch made her breath come shallow and fast.

  “It’s your mother’s birthday party. Be good.”

  “I can be very good,” James assured her. “I can be excellent.”

  Well, this was something new! Her voice came out as a squeak. “Only last night you told me—”

  “I’ve changed my mind.”

  “James. Don’t mess around with me.”

  “But I’ve decided I do want to mess around with you. Everyone will be dancing. No one will notice if we’re gone.”

  Lust ambushed her body and soul. She had asked for him to seize the day. Now he was ready to seize the night, and life was short, and the night was sweet, and she wanted him. Now he wanted her. He was next to her, this tall, strong, sexual male, offering her what she’d desired for years. Her body ached with need.

  “All right,” she whispered. “After the cake. When the dancing starts. We’ll slip away.” She put her hand on his thigh, close to his groin.

  James drew in a deep breath. “Damn, Courtney, don’t do that.”

  She laughed in a low, naughty voice. “You’re touching me.”

  He removed his hand. “Yeah, but whatever you’re feeling doesn’t show. And I’ve got to give a toast. Move your hand or I won’t even be able to stand up.”

  Courtney took her hand away. She let her head fall back so that her long hair slid around her shoulders as she looked at James. “Better?”

  “You’re killing me.” James moaned, then pulled away and sat up straight in his chair. He took a sip of water. He took his notes out of his pocket and pretended to read them. “Talk to Jacob,” he whispered. “Don’t even look at me for a while.”

  Smug, Courtney laughed. “James, I think you’ve met your match in me.”

  “Courtney, I’ve always known that,” he said. “Now leave me alone.”