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to do. Nina, who had managed the business, found herself out of a job. Her half of the sale wasn’t nearly what it might have been if Ralph had been patient and waited for the right buyer. She had attempted to advise him, but spooked by May, he took the first offer he got.
    May complained about Nina getting half, but Nina held firm. It was Charlie’s money that had started the business. He had brought his brother into it because Ralph could never seem to hold down a job anywhere else. Nina sat in on the closing of the sale, took the check that represented her half of the proceeds of her late husband’s hard work, bid her in-laws good-bye, and looked for another job. She put her small profit from the sale with Hallock St. John’s investment firm in town for her old age.
    She couldn’t help but feel a small twitch of satisfaction when three years later Ralph Parsons choked on a piece of steak and died. She reasoned that if he had stayed in Egret Pointe and run the insurance agency with her, he might be alive today. Or not. She briefly wondered how May was surviving. But other than informing her that Ralph had died, her sister-in-law didn’t seem inclined to renew their acquaintance, and neither did Nina.
    Because Egret Pointe Insurance carried the policies of just about every business in the village, Nina had known that Ashley Kimbrough was looking for a shop assistant. Although she knew nothing about fine lingerie, she was willing to learn, and Ashley liked the stylish older woman. Now, ten years later, it was Nina who managed the flagship store of the Lacy Nothings growing empire, which now consisted of five shops and a mail-order business. Ashley Cordelia Kimbrough, now Mrs. Ryan Mulcahy, telecommuted from an office at home, where she could also manage to look after her two young children, without ever leaving Egret Pointe. And Nina Parsons was, as all employees of AKM Enterprises knew, the boss’s right-hand woman, not just a shop manager.
    Nina liked her life. She had enough money to assure herself a comfortable old age if she ever decided to get old. She had a mortgage-free house and a purpose in life. She had friends, but after Charlie had died, there had been no one to engage her romantic interest. But she did have the Channel, which meant she could have as active a sex life as she wanted, and no one would be the wiser unless she chose to share that part of herself. Ashley, of course, knew. She had once been an enthusiastic subscriber to the Channel, before she married Ryan and started having babies. Despite the almost twenty-year difference in their ages, Nina and Ashley had become best friends. Ashley knew Nina’s secrets. And Nina knew Ashley’s secrets.
    Nina limited her visits to the Channel. She never went on a work night. Having a wild sexual adventure and then having to get up and go to work was too much for her. She limited her forays to Saturday and Sunday nights because the shop was closed on the Sabbath and on Mondays. She wanted to wake up from her adventures and be able to roll over and go back to sleep. And she could always attend either the five p.m. Saturday evening mass at St. Anne’s or the noon one on Sundays.
    This Saturday, however, she was having an evening out. She might forgo the Channel entirely. Robert Talcott . It was a nice name. A youthful divorce was understandable, but Nina couldn’t help but wonder why his second wife had divorced him rather than live in the Northeast. What was so bad about the Northeast? Where was better? Well, it wasn’t really her business, was it? And it was unlikely she was going to find out on short acquaintance. But she was curious to learn just where he was building a house in Egret Pointe.

    Saturday was slow. It was a late-summer beach day, and the local strip of sand would be active. Nina closed at three p.m. and hurried home to get ready. Because they had had no children, Nina and her late husband had lived in a five-room cottage on Maple Lane. It