“Four?” Eve asked. “Wow. Wild crowd?”

“Normal crowd. You probably think sex was invented four years ago.”

“But didn’t you guys hang out at the soda shop, wearing your bobby socks and poodle skirts?”

Lou turned her around. She looked deeply into her eyes. “It was the sixties. Free love. Anyone who could hung out at Haight-Ashbury or Woodstock.” She turned Eve back. “By the time your mom and dad were in that ‘pretty serious’ place, there were clinics and even sex education, but it still wasn’t easy to make that decision. That decision that says, I’d better make sure I’m safe and don’t get STDs or pregnant. It’s still one of the hardest things to come right out and say when you’re a teenager.”

Lou started running her fingers through Eve’s hair, loosely braiding and unbraiding it. She said to Eve, “I’ll take you for a checkup next week. You’re free to ask the doctor for whatever you need—it will be confidential. She’s probably going to want to check you for disease and maybe even do a blood panel for your general health. The first exam can be a little uncomfortable, but it’s like that for everyone. Then you go for a checkup every year and it gets easier.”

Eve got tears in her eyes. “I’m so scared to be doing this.”

“Eve, you’re a McCain. McCain women are very brave and we take care of our bodies. Just because you have protection doesn’t mean you have to go along with what your boyfriend wants! You decide, you hear me?”

“Dad’s going to be so disappointed. He really thought I’d stay a virgin till I’m thirty.” She sniffed.

Lou laughed. “No, cupcake, he hoped for that, but no one knows better than Mac how unrealistic that idea is. In his secret heart, he wants you to know love just like everyone else does. Of course, he never wants you to be hurt.”

“Can he not know about this?” Eve asked.

“He’ll see the prescription on the insurance papers—there are no secrets. Especially from a cop, God bless him. However, you can tell him it’s for cramps,” she said with a shrug. “Then he can wonder, but not necessarily know for sure. Because, little madam, you don’t to have discuss your personal life, your sex life, with anyone. You don’t have to tell me or your dad every detail. In fact...” And Lou shuddered.

“Creeps you out, huh?”

“We’ll head you off if you seem to be moving in an unsafe direction—like if we think you’re into drugs or drinking or speed racing down country roads or throwing keggers. But trying to spy to embarrass and expose you?” She shook her head. “You can come to me with anything, honey. Anything. And I’ll do whatever I can to help you. Your health and safety come first. I could not live without you.”

Eve hugged her. “Thank you for understanding.”

“I understand completely,” she said, hugging back. Then, holding Eve away and looking into her eyes, “And stay far away from him until you’re safe. Got that?”

“Got it,” she said with a laugh.

Seventeen

Eric Gentry hadn’t seen Thunder Point in over sixteen years. Yet here was the town, looking almost exactly as it had all those years ago. Gina was working in the same diner that her mother had worked in. It amazed him that things could remain so unchanged. He briefly pondered whether he pitied them for their lack of imagination or envied them the continuity of their surroundings and friends.

He went into the diner and found Gina standing behind the counter with a laptop open in front of her. She smiled at him. “Hello, Eric.”

“Hi. This place hasn’t changed at all.”

“I know,” she said. “Upgrades come slowly in Thunder Point. Stand by—let me ask Stu to cover for me for a bit and I’ll take you to meet Ashley. She stopped by here about a half hour ago and said she was taking a walk down to the beach.”

“Wait a sec,” he said. “She knows I’m coming, right?”

Gina nodded. “You said sometime this weekend, whenever you could get away for a few hours.”

“Is she nervous?” he asked, hands in his pockets.

“She’s very curious. Are you? Nervous?”

“Nah, not me. I’m just terrified.”

She tilted her head and lifted a brow. “As I recall, you’re very good with teenage girls.”

He winced. “I guess I had that coming.”

“It’ll be fine. Let me go talk to—”

“Nah, you stay here. Let me just go by myself. If she wants to, we could walk back here and have a Coke or something.”

“Okay. You know the way, right?”

He tapped his temple. “Burned into my memory.”

“Good luck, Eric.”

He turned to go, then turned back. “Gina, I appreciate you giving me a chance here. That you trust me.”

She smiled at him. “I don’t trust you, Eric. I checked you out. My boyfriend is a cop and I ran a background search on you. You were very nice at our meeting and you haven’t had a black mark against your name since you were a kid. But if you hurt my daughter in even the slightest way, you will regret it. I promise.”

“I won’t hurt her, Gina. And I promise.”

He walked down the street, turned onto the beach road and spotted her immediately even though she was on the far side of the beach. Her red hair was pulled through the back of a baseball cap and she sat on the sand, knees pulled up with her arms circling them. There was one kid out on the bay on a paddleboard. Closer to the town side of the beach, a couple of young mothers sat on towels while their little ones played in the sand at the water’s edge.

There weren’t many places like this, he recalled—a long stretch of beach, a natural and untouched promontory, a calm bay without the presence of a lot of large businesses and hotels. Most of the coastline, at least parts the public could access, was busy with establishments that catered to beach combers and tourists. He remembered the bait shop; it looked as though it had been improved since he’d last seen it.

