“I’m not that way about Lenny,” she said, ready to argue, not heatedly or vehemently, but logically, because what he was saying simply wasn’t true. She mourned her dead husband, felt his absence, but she hadn’t allowed this sense of loss to destroy her life.

“Perhaps you aren’t grieving as deeply as you once were,” Cole amended. “But I wonder if you’ve really laid your husband to rest.”

“Of course I have,” she answered with a nod of her head, not wanting to talk about Lenny.

“I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic,” Cole said, his tone compassionate. “I understand, believe me I do. Emotional pain is familiar territory for us both. It seems to me that those of us who sustain this kind of grief are afraid of what lies beyond.”

“You’re exaggerating, Cole.”

“Maybe,” he agreed. “You’re a lovely woman, Robin. Witty. Intelligent. Outgoing. I’m sure one of the first questions anyone asks you is how long it’s been since your husband died. And I’ll bet when you tell them, they seem surprised.”

That was true, and Robin wondered how Cole had guessed.

“Most young widows remarry.”

“Are you suggesting that because I didn’t immediately fling myself back into matrimonial bliss I’m a candidate for therapy? Come on, Cole, even you must realize how ridiculous that is.”

“Even me?” he asked, chuckling.

Jeff came loping toward them, his face flushed with excitement. “They’re filming a movie,” he cried, pointing toward a congested area farther down the pier. “There’s cameras and actors and everything. Can I go watch some more?”

Robin nodded. “Just don’t get in anyone’s way.”

“I won’t. Promise. Here, Mom, hold my snake.” He entrusted her with his precious package before racing back down the pier.

“He’s a fine boy, Robin.”

“He loves you already. You and Blackie.”

“And how does his mother feel?”

The knot in her throat thickened. “She loves you, too.”

Cole grinned. “She just isn’t sure if she can let go of her dead husband to take on a live one. Am I right?”

His words hit their mark. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Maybe it’s because I’m afraid you want to marry me because Jeff reminds you of Bobby. Or because you’ve created a fantasy wife and think I’ll fit the role.”

Her words seemed to shock him. “No. You’ve got that all wrong. Jeff is a wonderful plus in this relationship, but it’s you I fell in love with. It’s you I want to grow old with. You, and you alone, not some ideal. If you want to know the truth, I think you’re stirring up all this turmoil because you’re afraid of ever marrying again. The little world you’ve made is tidy and safe. But is this what Lenny would’ve wanted for you?” He gripped her firmly by the shoulders. “If Lenny were standing beside you right now and you could ask him about marrying me, what would he say?”

“I … don’t understand.”

“If you could seek Lenny’s advice, what would he tell you? Would he say, ‘Robin, look at this guy. He’s in love with you. He thinks the world of Jeff, and he’s ready to embark on a new life. This is an opportunity too good to pass up. Don’t be a fool. Marry him.’?”

“That sounds like something my friend Angela would say.”

“I’m going to like this friend of yours—just as long as she doesn’t try to set you up with any more of her divorced cousins,” Cole said, laughing. His eyes grew warm as he gazed at her, and she suspected he was longing to take her in his arms and kiss her doubts away. But he didn’t. Instead, he looked over his shoulder and sighed. “I think I’ll go see what Jeff’s up to. I’ll leave you to yourself for a few minutes. I don’t mean to pressure you, but I do want you to think about what I said.”

“You aren’t pressuring me,” she whispered, staring out over the water.

Cole left her then, and her hands clutched the steel railing as she raised her eyes to the sky. “Oh, Lenny,” she whispered. “What should I do?”

Ten

“Cole wants me to ask your advice.” Robin continued to look up at the cloudless blue sky. “Oh, Lenny, I honestly don’t know what’s right for Jeff and me anymore. I love Cole. I love you. But at the same time I can’t help wondering about Cole’s motives ….”

Robin paused, waiting. Not that she expected an answer. Lenny couldn’t give her one. He never did; he never would. But unlike the other times she’d spoken to him, she needed a response, even though expecting one was totally illogical.

With every breath she took, Robin knew that, but the futility of it hit her, anyway. Her frustration was so hard and unexpectedly powerful that it felt like a body blow. Robin closed her eyes, hoping the heat of the sun would take away this bitter ache, this dreadful loneliness.

She felt so empty. Hollow all the way through.

Her fists were clenched at her sides as tears fell from her eyes. Embarrassed, she glanced around, grateful that the film crew had attracted most of the sightseers. No one was around to witness her distress.

Anger, which for so many years had lain dormant inside her, gushed forth in an avalanche of grief and pain. The tears continued to spill down her cheeks. Her lips quivered. Her shoulders shook. Her hands trembled. It was as if the emotion was pounding against her chest and she was powerless to do anything but stand there and bear it.

