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“I don’t drink”

She turned to him “Is there a story there?”

Without looking at her, he nodded “Are you okay dating a dry alcoholic?”

“I look forward to it”

He took her elbow and guided her out the door and across her buh the freshly clipped arch in the hedge, and into his beautifully restored ho exquisite: a ht over fro froold; hand-blown glass light fixtures from Venice

She followed him down to a toffee-colored media roo-screen TV Cissy sat curled up in an upholstered chair, eating ice crea a movie

“Hey,” she said, hitting the pause button The iht in midair

Mark leaned down and kissed the top of her head “I’ll have my cell phone on We should be home about ten or eleven”

“Call me when you leave the restaurant so I knohen to expect you Otherwise I wouldn’t knohen to panic”

Winona s she would have said to her sisters

Mark led Winona back upstairs and out onto the deck There, he grabbed a cooler and a blanket

“Are we going ca?” she asked

“Follow me”

He led her down to his dock and out to the ski boat, where he settled her into the seat beside him

They puttered away froh the flat, calm water Every now and then a water-skier or a Jet-Skier would zip past, causing a wake to rock the boat, but for theThere were no clouds in the sky, nothing to cast a shadow on the water It was a deep, rich green at this time of the day, flat calm