Ashley didn’t notice him approach until he stood right beside her and she looked up at him.

“Hi, Ashley. I’m Eric Gentry.”

Her mouth dropped open as she looked at him. She slowly got to her feet, brushing the sand off her butt. “Wow,” she said in a breath. “I look just like you.”

He chuckled. “You’re much prettier, but you inherited the red hair and green eyes.”

“My mom didn’t mention that. I think she told me everything else, though.”

“She said you’ve been having a terrible time lately,” he said. “Go ahead, sit down.”

“That’s okay. You don’t want to mess up your pants.”

He looked down at himself. He wasn’t dressed up by any means, just a pair of Dockers, a shirt, topsiders on his feet without socks. “I’m good,” he said, lowering himself to the sand. “I’m sorry life has thrown you some curves, Ashley. Is there any way I can help? Anything you want to know about me or my family?”

She sat down, lifted her bottled water and took a slug. “Well, how about, where have you been?”

He knew that wasn’t a literal question. “Well, I figured if I was my kid, I wouldn’t want to know about me. I’m not exactly anyone’s hero.”

“Mom said you used to be a real hoodlum, but straightened yourself out.”

“I served time, Ashley. She told you that, right?”

She nodded. “You must’a been a badass. What screwed you up?”

“Me. I screwed me up. I wasn’t kicked around as a kid, my mother washed my clothes, had dinner on the table every night and my dad tried to get me interested in sports, but I fell in with a fun crowd and thought I was smarter than everyone else because I had a job that paid nine dollars an hour. I dropped out of school to work more and spent my money on cars, liquor and dope. When I heard I’d gotten my girlfriend pregnant, I ran and found another good-paying job as a grease monkey and a bunch of cool friends who not only drank and doped, but found an interesting way to improve themselves—they robbed convenience stores and liquor stores. That’s pretty much the quick summary.”

“I take it you got caught,” she said.

“I drove the car,” he said. “First time out, I got caught.” He closed his eyes briefly. “Listen, there’s no reason you have to tell anyone that your biological father is an idiot and an ex-con. Your secret is safe with me. I don’t want you to be embarrassed.”

“I’m not embarrassed, Eric. I’m not the ex-con.” Then she looked out at the bay, at the guy on the paddleboard. Then back at him. “I bet you have a lot of regrets.”

He pulled his knees up and looked out at the bay. “Kind of, kind of not. The thing about the hard times, the stupid times, they make you who you are. And regrets— I look back and ask myself if I didn’t do a certain thing that I’m really ashamed of, how would that change the present? What would it erase from my current life? What if I hadn’t been such a badass idiot back then? Would I have learned the cost of that recklessness? Would you be here? There are things I’m totally ashamed of that I wouldn’t change. I ran out on your mom, but if I had stepped up and married her, oh, God, would she have gotten a bad deal. I was such an irresponsible asshole.”

“And now?” she asked.

“I’m all right,” he said with a shrug. “I abide by the laws. I have a little business and a girlfriend. My folks are starting to forgive me. I treat people right. I don’t drink or do drugs. I’m nothing special, but at least I’m not unsafe. I’ve learned a lot.”

She sighed. “Me, too.”

“I hope you don’t mind, but your mom told me some of what you’ve been through. Specifically, the boyfriend, the hospitalization...”

“She told me she did. She was looking for medical history, like does hearing voices run in your family....”

He couldn’t help it, he chuckled. “No official mental illness that I’m aware of, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have crazy people in my DNA. Probably starting with me. So, Ashley, how are you getting along now? How are you feeling?”

“Oh, I feel kind of emptied out. I had a boyfriend dump me, but I’m not pregnant or in jail. I’ve been in therapy and group therapy and I’m very tired of seeing pain everywhere. When I was in the hospital, one of the other patients was my age and had tried to commit suicide, over a boy. It was shocking to think how dangerous that could be, how far something like that could go. I wish I’d never met her so I wouldn’t have to think about how hopeless she must have felt to do that to herself. And I’m so grateful to have met her so I could see how far something like a broken heart could go, how much destruction there could be if we’re not careful.”

“I’m so sorry, Ashley. So glad there was a positive message in it for you.”

She lifted one shoulder and looked down. “The worst part is that I felt that way for a little while myself, but I just didn’t follow through. I just couldn’t do that to my mom and Grandma. I wonder if that girl ever thought about that, about how people would feel.”

“You felt that way because of the boyfriend?” he asked.

She nodded.

“What did your mom say about that? About the girl you met?”

“She said we don’t all have the same number of tools in our tool belts. That she did the best she could with what she had. And I do the best I can with my set of tools.”

“Your mom is pretty smart,” he said. “I hope you have a tool for telling the ex-boyfriend to go pound sand.”

She gave a soft laugh. “Oh, I still want things back the way they were, but I’m not dumb enough to take that kind of chance. I might never get over him, but I’m done with him.”