Chapter 5: Saturday Morning

Jack walked me back up the dock with his hand low on my back.

At the resort desk he asked the clerk about the man in the gray golf shirt.

The clerk checked a screen. "He checked out ten minutes ago, sir. Cash. Cabin eleven."

Jack's jaw moved.

"Did he ask about anyone?"

"Only which cabin the bride from the news was in, sir."

I went cold.

Nobody here had my last name. Lena had booked the trip, and the cabin was under hers, so he had worked out the rest from a television.

"Who gave him that?" Jack said.

"I'm sorry, sir, I can't say. It was the day shift."

Jack put his hand over mine on the counter and held it.

"Whoever he is," he said, "he's gone. We'll leave it."

"You're awfully calm."

"I'm not." He looked at me. "I'm just not letting him have another hour of this week."

So we didn't.

By Friday I had stopped counting the days, and I had started counting the hours.

On Friday night he took me to the end of the beach, where a single lantern hung from a post.

He had put a blanket down, and a bottle of wine, and two glasses that did not match.

"I stole them from the bar," he said.

"Rule four. No stealing."

"I didn't know there was a rule four."

"I just made it."

"What's the penalty?"

I took the glass out of his hand, set it in the sand, and pushed him onto his back on the blanket.

I climbed over him and sat on his hips.

His hands went to my waist.

"This is how I want to end it," I said.

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