Anger consumed her now. Consumed her because she hadn’t allowed it to when Lenny was killed. It had been more important to put on a brave front. More important to hold herself together for Jeff and for Lenny’s parents. More important to deal with the present than the past.

Lenny had died and Robin was furious with him for leaving her alone with a child to raise. Leaving her alone to deal with filing taxes and taking out the garbage and repairing leaking pipes. All these years she’d managed on her own. And she’d bottled the anger up inside, afraid of ever letting it go.

“Robin.”

Cole’s voice, soft and urgent, reached out from behind her. At the sound, she turned and walked into his arms, sobbing, needing his comfort and his love in equal measure. Needing him as she’d never needed anyone before.

She didn’t know how long he held her. He was whispering soothing words to her. Gentle words. But she heard none of them over the sound of her own suffering.

Once she started crying, Robin couldn’t seem to stop. It was as if a dam had burst inside her and the anguish, stored for too many years, came pouring out.

Cole’s arms were securely wrapped around her, shielding her. She longed to control this outburst, longed to explain, but every time she tried to speak her sobbing only grew worse.

“Let it out,” he whispered. “You don’t have to say anything. I understand.”

“He doesn’t answer,” she sobbed. “I asked him … Lenny never answers me … because he can’t. He left me … “

“He didn’t want to die,” Cole told her.

“But he did … he did.”

Cole didn’t argue with her. He simply held her, stroking the back of her head as though reassuring a small child.

It took several minutes for Robin to compose herself enough to go on. “Part of me realizes that Lenny didn’t want to leave me, didn’t want to die. But he did and I’m so angry at him.”

“That anger is what makes us human,” Cole said. He continued to comfort her and, gradually, bit by bit, Robin felt her composure slip back into place.

She sensed Jeff’s presence even before he spoke.

“What wrong with my mom?” he asked Cole.

“She’s dealing with some emotional pain,” Cole explained, speaking as one adult to another.

“Is she going to be all right?”

Robin hadn’t wanted her son to see her crying and made a concerted effort to break away from Cole, to reassure Jeff herself. Cole loosened his hold, but kept his arm around her shoulders.

“I’m fine, Jeff. Really.”

“She doesn’t look so good.”

Her son had developed the irritating habit of talking to Cole and not to her when she was upset. They’d done it that day her son had run away to the fort. Jeff and Cole had carried on an entire conversation about her while she was in their midst then, too.

Cole led her to a bench and they all sat down.

Jeff plopped down next to her and reached for her hand, patting it several times. Leaning toward Cole, he said earnestly, “Chocolate might help. One time Mom told me there wasn’t anything in this world chocolate couldn’t cure.”

She’d actually said that? Robin started to smile. Wrapping her arms around her son, she hugged him close, loving him so much her heart seemed about to burst.

Jeff wasn’t all that keen on being cuddled, especially in public, but although he squirmed he put up with his mother’s sudden need to hold him.

When she’d finished, Jeff rolled his eyes and once more directed his comments to Cole. “She gets weird like this every once in a while. Remember what happened that day I ran away?”

“I remember,” Cole said, and Robin smiled at the trace of amusement she heard in his voice.

“Will you stop excluding me from this conversation? I’m going to be all right. I just had this … urge to cry, but don’t worry, it’s passed.”

“See what I mean?” Jeff muttered to Cole.

“But Jeff’s right,” Robin said, ignoring her son’s comment. “Something chocolaty would definitely help.”

“You’ll be okay by yourself for a couple of minutes?” Cole asked.

“I’ll be fine. I … don’t know exactly what came over me, but I’m going to be just fine.”

“I know you are.” He kissed her, his lips gentle against her cheek.

The two of them left and once more Robin was alone. She didn’t really understand why the pain and anger had hit her so hard now, after all this time. Except that it had something to do with Cole. But the last place she would ever have expected to give in to her grief was on Fisherman’s Wharf with half of San Francisco looking on.

Jeff returned less than a minute later, running to her side with a double-decker chocolate ice cream cone. “Cole’s bringing two more for him and me,” he explained. “I told the guy it was an emergency and he gave me this one right away.”

“That was nice of you,” Robin said, wondering what the vendor must have thought. Smiling, she ran her tongue over the ice cream, savoring the cold chocolate. As profoundly as she’d wept, she felt almost giddy with relief now, repressing the impulse to throw back her head and laugh.

Cole arrived, and with Jeff on her left and Cole on her right she sat on the concrete bench and ate her ice cream cone.

“I told you this would work,” Jeff told Cole smugly.

“And to think I scoffed at your lucky baseball cap,” she teased, feeling much better.